Well shit…

I just realized my last post was in February. At the beginning of February.

Shit.

I feel like a failure at writing. Definitely a failure at blogging. Just a failure in general right now.

Our dynamic is in really difficult straits right now. We try to push into it in small ways and sometimes it works and other times it results in horrible things. I feel like my own mind is a minefield.

I’ve started somatic trauma therapy. On top of psychotherapy. On top of psychiatric drug therapy. I see doctors three days a week nowdays.

Mondays are trauma therapy days, and the shit really and truly hits the fan Monday nights and Tuesday mornings.

The last few weeks I’ve been struggling with my sleep. Davian pointed out last night that it seems to have coincided with the weather getting warmer. We mulled over the implications of that for a bit, then Sir pointed out that I stop wearing a T-shirt to bed when it gets warmer.

I’ve worn T-shirts to bed in cold weather, and no T-shirt in warm weather for… ever. But this year, apparently, I can’t do that. We turned up the AC and I put on a T-shirt last night and I actually was able to sleep through the night, slept 9 hours, and spent a large chunk of it in “deep sleep” according to my Fitbit. All things I haven’t done for weeks.

For the lack of a fucking T-shirt.

I feel like my life is a black hole.

I feel like I’ve opened some gaping wound that will never again close.

My doctor, my therapists, DJ, all tell me that PTSD doesn’t stay down forever. That no matter what, it would have risen up eventually and demanded my attention, that I didn’t “do this to myself” by having the procedures last year, though that probably hastened this process. My doctor compared it to having a very deep splinter that, even if it isn’t at the surface, isn’t actively causing pain, still remains in the flesh and eventually, in time, in weeks, or months, or years, your body will push it to the surface until it finally begins to cause pain, inflammation, infection – demanding to be addressed, cut out, removed, and give the surrounding tissue a chance to heal.

My PTSD is a terrible, terrible splinter. Or more than one. Hundreds, maybe. Finally, approaching the surface, ready to be addressed, bringing with them pain, infection, pus, heat, misery…

I’m told to see this as a positive indication. My body is ready to heal.

But, I feel like I’m dying.

I feel like everything inside of me is slowly crumbling.

I feel like my sanity is water through my fingers, disappearing more quickly, the tighter I try to squeeze it in my fists.

The brief windows of feeling even okay, are tainted by a cloud of certainty that they will be snatched from me again, that my life default is pain. Darkness. Unhappiness.

Medication eases the symptoms, but inescapably I feel it is only a mask, it is palliative care for a disease that is, inevitably, killing me.

This morning I woke feeling such hate for myself that I felt physically ill. I felt sick to my stomach with hate, as if it is a poison I force myself to swallow and it rots me from within.

I got to talk to my bestie S, today. We talked a long time, after a month of various life events keeping us both busy. For a few hours I felt whole… or closer to it. I tried not to notice the shadow waiting to cast itself over the oasis of peace.

Sir says that we have to live moment to moment. Appreciate the good moments, celebrate the successes, no matter how short their lives.

It feels like we’re adopting terminal children, trying not to think about the inevitability of their deaths. I don’t think I’d be strong enough to do that. I’m not even strong enough to do this.

DJ says the fact that I want to write, even if it’s just this rambling reflection, is a good moment.

We don’t say “good sign” anymore, because a sign implies that you are approaching a destination, that something better is on the horizon. Now it is just “a good moment.” Words inherently acknowledging that every good is terminal. Their lives are flickers in the long blackness that never ends.

I feel as though we all tiptoe through the house, as if it is a funeral home, haunted by my own restless spirit, just waiting for my body to die. I feel like we all speak in whispers, afraid of awaking the next surge of grief. I feel as if we are all dying a slow death in the shadow of my own.

DJ isn’t telling me that I should “keep up this momentum” with writing. He isn’t saying, “Maybe you can start doing this more often,” he isn’t saying, “This is a good reboot to your writing practice.” He’s not speaking in future-oriented terms.

They say that’s a sign of suicidality.

Or an acceptance of terminality.

He isn’t dying, but even he is acknowledging that I am.

There is no future. There is only now. Moment to moment. Hoping to snatch a few good ones before I go, hoping palliative care is enough to ease me, placate me, soothe me as I approach my final transition.

Hospice has so many euphemisms. So many ways to talk around death, while claiming to address it directly.

I don’t get the benefit of hospice. No one else has yet acknowledged what I know.

But everyone is speaking in the euphemisms. Embracing the moments. Preparing for the transition. Easing the pain. Encouraging the comfort.

I died 35 years ago.

It’s finally catching up with me.