Mar 26

 Consigned yesterday to the bucket of CFS and mentalry oblivion. Didn't do anything. Didn't move. Hardly ate. A few bathroom breaks. A few refills of water bottle. That's it. And I wrestled with how shit I was and just doubled down into rest and trying to shift my sleep pattern.

Today. I have a little more stability. Frustratingly, resting hardcore like this can nudge the needle. I hate that I have to do it. But. Here we are.

On reflection, my slow descent this week pretty much fits into a classic CFS, PEM style crash. You don't pay at the time. You pay after. And your autonomic system lurches about. Too many alarms going off makes the whole thing impossible to exert any control over.

You'd think by this point I'd get it. And I do. But. It's an ass. To be fair, this time it was slightly different. I haven't properly burned on something since getting ill. I burned. And stayed in flight, hyped up for a few manic days. Before everything crashed. You can kind of think of it like running on adrenaline up to a point. That isn't what it is. But. Eh. And like jumping from a cliff - you stay airborne for a few seconds, before inevitably plummeting to the canyon floor. Wile E Coyote style. Splat.

My mood tanked yesterday to its worst point. Hopeless. I am. A shade better today. Yesterday. Sigh. I wanted to end it all. It's not irrational. That's the problem. It's very rational. It's irrational to continue dancing like a fucking monkey whilst traversing hell.

But. I'm still here. As ever. So far. Rolling the dice. The scars and wounds I take through those phases are horrible. Another battle. Another war front. Another set of knife wounds no one sees. It's just more background evidence for "this is shit". And no one gets. They see me. They don't see that. They just see my stupid face. Or the sound of my voice. They can't see the battle fought. And at this point, I wouldn't even know how to frame it anyway. Business as usual ? Oh yeah, I traversed some of the grittier layers of hell yesterday. Oh yeah ? It's. Trivialising. It utterly fails to give context. And most people don't even get it anyway. Hell to them is a weird theoretical thing that surely could be cured by Just Going For A Walk.

In any case.

Today I have reached out to a friend. Going to go have a cup of tea and a chat. See how they're doing. This is me making a conscious effort. On multiple levels. I don't have it in me to stay long. No reflection on my friend at all. Zero. They are lovely. It is instead wholly a reflection on me. Fragile. But showing willing.

I also need to go get groceries. The burn. The crash. Has left me completely empty of supplies. I have porridge. That's about it. It's a vague priority. A lot of the times like this. Such. "worldly" things just fade out into noise. Things like groceries. And eating. Become.... unimportant. I can easily just skip days. The day turns. I don't do anything. Drink water. Sleep. I am aware how "sketchy" that is compared to "normal". But eh. It is reflective of where I am. That too has issues about normalisation. What's normal to you. What's normal to everyone else. The gap. Trying to shout from one edge of the gap to the other. The words instead caught on the wind to blow away. Meaning disappears. Understanding doesn't happen. Isolated. On the other side of the gap.

My old friend is visiting Norfolk for a few days. Staying somewhere around the Royals. I've been invited for a walk tomorrow. We shall see. I did a little walk into the city after therapy on Monday. It was extremely hard. There are times when my... bullshit... completely wipes you out of doing something mundane like walking 200 yards. It's like trying to climb a mountain whilst carrying a car. And then other days. It lifts a bit. And that becomes... not easy.. but... far less debilitating. It is curious how it works like that. What exactly is the mechanism that's bouncing around there.

I can feel a deep sadness lurking in the background. A shadow from yesterday. But. It is mostly quiescent for the moment. But it's presence is there. Not gone. Just sitting. And watching.

Meh.

I still haven't thought about work. On what to do. No clue. I am no way near recovered. My instinct tells me a week out is not nearly enough. I'll review at the end of the week. And see where I am.