Pain

It’s 2am. I’m in nothing but pain now. My body has spent almost a full day in panic mode, adrenaline pumped through my veins for hours. Every joint aches like I’m 100 years old. My stomach, voided violently in the late afternoon now feels like an empty barrel. But there is no hunger. The chemical cocktail of stress prevents it. Just like it prevents sleep, peace, or ending this infernal shaking. 

I’ve gone into shock, I know that now that I’ve past it. After the worst has past and I’m back to myself enough Matt discusses it with me. There were moments when I’d cry so hard nothing came out, every muscle in my body straining under duress. And then, just as suddenly my breathe would hitch from lack of oxygen, my eyes would close and for a little under a minute I would sleep because my body was shutting down this reaction. 

Then I’d wake up and struggle to hold on to my stream of consciousness. There are gaps, time seems to have jumped around in my memory. Sometimes I forgot that I moved positions. He tells me when I slept that every muscle remained rigid and I was locked in my sitting position, and try as he might he could not get me to lay down. He thought I might stay asleep if I did and perhaps find rest.

Rest doesn’t come.

***

It started out rough. While getting ready for work, Matt asks about the weekend plans. Money comes up. The old bones to pick. It goes deeper. I tie it back to previous conversations about shifts I want to make, about how I feel controlled. He gets emotional and asks again if I’m leaving. I try to balance kindness with truth. I’m not leaving unless he gives me reason to. I reiterate what I’ve been saying all along, defend my position, my thoughts and my actions until finally we’re able to reach middle ground. It is one of the few times in my relationship with him that I’ve felt like I can say what I want without fear of punishment later, but things remain strained because money remains tight.

T is texting me, going over the past weekend. I can’t recall now what brought it up but he says he wants to take me away in December. To Florida. We need a vacation. It’s a miscommunication. I don’t understand what he means, and when the subject of finances comes up yet again, I have to disappoint him. Again. No trip. No time to us. My mood tanks from “ok” to “abysmal”. Matt cancels class and we get into it again. 

If I had just been stronger, had not collapsed and worked harder with more hours, then maybe I would have the money to go. I tell him and he adamantly insists that no, the trouble is that he doesn’t have his supporting income from online courses. It’s not anything I could have changed, not anything I did. That doesn’t make sense to me, and it still doesn’t. I suspect that he was trying to end the battle or keep me from plummeting. 

Yet in discussing these things he mentions things we’re planning to buy that would cost twice what I estimate would be needed, and are far less necessary. My anger flares up and I stop trying to be productive. I recognize that the next words out of my mouth will only cause pain, so I bite my tongue and stalk off, trying desperately not to hurt anyone. I can offer no comfort, I have none myself.

I’m barely sat down on the edge of my bed when her text lights up my phone. Her boyfriend’s father passed away just a few moments ago. She’s alone in Boston, crying, upset that she can’t change the stars anymore than I can. I call her, I try to help, to offer anything. I can’t get on a plane to go to her and she’s leaving for Michigan before I would get there anyway. So we just sit on the phone while she cries openly and I cry silently because this is hers. And I feel powerless.

After the call I pace, I try to find comfort. It’s even more elusive. He calls me. We try to bandage things up, and I can hear the effort. And then the hesitation. Something is wrong. My heart drops out of my chest for the third time today and I know I can’t breathe. But I can still hold it together. 

K has reached out to his ex. The air leaves the room then and never comes back. He’s worried I’ll punch her. Valid concern. But for K I wouldn’t. For K I’d sit next to this woman with my blood boiling in my veins and offer her dinner. And only those who can read me well enough would see that my Smile doesn’t reach all the way up, that the corners of my mouth don’t quite tilt up. That my grip on whatever I’m holding is just a little too tight.

But I can behave. I sat in a courtroom behind a lawyer dissecting my brother’s life with cold abandon of compassion. I have faced down far worse. Let her see me, let her misjudge and assume I’m harmless. The only thing rendering me so is that K reached out and she answered. Nothing else beyond that matters for now.

But my jaw is clenched. I can feel my teeth straining against each other. I have time here, at least, to find a better headspace.

But then I get another text. From my dad. He and mom are at the doctor’s and heading for a support meeting. He tells me to take a breath. It’s Alzheimer’s. The world stops in an instant. This is where I go into shock and the rest of the day becomes unclear. 

I was afraid when she came back to me in September that it was the precursor to a cruel twist of fate. And now, here it was. The other shoe has dropped. She will forget me. She will forget everything. This marks the beginning of the end. 

I don’t know where my head goes, but I dive into my polycule. I need positivity, so I pour it out to them. I try to find any shred of it. Any way I can hold on. It starts to work, it starts to build. I think maybe, maybe I can hold on just enough to get this. I can do this.

While typing I see an alert for a message on Fet. I’m trying to network, so I take it as a much needed distraction. I’m thinking I’ll throw myself into group work when I read it. Oh. Oh. Oh no.

She is nice. She’s reached out to me. But I can see her picture and I can’t stop myself. I see her profile. In that instant everything is gone. The final straw, the last little candy wrapper on the mountain to make it collapse. 

I sink into the worst panic attack in memory and scream. Banshee wail. Let it all out, stop trying to hold it together. 

I know you’re reading this. I know you’re going to say you should leave, that you’re not good for me. If that’s what you take from this, then read it again. This is an unprecedented look into my head during one of my worst days. This is the worst of the worst. Are you still here? Are the highs better than these lows?

***

Hours later I come up from the panic. There are offers to talk, to listen. I try. I feels like I’m not in my head. I miss him, so I text him. I worry I’ve ruined everything. When he says he’s leaving the hospital with her I panic hard. I call for Matt and hyperventilate. Beg him to tell me what’s happened. In my head it’s a nightmare fueled by an attack that hasn’t fully stopped yet. 

But it’s not them. It’s N. Everyone is safe. No one is dead or dying. I fall back on the bed and gasp for air. 

Fuck. This. Day.

At least I never have to do it again. Tomorrow is all new.