Hopeless Coward

I have a psychiatrist again, he’s a psychiatric NP, but the same basic idea. I first went to see him because my PTSD got triggered badly from the biopsy and the procedures I had and I had to have surgery and I thought I just needed some meds to make it through the surgery and then everything would calm down.

I thought he was just going to be able to give me some meds to make it through the surgery and then everything would calm down.

Some of the meds helped. The meds he gave me helped. It took a few tries, it always takes a few tries with me, but he gave me some things that helped.

And that is so dangerous.

I started to think… maybe… maybe things can get better… Maybe my PTSD and my anxiety aren’t permanent fixtures in my life that I just have to fumble around and cope with… maybe they can change.

And if they can change, maybe… maybe other things can change. Maybe a lot of the things I have just been tripping over and stumbling over and struggling to find ways to survive… don’t have to be so bad. Maybe they are… treatable…

But that is so dangerous.

It brings back all the pain.

I get through life by fighting my way into temporary places of acceptance. I find temporary pools of acceptance that… I have to spend all of my spoons trying to keep myself functional at work, and still lose shit all the time, have piles of shit all over my desk, behind my table, falling over all the time.

I fight my way into temporary acceptance that my brain is a minefield that seems stable until I step on a mine and blow everything to shit and panic attacks and flashbacks…

I manage to forget, in the temporary acceptance, that my life is so, so hard. It’s easy to let it slip out of my awareness because, it has always been this way. It is easy to let myself believe that I am just like everybody else, just struggling through life.

I tell myself everyone has problems.

I tell myself that life is pain and anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something.

I tell myself to suck it up and do what I need to do, and get through it.

Get through it.

Suffer.

Until I die.

That’s just what life is, right? Who am I to ask for more than that? Why should I be so selfish to want more than that?

Then… this new doctor says… maybe there are answers. Not that life will be perfect, but maybe just… a little… less difficult.

And that feels like… hope.

And hope makes me selfish. It makes me want better than I can have. It makes me want… relief… even just a little. It makes me greedy, it makes me… ungrateful… I should accept what I have. Who I am. What I am. I should accept… my life. This is what I have. I should make the best of it and be grateful to have this much.

I should be grateful for the moments when… the pain isn’t as bad. I should be grateful for the times when something makes me smile. I should be grateful for the people who love me, even though I don’t deserve their love.

I shouldn’t want more.

I shouldn’t think about more.

I shouldn’t hope for… anything.

It is selfish. It is greedy.

I take up so much of my doctor’s time, because… I want… to be better… than I am. I should be grateful for what he has given me… and take it and be satisfied.

I feel like… I lied to him. I feel like I manipulated him under false pretenses. I asked him to help me with the PTSD, to help me survive the surgery.

The surgery is over.

The PTSD is… better than it was when I met him.

I should stop wasting his time.

I hate myself so much.

I hate how needy I am.

I hate how much I want to be better.

I hate how much I… wish…

I wish I could be stronger. I wish I could accept… what I am, instead of being this… pathetic beggar that… just clings onto people…

DJ tries to say reasonable things to me, but… he… he’s…. he doesn’t understand. He loves me so he’s blinded to my flaws. Maybe my doctor is blinded, too. Maybe he cares about me so he can’t see it. I know my therapist cares about me, so she doesn’t see it. Nobody wants me to suffer, but… that’s… that’s… a flaw of love and care… it makes… it makes… people do things they shouldn’t. It makes people get invested and care about me and they should just recognize how awful I am, but they care, so they don’t see it.

I’m broken. I will never be better. People will throw themselves at this lost cause that I am because they get fooled into caring and thinking they can help me and they don’t realize that I am a… an abyss. I will need forever and never be filled.

They should. They should leave.

I am… toxic.

I am… hopeless.

I am a plague, and if I was a hero like in the movies, I’d take myself away somewhere to die, I’d kill myself, to save others from my infection…

I’d go for a walk… for some time…

If I were a hero.

But, ironically, my plague is to be the opposite, to be the villain, to be the wickedness of cowardice and selfishness.

Healthier people than me are the ones who die to save others.

I’m… a hopeless coward.