Month: Jul 2016

The haze 

Posted on by illuminatingkate

So I’m in a bit of a weird place. My days feel as though they’re on fast forward, even though I’m not actually doing that much. It’s bizarre and hard to describe, but I feel as though I’m moving at a different speed to everything else. My memories are slippery and I can’t focus properly. It’s all just dull and blunted and I’m just so exhausted that I can’t figure it out. The pain, the flu-like symptoms, the nausea, the cold that bleeds into my bones like poison – it’s all amplified and I just feel so sick and so scared.

I’m trying to rest because I can feel my body screaming at me to slow the heck down, but I feel so much pressure to be constantly working towards my recovery. It doesn’t feel like recovery when I slide backwards. I’ve been trying so desperately to be more than I have been, but it’s never enough and I find it so hard to accept those limitations. It gets complicated when I’m using old me as the benchmark for who I should be now, because my body can’t seem to handle that benchmark anymore. It doesn’t feel good enough, but I can’t deny that the harder I push, the faster my recovery plan falls apart. I always end up at the point where I crash and the exhaustion forces me to disconnect from my life, and it’s hard. It’s always so hard, no matter how many times I end up down here.

We used to be friends

Posted on by illuminatingkate

I was meant to catch up with my best friend today. We’d had it tentatively scheduled for weeks, and she’d promised to confirm on Wednesday. I still hadn’t heard from her by yesterday (Friday), so I messaged to check things were still okay. She messaged back and told me that she could no longer do this weekend, because she had to look after her parents’ place unexpectedly while they were away. She told me we would try next weekend. Instead, I saw on social media that she’s out with another friend, who has also grown increasingly silent and aloof towards me over recent months. It shouldn’t matter, but it really hurts. She was my best friend, but after 14 years of friendship, we’ve just drifted apart. We’ve drifted apart at a time that I really, really need friends. She has only seen me once in the past twelve months, despite everything that has happened. She no longer messages me unless I message her. I know she’s stressed about her work and her life, but I’ve needed her and I’m sure she’s known that. I feel as though I’m being punished for something that is out of my control. I thought she would be the kind of person who’d spend some of my bad days with me. But I’m not where I’m meant to be. I’m not buying a house or having kids or achieving any of the things they are, so they’re all leaving me behind. It just hurts. It really hurts because I would have been there for them. I feel so damn alone.

The noise and the silence 

Posted on by illuminatingkate

My skull has been heavy with thoughts lately, but I’ve really struggled to write anything. I’ve been trying to get on with life as much as possible. I’ve been trying to force myself to just be better. Chronic illness tends to lose its originality for everyone else, and I just feel so much pressure to be more than I have been. There are plenty of things I could talk about – my steady progress, my improved sleep, the way I’m walking some extra steps each day, disastrous doctor visits, spectacular crashes, my anxiety, the therapy I’ve started to try and process these complex emotions, my plans for the future – but I just haven’t been able to do it yet. I don’t know how to dissect my thoughts and garner some kind of meaning from them, because I can’t seem to separate them from this maelstrom inside my head. I feel really disconnected and not at all like myself. I’m sure it’s only temporary, but right now, I don’t know how to capture this sense of heaviness inside my head. It sometimes feels a little as though I’m drowning on dry land.