Mar 3

 Athena is no better.

Vet tomorrow. A bunch of questions. Librella shot.

It cannot go on. She is a fighter. But. She struggles to walk at all. Sometimes she just collapses. She is at best subdued. She's in pain.

I do not want to give up on her. I do not want her to suffer.

So very hard.

Talking to the vet tomorrow is going to be critical I think. It will help me come to a decision. To keep trying. Or let her go.

We are in something of a routine everyday at the moment. I carry her up and down stairs a few times a day. Carry her to the kitchen. She stumbles and goes for a wee. Comes back. Has a drink. Painkillers. Lunch. Sleeps downstairs with Hazel. In the evening it reverses.

I am sick with anxiety. Depressed to my boots. Barely functional. I do what I need to do. And elsewhere I do what I can when I can.

Hazel is being really good being a nurse maid to Athena. Giving her all her meds and dinner and watching over her. She's doing the bulk of the care. Mostly it's just sitting and waiting.

Sometimes I get a glimmer of brutal rationality. Perhaps being a mature adult. And putting Athenas decline and probable passing into perspective. But it is just glimmers. It never lasts. It's a numbing.

The anxiety and shit tends to dissipate a little in the evening. A little better. In those moments. I will make bread. Tidy a little. Run the vacuum around. Fix a computer.

Funny thing.

I can't tell if I'm hungry or wracked with anxiety. They feel very very similar. As I'm always in that anxious state. The hunger pangs go... unnoticed. And yeah. I'm not eating a lot. Or perhaps better to say, eating haphazardly. It seems. Very. Unimportant. And all of the time I am not interested. It's a mechanical thing.

I caught myself probably disassociating the other day. I say probably, because, I'm very familiar with disassociating when I feel shit. I get it a lot. This was. Kind of. Different. Everything had that surreal feel to it in the kitchen. Unreal. Or rather. Too real. Like a really really good simulation. But it was too bright. Too sharp. Fake. I had the strongest feeling I was just in a glass box. A simulation. None of this was real. All of it. Was too weird to be real. The cups. The kettle. How was any of this real ? Unnatural.

Today. I have slept a lot. The real world is too sad. Too painful. Too full of shit. I don't want to be here. It's easy to sleep. I am exhausted a lot.

My dreams wander manically. And through the fog of them this morning. A clear loud other voice cut through everything.

You don't want to, do you ?

It overrode the dream of people. I paused in my dream. Hesitating to answer.

No. I don't want to.

And that was it. I remembered it on waking. Very clear.

I am fighting myself to not entirely give in to the darkness. It's an incredibly hard fight. And I will keep on going for Athenas sake. And keep enough of me out of that darkness so I can still do what's required for her.

I have not given much thought as to what comes after. Little flashes that I don't dwell on. I think I too may well decline. And disappear. No reason to go out. No reason to live. Sad. But shit happens. And I was never a good fit for this world. 

My mind also skates over the meaning of friendship and family. Of my family. The ties there. Or. Rather. The difficulty of the ties there.

I am. In no uncertain terms. In pain. Struggling. Very sad. Fighting a stupid hard battle. And I don't even get a call. How are you. Do you want to talk.

Hazel is a trooper. Boots on ground. Doing what she can.

A friend of mine keeps in touch. How am I doing. How is Athena.

Others. Don't know the place I am in. If I communicated it. I am sure they would be concerned. Offer help.

I don't expect anything from anyone. Never have.

But I turn realities over in my head. Who helps. Who does not. Why ?

And let's be honest here. Struggling people make the worst company. High burden. Difficult. Miserable. No one is going to want to associate with me.

Perhaps I am different. When I cut through all that. Just to help a person in need.

I don't know.

I'm sure I'm not thinking entirely right anyway.

Friday. I dissambled my PC. I've had some new components kicking around - that due to obvious shit going on I have done nothing with.

I decided, pretty stupidly, I would do something with them on Friday. Anxiety high. Not wanting to do anything. Sure. Let's strip a difficult PC build and rebuild it.

It came with the small bit of logic. Keeping your hands busy. Focusing on puzzles to solve. Helps your anxiety demon not devour you entirely. But still. It was a stupid decision.

Several times during it, I felt my anxiety and emotion rise right up. Almost make me burst into tears. I can't do this. It won't fit. It won't work. Too much, too much, too much.

Yeesh.

Breathe.

Slow down. It's ok. Worst case scenario, throw it all out the window and set it on fire. That's ok.

I perservered. Missing cable.

I wisely tidied it all up and put it aside, ordering a cable.

It was only hours later I realised I had a spare in another PC that was 90% functional, but not quite fully put together. I fished that cable out. And started again.

Midnight. I am swearing at building a PC. Hazel came to help. Smaller fingers.

By 1am it was all put together. But I didn't have the heart or energy to test it. Tomorrow.

Saturday. I couldn't face it. My anxiety demon kept me pinned all day. I couldn't even plug the PC in. Too much. By the evening I had gathered enough "courage" to plug the PC in. And start testing it. It worked. But problems. Slowly. Surely. I worked my way through them. Had to do a fresh install. Lost all my software. But got it working.

Today. I can't face it again. All day. Pinned to the floor with anxiety. And then turning on myself. Feeling shit about feeling shit. How worthless I am. How pathetic. Can't even cope. Can't even adult. Why are you even here. Useless. Everyone is going to think you are pathetic.

Thank you inner critic. Much help. Very wow.

So here I am writing this. On the cusp of properly getting up. Pushing my fear, anxiety, madness down. Gritting my teeth. Dreading tomorrow. Dreading everything. Feeling sick.

Publish this. Get up Johnny. Get something to eat. Talk to Hazel a bit. Work on the computer. Breathe.

Just breathe.

Today is a terrible day.

Tomorrow maybe a better one. If not tomorrow. Eventually there will be a better one.

Hold on.