Aunt Flo has got to go

Well it's that time of the month again. And once again I didn't realise and the bugger snuck up on me. Never been too responsible or reliable so I'm always caught off guard when my period arrives.
When it finally showed its face on Saturday the days before suddenly seemed to make much more sense. After my first enthusiastic week at the day hospital to say I've been floundering the last week would be an understatement. From Wednesday onwards it was particularly hard work. The panic I felt on Wednesday and the anger too was enormous. I was ranting quite loudly as I wandered down the stairs. Lack of sleep and this intense rage combined to make me a very unpleasant character that day. And everything seemed insurmountable. Especially thinking of meeting my support worker later that afternoon. I just couldn't be bothered and I felt my stomach churning as I reluctantly made my way to the hospital. I arrived a little late for the meeting and felt so ashamed and embarrassed the second I walked through the door. I avoided eye contact as best I could. It's uncomfortable for me at the best of times but when under a fog as I was that day it was damn near impossible. I'd meekly survey the room throughout the issues and worried I'd be called upon to introduce myself or god forbid proffer an opinion about anything they were discussing. I could feel the acid shooting up my oesophagus at the thought of it. Then my phone went off as the head psychiatrist was discussing an important point with the team. I was mortified and I was rushing, panicking and struggling with one hand in a sling trying to grab for my phone. I managed to put it on silent and couldn't lift my gaze from the floor afterward. It was awful. If I already didn't feel uneasy that really pushed me over the limit. what happened next was the discovery group which included public speaking. Hells bells. My worst nightmare. I've never been good at it. I always stutter from the nervousness and panic and on more than one occasion in the past have been laughed at. I wanted the world to swallow me whole and yet again could feel my stomach churning and my heart would leap into my mouth every time if was asked if someone else wanted to open their envelope and answer a question. I managed to escape with only halfheartedly mumbling an answer to one of the other patients questions about what language they'd like to learn. After the class finished we were free. It's a half day on a Wednesday and I knew I'd need to call my support worker to arrange to see her. But I didn't. I avoided it. And I stayed out at the day hospital instead. My support worker had found some people that might be able to help Mum and Dad with getting the central heating fixed. I'd gave them the number but they hadn't called. And my support worker wanted me to do it instead. I just couldn't though. I hate the phone at the best of times and it's a struggle to talk to people I know, trust and love. Talking to anyone else just doesn't happen. And the thought of her being disappointed or pushing me to call them made me queasy. So much so that I had been pleading with my parents all day on the phone to call and please just get an answer. I told them they didn't need to go through with it if they didn't want to but could they just call and see if they qualified so I'd have something to tell my support worker. I still didn't have an answer by 1pm so I made my way into town I was restless, anxious, emotional and confused. I didn't know what to do with myself. So I wandered to Tesco to see if my prescription was ready forgetting it wouldn't be till Friday. By this time tears were streaming down my face. I'd called my parents and they still hadn't gotten an answer. I was hysterical. I just couldn't see my support worker without an answer I just couldn't. But I wouldn't get one, they couldn't get a hold of anyone to talk to at all. So I tried to pull myself together and went to the bathroom, my IBS now totally out of control. I was bloated, sweating, sore, worried and distraught. I eventually made the text to my support worker though and sat in Tesco cafe to try and gather my thoughts and my composure. Eventually I met her at Tesco petrol station and hopped in the car, explaining why my arm was in a sling. Thankfully the heating didn't come up and we drove around for a few minutes and she dropped me off in the town. She asked me to consider buying myself some new clothes, underwear and a picture perhaps of Ichiro. My first real pet, my gerbil. Who lived almost to reach five years old. I loved him like no other but just like anything else in my life I'd let him down so badly and felt nothing but guilt and shame every time I thought about him or looked at his picture. He deserved better. The world deserves better than to have me in it. So instead I picked up something for my brother to eat. Gift for a friend and a new lampshade for my bedroom. I then wearily made my way home, barely holding on to the thin facade that was cracking with each step. I got back to the flat and had to get my brother to come downstairs to carry everything upstairs. Once I got in I started to take off my jacket and when my sleeve proved tricky I fractured entirely. I sobbed my heart out. I begged for the day just to be over. I couldn't bear anymore. I couldn't stop and the only thing I wanted to do was go to bed so I flung on some PJ's ignoring the shower that might have helped soothe my pain in some small way and crashed sweaty and exhausted into bed. I tossed and turned and at some point must have fallen asleep, to strange dreams and nightmares. Only waking at 20:30 when the nightmares were too frequent and taxing. I bounced off the walls as I wasn't quite fully conscious. And threw myself down onto the safety of the living room sofa. My brother being the sweetheart that he mostly is had been out and bought me chocolate and other things to try and pick me up. He also took out money for take out so I wouldn't need to attempt dinner. So there I stayed slumped and numb on the sofa, shovelling food into my mouth and trying not to think or feel. Sitting with my brother a little later watching some films lifted my spirits a little before I fell asleep again around 2am. The next day I tried to tell myself it would be different. I had to change my outlook, that today would be better and I tried. But when I left the hospital that afternoon and found out Mum couldn't make it to the bingo after all, I lost it. And once again I was erratic and emotional and couldn't pull myself out of this slump. Unlike Wednesday night nothing I did nor my brothers company helped. And on Friday after a very poor night's sleep I got up and just knew I couldn't go in to the hospital that afternoon. And I was too scared to call. Absolutely terrified, it was like a jolt of fear that would jump out at me and grab me by the throat every time I thought about it. And my movement that day was so lacklustre, so sluggish. You could tell that I just wasn't right. I had no energy and was totally lost. I didn't know what to do with myself. And everything was getting to me. I normally can't stand being in my bedroom at all but had to retreat there because I couldn't take the noise of the television as my brother played his video games. I tweeted a bit to try and talk myself out of this, to try and get a little perspective. I tried tidying. I tried playing with the gerbils. Or just sitting listening and trying to think of everything I had that I loved and should be grateful for but it didn't work. The hole, the deep dark chasm that had opened up was bottomless. I called my friend to try and cheer myself up and maybe go out to bingo and spend some time with her to try and get back on track but I wasn't even on the phone two minutes before I was inconsolable again and I just couldn't go out. I couldn't face the idea of being awake, of being me, of living this life. I wasn't good enough. I wasn't strong enough and nothing was ever going to be right no matter how hard I tried. So I wallowed and dragged my feet and cried and isolated myself. Later on I bought in yet more take away. That was all we had eaten all week. I'd done no shopping at all. My brother came in later on and sat with me and did his best to rally me and it helped a little but I still felt empty. So deeply hollow. Like someone had taken an ice cream scoop to me, there was nothing left. My parents arriving the next morning roused me a little and I eventually managed to pick up a little and took a shower just after they arrived and got dressed. And somehow the realisation as I got dressed that my monthly visitor had arrived opened the cell doors a little and a little light cracked through the bars. PMS, that must have been it. That's why I had been so inexplicably out of control and low for so many days. That's were my motivation and belief had gone to. It had been robbed from me. My own body had turned enemy and was doing its best to make things as hard as possible for me. Pumping me full of toxic hormones that only served to drag me down into the mire. And it does this every month. Every month I have to start from scratch after all the progress I have made previously is wiped out in a two week long onslaught. The week before it starts and the week during, I'm a mess. My support worker has seen how bad it can get and it can get bad. It doesn't happen every month but even every other month is too much. How can I battle biology? Going on the pill isn't an option because I'm allergic to progesterone. I've tried evening primrose and it doesn't help. I was going to the gym two times a week and that didn't help. What do I do. I can't be held to ransom like this. It's hard enough on a daily basis to talk myself into what I need to do when I have little to no belief in myself and don't believe I deserve happiness anyway. Whether its rational right now or not I'd give anything for a hysterectomy. To be free of it. I know that it wouldn't solve anything but I still wish for it when things get bad and I'm curled up in a ball on the sofa crying in pain and despair. People might think it extreme and what about kids you may ask? Well I don't want them. Never have. It's about the only thing I've ever really known. Ask me what I want on any given day of the week and I won't have a clue. I really don't. I mostly live my life in a state of perpetual limbo between what I think I should be doing and what I'm feeling. I want to be more social but I don't really. I want to be liked by people but it scares me they'd want to be friends because I don't want the responsibility. I hate not being able to leave the house but I hate being outdoors too. I never really live my life I just survive it. Everything is a task or a project that I have to get through. I never experience anything. When I'm outside i have my comfort blanket of my phone so I'll tweet which distracts me and keeps me separate from what's going on. And thinking about what I have to do that day zones me out, focuses me so it's the only thing I think about and the world ceases to exist. I'd walk past my own parents in the town because I'm not really there anyway. I'm in a another world entirely, my mind is in charge and my body is on autopilot. It's like being in a sensory deprivation tank. And if something does shock or shunt me into waking up it becomes a nightmare, the sensory overload sends me into a tailspin. I can feel the scream rising in my throat and the need to find cover sends me into a whirl. I need to run. I need to get away. I need to get safe.
As I sit here I'm not looking forward to going into the hospital in the morning. I'm terrified. The people have been nothing but warm and welcoming but as usual I'm the problem. Inferiority, shame, guilt and embarrassment are among the many things I'm feeling after the end of my first two weeks there. I felt pathetic in my first meeting with the psychiatrist. I felt that compared to everyone else I shouldn't be there, I was a joke a child and the psychiatrist did say something about growing up but I can't remember the context. I just feel like a spoiled brat. Someone who is too good to grow up and deal with all the other things that other people have to. The idea of being better fills me with dread. Being functional and still a failure, it paralyses me. And I hate the idea of getting close to anyone there because yet again I'll feel like I'll have fooled them with the facade of someone who pretends to care but doesn't. I'm just someone that can't face rejection and has to be liked. So i do things I don't want to do just so people won't abandon me and secretly bury the resentment that builds underneath. So more friends, more people that like me unwittingly is just another responsibility and another reminder of how deplorable I really am. And it's just more people I'll fail. Because I always fail the people I shouldn't. And I don't want to end up resenting people secretly when they've done nothing wrong and the only one putting pressure on me is me. I even started it on the thursday at dinner time and offered to buy cigarettes for one of the girls. She rightfully refused and you could tell was weirded out by such a gesture. I just can't help myself though. I'll stretch bend and break myself at first and then never be there for them again and avoid and let them down at every turn. While I sit stewing in my own juices and the shame and anger swirling together leadng me to simultaneously hate myself and hate the world. So I pull away again and isolate myself. It's a never ending cycle and I don't know how to break it and finally become me. Find out who I really am, what I want, what I really feel and feel okay to follow it through. Which is never going to happen with these monthly interruptions.