I keep coming back to this blog to write, but it seems as I tend to wait too long and enter it only from a place of true distress. I've been quite flaky lately, lacking motivation for everything but to complete the things I need to do to run my home. The basics. I knit and listen to audiobooks and play a little Stardew in my spare time, but mostly work and chores. In a sense in these times, I'm not quite content, but at least at a tolerable baseline of anxiety. I've had mild anxiety for years now every waking minute. But I'm used to the mild variation and mostly ignore it. There's a semblance of routine and a small level of control of my life. But this week has served to remind me how very precarious my mental state is. I just want to hide in a little hole until this storm passes by so I stop hurting myself and the people around me.
My daughter became sick two days ago. In the wee hours of Monday morning, at 3:25 AM, to be exact, she threw up. She threw up and I knew my week would be hell. I worry so much about her, feel so disconcerted at the upended routine, and lose so much sleep that I become frayed and exhausted. Illogical, weepy, depressed. More than once this week I've berated myself. For letting my weary brain take me to horrible places. I hate to admit this and I feel so ashamed but I feel a bit hopeless. I often feel guilty and ashamed of doing normal things, because she is sick and in bed. I cook in tears because I feel I have no right to enjoy a nice meal as she's lying sick. I know in my brain that I am wrong. It's a bug, there will be no seizures, and there's no fever. She's not my mother, bedridden and near death. I think my brain is so dumb. It doesn't distinguish the truth and makes up stories to frantically make sense of the chaos storming in my head. Because she will be fine. The doctor will tell me just like every time, that she is fine. I just... I just feel so fundamentally broken that for me to exist is a waste of resources, like I should give my space to someone worthy and strong. I do sometimes wish I could have made a deal with God or the Devil, or whoever does these things. To give Mom my health and trade with her the sickness. Because she is of this Earth, and I do not belong. Because in what universe is it ok to cry whenever something feels different? And how can I even trust something is different when I've slept less in two nights than is recommended for one? When my heart is racing all day? I keep losing my breath and weeping openly in corners where my family can't hear. I know I need to get help. But I feel so hopeless and alone. I really… don’t want to live anymore. There’s no risk this time though like in February. I stay for my daughter and nothing more. I won’t ignore what I’d do to her this time.
What doesn't kill you very often makes you weaker. What doesn't kill you can leave you limping for the rest of your days. What doesn't kill you can make you scared to leave your house, or even your bedroom, and have you trembling, or mumbling incoherently, or leaning with your head on a window pane, wishing you could return to the time before the thing that didn't kill you.
– Matt Haig (Reasons to Stay Alive)