Jittery brain

Here I am, back at work.

Not much has changed, but by the same token, everything has. This hospital is going down faster than my body on the weekend.

Right now, though, for some reason, I am trembling from head to toe. It's not grossly obvious. But, the way my body is behaving, I feel as though I'm in the early stages of a panic attack. It goes no farther than that. I'm not really stressed, unless this is like that psychosomatic Children's thing.

Back in 2002, when I worked at Children's (I think I've mentioned this once already), whenever I would get to work, go down the elevator to the parking deck, get outside and lay eyes on the building, I would burst into a bitter, cold sweat, the taste of metal filling my mouth, and my head would begin to pound, until the time I finally clocked out of work.

Little did I know, these were "WARNING SIGNS," my body or God, one, telling me to GET OUT. Unfortunately, the irreparable damage had already been done, by the time I got the message - to both me, and to others.

Sadly, those are the same incidents which keep me awake at night, pondering who I was at that point in my life. Those times were some of my greatest self-discovery and my most tragic self-defeat. That era in my life is when everything completely went to shit. It wasn't enough that I'd lost my mother, so I ran away my best friend. I was in and out of a stupor, drinking and doing drugs, then finally landed in rehab after expressing desire to end my own life.

Little did I know, that feeling would be very close to me - my breath of fresh air, when I felt so stifled by everything else in my life. No, I don't WANT to die. I just want to stop hurting. I need to be in control of something in my life.

Which is why I cut.

I haven't done it in a long, long time, but stress has been high, and the feelings have been strong, tagging along in my shadows, in my subconscious. I feel the draw towards any jagged piece of glass, to place it on my pronated forearm and just dig. It's control. I NEED to be in control of SOMETHING in my life. I can't control the economy, I can't control the emotions of others, I can't control the horrible things that happen in and outside of work, I can't control life or death - but I need SOMETHING. When it gets to that point, I'm really just grasping at air.

I have a very dear friend who wrote a wonderful piece about her struggles, so I figured I could share mine...as a fellow addict. It's the only thing we have. It's so hard - we feel so much differently than everyone else. And, people say we're "weak" or "sick," but we've just found a way to cope with our heartache in a way that (usually) doesn't involve screaming matches or road rage or lashing out at anyone. Mine, does, sometimes - but I will forever be a work in progress. I will always be completely unhappy with myself. I will always know that I was so much stronger, that I could have withstood so much more, that I could have spent less time at home or sleeping or on the computer or at a job I hated, and more time helping others.

I could have been better.

That's what I want on my headstone.

We should always strive to be better.

Just so you know, I'm still pushing. I get really, really tired - a lot lately. I feel as though I've become Sisyphus, from Greek mythology (as well ruled by Hades), pushing that huge boulder up the mountain and being forced to watch it roll down, to only repeat the action over and over, which, by Einstein's standards, was the definition of "insanity."


I really think I'm just going to focus on getting through the shakes right now.