#im terrified that i might dissociate my way through my last two weeks at home and then itll get worse and im not fucking okay !

[cedarstudy]

8-9-2017 . crayola supertips swatch . ♫ astro’s discography ♪ today i: ????

yeah i’m just lowkey panicking all day now so not sure how i’m gonna get anything done :))) today was Bad and i didn’t get anything done but i did this swatch yesterday and i’m matching it with my fineliners and trying not to think about moving and panicking

[brokenhayatim]

we might be dead tomorrow

[now playing the maze by manchester orchestra]

yesterday on a call, i had a moment of real possibility in having the decompression surgery. my neurologist last week said it was what she recommended and that chiari could be the cause of it all. so once i had it, they would most likely be gone, along with my headaches, then the meds i take would no longer be needed. it all hit me hard today and im feeling many emotions at this person who barely considered doing it for months. for god sake, i was in the hospital for it, a situation i never thought i would be in. (inshallah never again) 

you know some part of me loves being told i have a high pain tolerance, a big  part of me loves being poked with needles (!!) and loves looking at my mri’s. oh story time, the day my neurologist said something was different, aka wrong, i smiled in the chair and asked if i could look at it and went “ah cool!.” she gave me the wildest look but described all the brain anatomy stuffs to me. I told my therapist of this moment and he went “.oh...you were happy?” [types some notes on his computer] and i realized, normal people don’t do that and i probably said that badly with no shame. i wasn’t particular happy, but i was nowhere near sad or scared, i was excited. i think my dissociation makes me almost see everything as not mine. those aren’t my scans so i can be exhilarated and so curious about everything. or it could be that pain just isn’t something i worry or care for anymore. months later, i laughed bc something else being wrong with me, it’s almost fate. sometimes i wish i was terrified, but i didn’t care for it. i already had bad headaches, so what?

over these last few months though. it’s like i’ve made room in my home for it, i’ve become familiar with it, not so much comfortable, but so familiar that it doesn’t matter in the big picture. a secret: sometimes i feel really impressed and good when i tell of my imbalance issues, (vertigo), numbness in my limbs, the tinnitus and the nausea. sometimes..i wish i had more. i feel proud of myself when people have headaches, like i know the worst of that pain, and i’ve been through it. i don’t know if it’s because i want to be validated in having it or if it’s just how i am like that. i wish i could tell my sisters and everyone a whole list of symptoms, but all of them seem so useless and mediocre. i sometimes want that attention from just collapsing; but ironically, i hate being bothered and cared for with it. i found meaning in it all, i found a whole part of me within it all. i had headaches for 6 years before i, simply, told my general physician, and since then it’s been 5 (way too long of) mri’s and an EEG (that was certainly a moment). i wished, back then, i had seizures too. we called one of my pain symptoms “brain shocks” for years with that creative name and made it into this freeze “game”, and i just mentioned that two years ago in a visit. half of my identity is just on having headaches, of being in pain around people. and i’m stupidly fucking (sorry last day of ramadan) scared of losing that. i’ve taken more medications pills than i can count, and i know their purpose pridefully well. i’ve given advice based on that pain, i’ve helped someone with that pain. i’ll never be ready to lose that. i think of it and i imagine myself more empty. full of nothing.

the reason i’m writing this though wasn’t all that. i woke up and just felt this aching shame and sobbed, still am i can barely see, in my bed (so much snot). i’m so scared, more than anyone can possibly try to understand, of it all being gone. of never having to take a pill for this anymore (i still have dat mental illness so not those), or of never needing the knowledge of different types and locations of headaches. i’ve began to feel prideful in having a neurological condition. it makes me something, i have something i can tell. this is the thought that started the spiral. i feel something with this pain. what will happen when i can’t feel this anymore? what will i turn to next? what does the loss feel like? (is that corny or shallow bc it sounds so??) my therapist asked me ‘why i didn’t want to rid it?’ and i was like ‘i genuinely don’t know’ to which he replied ‘i think you do’ and i was all sIR i legit don’t know pls tell me. i made up this random guess and stuttered through it, it felt out of body almost, leaving my lips. what if getting rid of this physical pain forces me to submerge myself in my emotional pain and deal with that? i feel like i have none pls..me?? i’m chill sans the moments like this. (he also says my tether to pain is like penance, some kind of self punishment i feel i deserve..so lettuce chill bro). but the physical pain of headaches, the imbalance, the dizziness, even the numbness in my legs, i always feel something. it’s something i can remember in my head then move past. and when i remember it later, it’s intoxicatingly satisfying and i want it to happen again. i wish i collapsed or had to crawl to my room more often. i like..want to boast about it?? i remember that moment vividly being a ‘this is it’ one too. i was home alone crawling to my room bc my legs gave out and i needed my meds for my pounding headache, and i genuinely thought i was gonna die there on the floor. that moment of me hating and scared of it though is so fleeting, only lasting the day probs. and a part of me will always hate it. that’s normal. but that’s not strong enough to overcome me. it’s bittersweet.

“it’s not the same, but it’s similar to people losing their limbs, or injured so badly they’re forced to give up their career, or an addict quitting using drugs.” sure, but you can notice, you can see all that. this is all in my head.  unless you see my mri’s you would never even guess. it was why i wished my diagnosis was something with seizures, at least that’s something noticeably neurological that i can recognize myself. (am i a bad person? baby no doubt.) my old roommate once said she didn’t even know i had headaches often because i never complained or mentioned it. i would just go to the pantry and take my pill as you would with a cookie. and i’ll never be any other way, and i never was. i grew up closing the bathroom door when i threw up, washing my face after crying and walking back in the kitchen to my mom. i grew up missing moments of laughter and joy with my sisters to just lay in a dark room in pain, being checked on at the some time in the night. even to this day, i will sit in lectures when my head is pounding and i know i’ll throw up soon. anyways, my three sisters were talking about one of the other’s qualities and how amazed they are bc ‘they would never’. one of them had actually gone to class, and i softly mentioned how i am like that too, i think i’ve missed three classes in my four years (minus calc bc the class was more confusing than teaching myself). i said i’ve sat through night classes with headaches and with no meds for three hours and they were like mmm. i almost felt jealous that she always spoke of her small and big achievements, and i speak of none. no one even knew my major till this year. why, allah, why am like this? what made me too reserved and careless of myself? my education is the only thing that makes me feel worthy in the eyes of others...so mine, and i never even share it. it’s that, perfect on paper, that’s how i want to be. (because i know i’ll never be otherwise) i get up in a week of seclusion & sobbing and head off to class, sometimes i cry in class (iconic moments truly, your glasses hide wonders). last year i was sitting in this three hour class with excruciating (and i don’t use that lightly) pain in my head to the point where i had to cradle it with my hands and nearly bang it against the table from thrashing, i was in the middle of the room so i did a 10/10 job at playing it off. i never went to the bathroom or even home early...because i had another class after..which it persisted in. i had never felt that before in my entire life. another day, i silently cried like you wouldn’t believe in the bathroom stall (after uncharacteristically leaving the room) then wiped my tears, fixed my makeup and went right back into class. anyways does that even matter? am i even strong? i want to be so badly. for real this time, not this image. and i’m not. i’m barely enough as it is. 

odd tangent: i don’t care enough or at all about the people i should and i lie to make em feel good and feel better. i know people that love me would still, with this loss of pain, but i doubt myself, and i underestimate them yeah. i say 'them’ like i care what half the people in my life think or care about, it’s just noor and rose. i love rose but i don’t bring these things up, i don’t normally update and i don’t think i’ve ever opened up about my trauma enough for it to mean more than anything superficial. we have this beautiful relationship, yet i don’t find purpose in telling her if need not be, maybe one day. it’s different with noor. i babble all the damn time about everything and feel myself have no filter with these things. i mean, i mention noor to rose too, as if she’s a mutual friend. i care for them both. i love them both in different ways, both ways that are rare for me. rose wasn’t the first person i’ve met or cared about, but she was the first person i remember loving the way i do. i wish i could describe how i feel for noor simply, but i can’t. there was a long-while where she was more important to me than my family, even my sisters (i know, i was like uhmmm). i’ve written something, poem or prose, of almost everyone that was close to me aka 4 peeps (let’s not get wild here). and yet, i’ve written nothing of noor. i’ve written for her yes, but not of her. i tried and it’s arguably the hardest thing to do and i’m quite adequate at writing, if i do say so myself. i tried once in 2017, i stared at the screen for so long just backspacing bc nothing made sense. she’s my emotional support high school sweetheart that renders me powerless with my own words. (does that help?)

back to our scheduled program:  physical pain. it’s been maybe 10 years now that i’ve made a home for it. sometimes the lights go out when it gets bad, and sometimes i decorate with flowers when it excites me and brings something new. the house is probably the ugliest thing you’ve even had to lay your eyes upon, but it’s the best i got and it’s mine to come home to. i wouldn’t give her up without a fight. and i think that’s what my mind has been doing for so many months. trying to save my home, trying to keep every symptom of pain that i have. one day i’ll have to move out or i just die in here. both are changes i just can’t seem to make. i feel like i’m running out of time to sell it and move out, to do something and get rid of the pain. and, i feel like i’m making a mistake choosing to die in here, ignoring it and having it stay or get worse. if it gets worse, i’ll need help and the day i stop feeling like a burden to people, especially my family, let me know would ya. i don’t even often know how to ask for help if i wanted it - and then there’s being cared for that’s a nope to me. i can handle every moment of my pain from all my symptoms and condition, and yet i’m the weakest person in so much. i’m not a person that fears much, most times i find it impractical honestly. i reminded myself of that on my bedroom floor last year in february, during a moment of weakness. (also yes i use a lot of home analogies in writing ok) note: i’ve been mulling through this surgery decision for maybe a year on end now.

do i wish i was scared and worried to feel an ounce of normalcy? of course. but i’m not, i wasn’t even relieved with the diagnosis that day, went out and got pizza broo. even when i thought i was going insane. because what does it matter if it doesn’t change the pain? it’s kind of strange, but when i think of all this physical pain ( is it mental too idk??), i hear this voice in my head that smoothly and confidently says “gimme all you got.” i daydream of how much more i can take, what different things my brain and body can devise before i crack. and, obviously this voice personified does this...with finger guns.