My frustration is at a limit. I can't say it's at THE limit, since there's no knowing when it may get even worse. I am trying to be pro-active. 

I have deleted Facebook on all my devices. I'm looking for yoga classes in town. I've gotten a tai-chi DVD through the library. I'm considering taking a few days off from life up here, and heading down to the Cape for my own writer's retreat. Perhaps putting my thoughts down on paper, or a screen, will take me down a few notches.  

I am so fed up. I'm fed up with feeling like a burden. I'm sick of biting my lip instead of telling people "I'm not ok!!!!!!!!!!" because WHO WANTS TO HEAR THAT AGAIN?!?!?! I'm tired of disappointing my husband, my family, my friends. I'm so sick of this horrifying illness and the way it's fucked my head into a stupor. I'm fed up with paying tons of money and time toward medications and treatments and health plans, only to confound another set of experts.  This is becoming my life's work. 

I never wanted my life to be like this. 

I know that this is some form of mania coming upon me, because I don't want to kill myself. I just want to go away.  I want to exist in a new place with new people and new experiences. Of course, what I'm running from will never leave, and that is the illness. My naturopath says to me "Stop thinking of this as a mental illness, and just remember that it's a sodium/potassium ratio upset." I appreciate her wanting me to feel less like a mental patient, but when the symptoms of WHATEVER is going on in my body make me feel like some sort of superhero or burden or recluse or unwatedwhatthehellisallofthisinmyheadandwhywontitstop person, or all of those things at once, then guess what? I'm a mental patient. 

I love writing that I'm not JUST a mental patient; some days I even believe it. I'm a wife and a daughter and a sister and a librarian and a singer and a Whovian and a Trekkie and a whole bunch of other things. But you know what really burns my ass? I'm a mediocre one of all of these things. I'm not actually good at anything. When my mother teases me, she says "You EXCEL at crazy." Unfortunately, that's not even true. I'm this planning ahead, ok here we go, watch out for this, be careful of that, maybe something's happening right now type of crazy. I can't even jump head-on into the bloody illness. 

My therapist laughed at me today: "Wow, Laura, you can't even enjoy mania." And she's right. I'm so concerned with "what happens next" and being proactive and being a good girl and doing what I'm told that I don't even enjoy the madness. I just fear it. 

That's what it's come down to. I fear my life. I fear tomorrow. I fear right now. I fear next week and next year and next month. 

I simply fear. 

And the fear is maddening in and of itself. Because admitting my fear to myself and others, makes me even more of a pitiable sight. Now Dad will say "here comes the victim" and Momma will remind me to enjoy things, and Gina will try to calculate how best to approach me, and Chris will joke and try to make me laugh, and Meg will remind me to still smile through it, and Kate will text to check in daily and Paulie..... oh Paulie. Paulie will stand and be strong and try to counsel and kiss me once and a while and try not to sink under the great bloody abyss of Laura. He will be the hero of the piece. 

And I will hate myself for it.