The good fight
I’ve only hinted around at the difficulties I’ve experienced during the past several months.
Part of it is my nature to keep things inside, part of it is a tendency to minimize those things (I think) I can manage. Part of it is hope that change—or just plain relief—is just around the corner. Part of it a perceived embarassment that I’m back-sliding and part of it is due to the symptoms themselves—I’m unable to focus long enough to get it out.
To say the past several months have been miserable is an understatement. I’ve watched, horrified, as my hopes have been dashed and my life has slowly unraveled—unable to stop the decline, let alone unable to advance.
Except for rare moments, I’ve been unable to work. On days when I can work, it takes so much effort that I’m incapacitaed for a couple of days following.
It has come to the point where a simple clerical error by an overworked employee at my doctor’s office (she didn’t properly check me in for my appointment Thursday night resulting in my leaving, unseen by the doc, after 95 minutes of waiting) is enough to push me much too close to the edge.
It was the second time in as many weeks that visions of both using and of suicide danced in my head. The only thing that saved me was indecision over which is the “better” option.
Hopelessness, helplessness and despair have become my default mindset. I haven’t lost all hope, there’s still a glimmer. I’m not completely helpless, I fight as hard as I am able, especially with the medical community. The despair is the biggie.
I’m tired. Deeply, bone-weary, spirit-crushingly tired. I’m not tired of hoping. I’m not tired of fighting. What I am tired of is losing.
Every day grinds down my dwindling reserves. Not just of energy and strength to battle on, but more importantly, of incentive to just get up and fight—and to lose—again.
No one can fight and lose indefinately. There comes a time when you just plain give up.
To me, that time seems frighteningly too near.
