I am a Rock I am an Island

I have to quit it with this going at it alone thing. It's becoming old and ridiculous and I am starting to finally see that after almost 30 years maybe it doesn't work for me.
I never get unglued in front of people. I am not the messy friend. I am not the friend who you see on your caller ID and you're like, "shit, not again, isn't she over that already, what does she want NOWWWWW" And lately I have been upset a lot and I have wished I had someone to call. I have wished I had someone who I could ask to come over who would put their arms around me and just let me cry. Instead I have been alone. Going at it alone. The last two nights I have been able to hold it together on the subway but as soon I exit into the darkness the tears come. Then I can't unlock my apartment door fast enough and it just pours out of me. Heaving, coughing sobs brought on by the worst thoughts imaginable. I try to throw it all on the page. I try to excise it out of me, tears streaming down my keyboard as I sob and cry.

Last night my sister slept over. She offered to sleep over. I was trepiditous about it. I told her that I didn't know if I wanted her to be privy to my 'night' life or my morning routine. I hold in all my feelings all day and let them out all night. My sister is a victim of my disease as much as I am a victim of it. My whole family are victims. I want to shelter and shield them from it as much as possible. She insisted. She said, "I'm your sister, I'll be fine, I'm coming over." While I waited for her, this is what I was writing: ( P.S. It was dramatically entitled, I Want to Kill Myself Right Now)
"I got a special prescription in the mail today for my trip to Mexico that I haven't told anyone about. (I was hoping it was a birthday package). The doctor gave me special drugs to take while I am there so I don't relapse. I am starting to wonder whether relapsing isn't such a bad thing. I can't do this anymore. I can't. This is no way to live. This is hell. This isn't for me. It is taking everything out of me. I don't know how to do it. I am a fucking mess.
Why did all of this happen? Why am I going down like this? I don't understand. I can't do anything. I am a slave to my body. I have my own emotions and a whole host of others that aren't mine that I don't know how to handle or what to do with or when to expect. Do I give up? Give up on what? The dream? The fight? I had started to believe again. Now what. Do I still believe?
I hate that I am constantly popping pills. I hate that I don't have my life anymore. I hate that nothing makes me happy. I hate that nothing penetrates through this moment I am stuck in. I hate that I can't be normal anymore. I hate that I don't know when and if this is going to end. I hate that I can't go out and have fun and that everything sucks and that this is hanging over me like a dark cloud it keeps fucking following me around everywhere. I can't stand it. When is the sun going to come out again.

Where am I in all of this. Supposedly I am the carefree one. Supposedly I am the happy one not the angry one not the sad one the happy carefree lackadaisical even- tempered laid back one. Who am I now? I am sad. I am scared. Life is too real. It should never be so real. I hate the new unknowns I am facing. I hate not feeling safe. I hate not having my health. I hate knowing how true that cliche really is. This is so fucking crazy and wild. It makes all the other stuff so much more important and so much less important at the same time. It's incredible. Absolutely incredible. How do people reconcile their old self with their new circumstances? Are they just stronger than me? They must be. It hasn't even been that long and I am despondent and I am scared and I know I can't handle it.

Every day is a surprise. Every day is a struggle. Every day I wonder how I will make it through. Every day I hope the nightmare will end the next day. And to think that physically I am so much better. But it is a sad illusion. My body isn't any better; the drugs are doing all the work my body should be able to do on its own. My body that once ran six marathons and couldn't carry two babies can't do this either. Am I going to die? Am I going to be able to have kids? What the fuck. What the fuck. My whole life is pointless now. Everything was leading up to that stuff. And now there is no that stuff. Was Illinois my one chance? And now I am the almost 30-year old woman living in her coveted apartment alone crying every night for the life she'll never have.

I don't cry for the old life, because I lived it big; it is the future that I always assumed was mine that I cry for. The one that I banked on. It's like I am dying even if I don't, even I am really not, it feels like I am. All of the flavors of life that I have loved I don't taste anymore. My morning coffee, Prosecco, a cold beer, a good sweaty run, cooking, reading, my fun food cravings, sleep, being tired, falling asleep naturally because I am actually tired. I don't know. Too many to list. Nights out with friends where I just let go and let the night carry me away. Can I ever let the night carry me away again? I don't even get joy out of my people the same way anymore. I just don't. I feel like I am in such a different place than everyone else I don't feel connected. I want them all around me so close to me but then I don't feel connected and I just want to go home and be alone in my private hell where at least I know the rules and I know the reality. And the reality sucks.

So I am caught between two realities. And I just want some answers. I want to feel safe. I guess it was always an illusion that I was safe but I want it back. I never knew for sure that something like this wasn't going to happen or that I was going to get married and have children and live a normal life but I believed it so it was real for me. I feel like my growth just got stunted. Party's over. Last call. And I can't bear it. The sick thing is that I think these are all my real emotions. And the sicker thing is that my doctor says I am one of his saner patients regarding handling the emotional side of this disease. Maybe he's the insane one. And tomorrow I have to go to my fake, family birthday dinner and pretend I am happy it's my birthday? My birthday is supposed to be a place of suspended disbelief. That's always how I've viewed my birthday and why I love birthdays and it won't have that birthday magic this year because I will still be stuck here. 30 means nothing. Last call. The buck stops here. 30 will be a number. I am just a girl who is 30 or 29 or 31 or whatever but I am never going to make it further than where I have. And I am sane? Who cares that D and my sister and JE are missing it. I will be missing them but they won't be missing anything."

So my sister enters my apartment tonight and I have swollen eyes and mascara streaming down my face. Ugly, ugly, ugly combined with my steroid induced moon face which gets doughier by the day. She comments on my haircut and expresses her usual surprise about my face. Then she asks me what's going on. I tell her. I tell her all of this. And we go out to dinner and we come back to my place and we go to sleep. And I feel better. I told someone and she didn't close up or clam up or get all corny and I actually feel better. Why don't I ever do this? I do need people. And I have people. And I am learning that I don't give them enough credit. Maybe they won't understand exactly what I am going through; they are not in my situation but they will listen to me and they will hear and they will try their hardest to be what I need. The other night when LG slept over, in the morning he asked me if I slept. And miraculously, I had slept. He commented that sometimes it's nice to have another person there. And it is. And I never do. JE said the same thing in one of her recent emails regarding the past, she said that, "if i had known that you would have wanted me there to hold your hand i would have been there in a second. that's just not the way you ever came across. i wish i had known what you needed from me before it was too late." Maybe things would have been different for me if she had held my hand back then. But it's not too late now. One of my father's many mantras to me because I have always been one not to ask for help and to stiff-upper lip everything, and go at it alone was, "Briana, like the song, you're not a rock, you're not an island. You can ask for help." So ... HELP!