I can't believe I am writing this post today, and with the way I feel, it may take me a few days. I have been doing so well lately, it's a crushing blow to have to post about how awful I am feeling this week. The last two or three weeks, I have been a dynamo, the person that I always aspire to be. This week, I am haunted by the old shadows that do their best to pull me under. This is one of those weeks that I wish I would go to sleep and not wake up. I know it's temporary, but when I'm in the middle of it, I have trouble seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I keep hoping instead it's an oncoming train to flatten me. So I wanted to post, because talking it out seems to help. I get going on here and sometimes, I keep writing and writing and it makes me see that everything is going to be okay again very soon.
Last week J and I had an amazing vacation, I can't believe how full of energy and joy and excitement I was. We were up with the roosters and kept going until late at night. My little activity monitor had me clocking 17,000 steps a day, yes really! We played in the sun, ate gourmet meals, shopped, strolled historical neighborhoods, went to museums. We even went out on a boat for one whole day. It was amazing. Our last day there was spent scheming on how soon we could retire down there and what we could do to make a living to support ourselves. Just a fantasy, but fun to talk about the future. The two previous weeks before we left, I was a madwoman cleaning up the house, packing, and working on jewelry. I was able to make about a dozen new necklaces and as many bracelets for the upcoming craft show season. I can say that for those few weeks, I was
proud of myself and happy and looking forward to each and every day. I felt like a normal person for a change.
Then this week hit. We got home from our trip on Friday night. I tried to keep up my energy level over the weekend, running errands all over town with J, doing housework, lunches out, enjoying Valentine's Day, etc. But I could feel the blackness slipping up on me, I could peer over my shoulder and see the dark tendrils creeping along the ground, trying to catch me by the ankle and trip me up. By Monday morning, I knew I had been caught. J left out shortly after dawn to catch his flight, and I was alone with my monster.
I don't know why or where it came from. I always have what I call "vacation letdown", where it's hard to adjust to being back in the real world after such a dream week in the tropics. I went from extreme sun and warmth, to the crappy weather of this week- gloom, cold, dark, rain. I went from a week of being with J to being home alone again. I would like to blame it on all of that. It may play a part, but it's not the root cause, because I get this way even when vacations are not on the calendar. I've posted before about the link between pain and depression, and which one triggers the other. I don't know. For me, they both seem to strike out as a tandem team. I don't get one without its partner showing up, and I don't know which one arrives first. I guess that's why so many of the depression meds out there help with physical pain. To me, it seems like the pain comes in the first wave, and the depression attacks me once I'm already feeling down.
This week the pain has been almost unbearable. I can't function, at all. It's everything this week, every joint, every muscle. Literally from my feet to my hands to my head. I don't know why I get this way. If it was just one small thing, I could pinpoint it and say, it's this or that. But when it's everything everywhere all at once, I just can't stand it. Even my fingers hurt so badly I can't hold a book to read. I can't navigate the stairs in my house, I can't use my tools to work on pottery, I can't get to sleep but once I do then I can't get out of bed. Quite frankly, I can barely walk from room to room this week, my feet are in excruciating pain. My body hurts so much that even the act of taking a breath, brings incredible pain to my ribcage and back. I don't even really want to be on here today but I feel as though I need to talk it out. Last night on the phone I was telling a friend I was in so much pain, I had to hold onto a support just to get up and down off the toilet- I tried to make a joke out of it but it's not fucking funny at all. How can I be like this, when a week ago I was jaunting happily down the beach!
My energy level is somewhere south of zero. Yesterday I was so tired, I couldn't even cook something as simple as soup, so I ate popcorn out of a bag all day long. My house is a wreck, I am a wreck. I think I've gone three days without even brushing my teeth. I know there is cat vomit on my rug but I just keep walking by it, turning a blind eye. I have dishes overflowing the sink because I physically can't pick them up, and I can't bend over to load the dishwasher. I can't fit one more thing in the garbage can, but I do not have the strength to take the bag out and put a new one in. I can't get beyond the aches in my body, and of course, then the mental anguish starts because I beat myself up about how useless I am, what a waste of space, how fucking lazy I am. I am disgusted with myself. I don't deserve this beautiful home, I don't deserve my incredible husband. I don't even deserve to be alive. I feel like a phony and a liar to the outside world.
I know that's not true, I know that's just the pain talking, and in a few days I will probably feel better, I will start to move around more, the cobwebs will start to clear away. I have physical therapy tomorrow, and I usually leave there feeling a bit better. Then J will be home Friday afternoon, and when he's here I have a tendency to pick myself up and dust myself off, because I don't want him to see what I've been going through this week. J doesn't understand, he never will, as much as he loves me he thinks that I can lift myself out of the doldrums and hold my head up high and carry on. He puts too much faith in me. It's both a blessing and a burden. I am thankful I have a husband who loves me enough, but the idea of ever disappointing him is a heavy weight that remains on my shoulders, even when he's not home. He tells me to do this or that fun thing for myself, make friends, find someone to talk to, to exercise with, get out there in the world. But it has nothing to do with that, I know he thinks I'm depressed because I'm alone, but I was going through this when I was working full time and surrounded by others and always out of the house.
This is not the person I want to be. But it makes me wonder, who IS the real me? The one who slinks along in misery and pain, hiding herself? Or the creative bright loving woman who wants to make art and enjoy every day? Can I live a successful life if I am both of those people?
He doesn't understand that it's not where I am, or what I'm doing, or who I'm with. It's inside of me, and that's the one place no one else can get to, to fix. It's all on me, and I'm pathetically incapable of working on myself. For today, I'm just hoping that tomorrow I will wake up feeling a little better, and the day after that a little better again. Hoping is about all I can do right now. And sometimes even that hurts.
