More so, than Not.

Today I woke up and ate breakfast, but soon fell back asleep on the couch because I've been so exhausted from this medication. And I started having some pretty intense dreams. Most of them involved me getting beat up. A lot were me being jumped in back alleys by gangs. They were looping on repeat. One dream would end and automatically begin again, but morph slightly into a different dream. By the end of my 4 hour nap, I had multiple dreams and had been punched over 20 different times. The last dream woke me up. My heart was racing and I didn't know where I was. I am grateful for some of the techniques I am learning in trauma counseling, because I was able to lay there for a minute and get to a place where I felt safe before opening my eyes. 

Ever since I was little I have been terrified of the dark. Not just a little scared, but fearfully frozen of it. That fear never went away. It has been a constant in my life. But it doesn't even touch the terror I have felt recently. I know I am not dying, but somehow am unable to convince myself of that when the flashbacks are happening. 

I keep trying to be zen and squash down the anxiety that is clawing its way up my throat. When we were little kids, my siblings and I used to pretend there were people in our stomachs who set up towns with everything we put in our mouths, and the broccoli were trees and the water was oceans, and milk drowned them all. It was an exciting way to consume meals, to say the very least. But right now it's like those little people are climbing their way out with jagged, ragged claws. And each time I swallow, a new wave of them rises in protest, swelling in my chest. It is painful and forceful, and aching. And it feels like my heart is pumping lead, and my lungs are constricting with each breath. And the rebellions  are getting stronger. 

And the rational side of me knows that there are, of course, no such things as little soldiers marching my slow death inside me. And the soft whispers of my mom talking to herself as she completes various chores and the melodies of piano linger in my ear through headphones reassuring me that I am still here. But somehow, today, I am wishing I wasn't. Everything just seems too much. I keep trying to push past all the things weighing me down and more keep piling up and crushing in. I don't know how much more I can take. And as I typed that, the song Be still my soul came on my iTunes Radio. I just sat and listened to the words. It brings me so much peace. It reminds me God hears me. Even now. 

I wish I remembered that every time I feel this way. But I don't. It sometimes is too much and I sit frozen for hours. I don't know if I'm fighting an uphill battle with this. I don't know if it's a battle I'll ever win or if it's something that anybody ever wins. I haven't shared any of this blog with friends or family because I'm so ashamed and embarrassed about the literal fight I feel like I'm waging every day.

Be still my soul. That's all I can write for now.