I have always maintained this is NOT going to be a masturbatory “dear diary” kind of blog, where I get my jollies by throwing my daily occurrences out there, bathing them in the darkest possible “woe is me” light, and then sit back and wallow in the reactions. This is why it’s galling to me I have nothing of consequence to share right now.
Oh, there are so many things I want to write about.
There are so many topics I want to touch on. So many insights shared with me that cry out for consideration.
There is an ever greater pile of books I need, I want to read.
Even more online articles. Lectures. Talks.
I need…I want to take it all in. I want to read everything.
But right now I can’t.
Not the highest (concent)rating
I hold my own in a personal face to face chat.
I am able to concentrate on an hour’s worth of television (although I found I have to -and this annoys me beyond measure- postpone season 2 of the trip that is American Gods).
I do not watch films any more.
I cannot read an article. Let alone a book. Before I get to the second paragraph I have completely lost track. My eyes skip to the wrong line. I miss words, I can’t remember previous points. It doesn’t stick. It just burns.
I cannot concentrate, no matter how hard I force myself. I am so incredibly tired that even my fury offers no effective counterpoint any more.
I am afraid to sleep. I am afraid of the dreams that make me re-live and re-experience again and again and again.
And feel exactly the same again.
Every day.
Normality wll be restored in 3, 2, 1, 37, 1138, merrigold, dinosaur, peanut butter
Traumas, however big or small to anyone (and really, that is very personal. I for one apparently can’t handle anything. Emotional resistance of a fairly wet bit of perforated toilet paper being pelted by shards of glass while being drawn by four horses on a steady diet of cafeine and chilis, don’t you know?) are not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things.
People leave. People are hurt.
We are crushed. We grieve. We get mad. We accept. We move on.
But, cliche that it is, the universal truth is that time is the great healer.
In so many of the great tragedies of life, we feel we cannot ever get over them. But we do. It may take a while. But then you suddenly realise you have had a day where it didn’t consume your every thought and emotion. You move on. Meet new people. And at some point it hits you -quite by accident- that no matter how strong you knew your feelings were, it simply doesn’t really hurt that acutely any more.
That’s how it works. How things should work.
But that threadmill of dreams, which I’m starting to call my deadmill, is locking me into the state of that very first hour, without realising I have seen this before. It’s literally reliving every single aspect of the very beginning as if it is entirely new (and in my dreams I do not even realise I am reliving it again). It includes every single bit of pain, shock, grief and despair exactly as fresh as it was then.
Over 
and over
and over
again.
If there is a hell, it should work exactly like this (Hmmm, I wonder if I can patent this idea?).
Pilling my guts
Yeah. Everyone knows already, Medication is being adjusted, has been adjusted. Talking to another doctor again come Thursday. The pills that do work -proper Mickey Finns, I tell ya – have side effects that are destroying me in all sorts of yet other fascinating effects, reducing me overall to about 60% capacity, making me walk around like a zombie, unable to engage in conversation, concentrate on any relevant topic, and incapable of participating in any kind of meaningful activity. And even though that would be the perfect entry level for European Parliament, I do have some ethical standards left still!
God, I need to sleep.
God, please don’t let me sleep.
Next post: Fuck knows. Probably a joke of sorts.
- Song for the day:
“Guess you want your world just a certain way
And I can tell you this
I’ve been outsmarted
And that hurts me more than it hurts me, how much I miss”
…I honestly don’t know what to say. I see the spiral. I see the insane need for dreamless sleep. I don’t know how you can achieve that other than EMPTYING your schedule for at least a day or two and accepting the zombiestate as a prelude to a very very long and overdue deep sleep. Instead of fighting the side effects, embracing them for a bit so you can get to the part where your thoughts won’t plague your sleep.
Response to post 7:
Dear Mr. H, I wonder why your docs have not suggested hospital for a bit to straighten out your sleep cycle? That would be my first and primary recommendation. You need the relief.
Because that’s not what we do in The Netherlands any more, don’t you know? Far too expensive. Keywords in modern medicine here are ‘social networks’ and ‘paracetamol’.
(That sounded a bit more cynical than I wanted it to be. But the upshot remains very much the same: no money.)
I barely know what to say, or how to express myself if I were to know, for a message is not just words but also the shape of them. So…
To sleep, not dream, that voided slumber of thoughtless rest set to restore the body yet not the mind. Contrary as it is the mind works in overdrive to rest itself and discard itself of all matter it cannot entirely comprehend. To sleep, to dream, therefore, but not to wake to the clarion cries of shadowed steeds running rampant through the plowed fields that are the mind. Lay your head, be at ease, and rest the mind in healing slumber. Your tomorrow, I hope, is one sleep away and a day closer to restoration.