Jan 21

 Reaching a low level health point. Exhausted. Tired. Punchy eyes. Difficulty breathing. Brain zaps.

It's getting hard to move in any given day. I have to build up my strength, make an effort, then collapse back again. I am no longer getting any benefit from sleep. Sleep. Wake up. Same. Sometimes I will have 10 minutes of a gap on waking up before I get hit hard by exhaustion.

I stood dazed in the kitchen a few days ago just feeling terrible. I had fed the mutts. And wobbled slow side to side. I couldn't put a finger on it. What's going on ? I have no clue. Other than I feel like I am about to hit the floor, no energy, everything slowing down, it feels like everything wants to stop.

I can find no relief from this.

I've run out of ideas and energy. Just hitting asthma meds. Trying to stay hydrated. Trying to look after Athenas eye. And sleeping.

I made a supreme effort today and took the muttleys out for a walk - we haven't been out for a good few days, I just haven't had it in me. I had to sit down a few times, not in a nice, ahh, let's sit and admire the view. But in a sit down, breathe, unaware of your surroundings, staring blindly at the mud, head in your hands kinda deal. In short. Like someone really fucking ill. We did it. Got the walk done. I was desperate to come home and slump. I incredibly foolishly popped into a shop on the way home. I knew it was bad. I knew I should not do it. I just wanted to collapse. I did it anyway. Because I was right there. Picked up a box. For storage. And then went home to collapse.

I'm kinda ok with it all. I am ok with the idea of sputtering out to the faintest of flickers and then just snuffing out. Just. Finish me off already ! The lingering is god awful.

Hazel is due back this coming week. So she can take Pops off my hands. Not sure how long she's going to crash at my place for. 

I did in the end get to speak to her dad yesterday. About how she can be. Her diagnoses. And yada. Unsurprisingly, he called me whilst I was asleep. Because. Of course I was. I had made some notes just to make sure I covered everything I wanted to cover without going round in circles too much.

Without getting into it the bottom line was as I expected that he didn't understand Hazel's behaviour. Bewildering, alarming, frustrating, hurtful.

Which was the main thing I wanted to achieve really. Give him understanding of it, some insight into the theory behind it - he didn't really know anything about the conditions Hazel has - , and then the actuality of how it manifests in Hazel. I didn't tell him what to do, or how to behave, I left it to him to figure out his own feelings to it, I suggested that patience and understanding and having to roll with some punches was the best way to deal with it if you intended to stick with it. But also. How hard that was.

In the end I spent an hour talking to him, which was mainly me talking. He did share his experiences and that of the family at large with Hazel. Just more confusion really. And a lot of people getting burned.

Nature of the beast.

In the end he assured me he would never give up on Hazel would always be there. So. That's good. A lot of love there in her family, not just her Dad.

The last bit of advice I gave him, was to see it not really as her. But as a trauma monster. Sometimes asleep. Sometimes grumbling. And sometimes fully awake and kicking all the furniture over. An expression of hurt through rage. Don't take it personally. It's the illness.

Difficult.

Hopefully I helped. If nothing else educating about what many others had faced with borderline. With understanding comes empathy I think.

I left it with him, if he ever wanted to talk he should feel free to get in touch. I'm sure he wouldn't, but the offer was there.

After that.

I had a drink of water. And slumped back into shitty sleep.