Marionettist's Escapee

Trapped in a deadened slumber, my body sinks into the bed. I am awake but my brain is only dimly aware of the world, far away, muffled through a lens and filter of the sleep only those who've gone days without it understand.  My heart is suddenly galloping, a terrified thoroughbred, mane trailing, tail horizontal, clip clopping manically through my arteries causing anxiety to follow in its hoofbeats. My heart is trying to escape a throbbing bass reverberating up my throat.

Adrenaline is flooding my system in a  desperate push to move me to act in response to the poison it's sounding the alarm for.  The smell of chemicals burn my nasal passages,  grip my neck, my throat muscles clench in and out touching each other in painful escalating speed. My chest aches and asthma is a medieval corset. It squeezes my lungs. Instinctively my breathing shallows and the exhale whistles in a thready gasp. 

My brain lets rip a muted roar for oxygen. Words are beyond my capability. I mime uselessly at Ma gathering all my strength to wildly eyeball my nebuliser, my hand a dying fish on its last pointless flop against my chest as life giving oxygen drains from me. 

We suck at charades or rather Ma does.  Yesterday while paralysed having stopped breathing, tears leaked out of my eyes, my body's distress streaming rivulets down my face as I tried desperately to get her to notice my unmoving chest. My muscles remained stubbornly fixed my eyes unblinking. I had been here before, paralysed, not breathing but some part of me had known to preemptively put oxygen on... this time I was not so fast. Even then the nurses called a code and started resuscitation as my lips turned blue. Screaming, "Come back Amara, come back." I was right there but helpless in my silent bubble.  Locked in.

Have you tasted the poison of chronic infection? It drips steadily down your burning, aching throat, throbs and leaks in your ears. That is what's happening except I can also feel my cells ablaze with stuttering inefficiency.

A galaxy of cells sputtering and choking on tendrils of infection. Webs of bugs catching cells and causing my immune system to misfire. 

The fighting cells, warrior cells are weakening my body in their battle to thwart these infections and viruses. Draining my energy dramatically like a car with a battery that goes dead suddenly. 

My body is desperate for the poisoned Snow White slumber to recharge and build the energy necessary to untangle my immune system warrior cells from their battle. It is a crash episode one that echoes my earliest days of 18hours of sleep daily and 6hours of zombie. Stacked on top are neurological symptoms  twisting my body into contortionist dance coordinated by a wicked marionettist formed from the bugs that riddle my brain and bones, a hive mind demanding my body seize, convulse, freeze me in paralysis and cease my breathing. 

I am not destined to be a marionette forever. One frayed cord snaps off at a time. The more determined I am, the more focussed, I find myself using my contortions to pull tension on the elaborate construction holding my body in the mad marionettist's rough hands.  His beloved frame is dragged haphazardly across the sharp edges that inevitably meet my body. Each time those strings wear and fray, a fine fibre of yarn, one strand at a time discreetly snaps and I am ever closer to my escape.

I only love you boo!!!

Fury. That is where I'm at. And it is the filter through which I see, hear and interpret everything. Red hot fury. I have not slept you see. Still. For weeks. And for somebody who requires more sleep than most, no sleep is making me homicidal. Grace has fled, tolerance is scarce and patience is nigh.

Having a conversation with me is like playing a brutal game of truth or dare. Yesterday I actually deleted a facebook friend because they used excessive punctuation. I kid you not. Mind you it is a pet grievance, like writing in CAPS, it is so offensive, just not usually a travesty.

So consider yourself forewarned, I am intolerant and slightly psychotic, that is when I am not falling over slurring like a drunkard. Then you can nod and smile at me and hope I won't punch you in the face. I can make no guarantees. But you can be pretty sure since my motor skills are kaput, my vision is blurred and my reflexes non-existent that I won't connect anyway so you're probably safe.

As for sleep, I have forgotten what that is. So yes I am tired all the time, but no I don't sleep all the time. I DON'T SLEEP AT ALL. My god now I've pissed myself off.

Okay so I'm off to try another sleeping tablet, see if this one works. In the meantime my brain has decided to bombard me with a made up R&B song about some sappy girl in love. 'I only love you boo, it's true I do.' So I leave you with that marvel of song writing. Try sleeping on that people.

PS - I am not responsible for this drivel, my subconscious appears to be stoned through sheer lack of sleep and it is currently in control of my body.

Insomnia

So I have had insomnia. It makes me a very cranky and very fragile. I can barely keep this shit together. But... usually, every day I laugh. And since most of us suffer with insomnia in cycles I was wondering how I could share that gift of laughter with you.

I am not sure you'll get quite the kick out if it that I do, I actually just spat a mouth full of water over the floor... again.

My kitty Cooper refuses to acknowledge my insomnia and instead has decided to assume the position of head pain the ass and mini terrorist which involves him waking me when I do finally sleep.

This is what he woke me with this morning. 

Sigh, it's a shame he is so flipping cute.

Bitter Zzzzz

The flames of an impotent rage are burning in my stomach, futile and frustrating.  An ache cloys in the hollow of my throat making my hands flutter uselessly to my neck as though warding off danger.

It is the powerlessness that fuels this fire.  The sense that I cannot affect anything, not even my ability to sleep or stand.  An evil snivelling greedy intruder insomnia has slithered into my house and gorged on my sleep leaving me starving.  And I cannot find the power or control to hold my muscles into any practised positions, so my mind throws itself uselessly against the antagonism this intruder has enveloped me in.

And then a woman turns up, for an appointment I had cancelled.  And she is sent straight upstairs to me in spite of my vocal insistence that she not be.  She too is an employee of the department of ‘no listening’.  And as I try to corral my rebellious thoughts and coerce my tongue into something coherent she talks at me and over me, wasting my greatly depleted energy on repeat.  It has turns my insides burning amber with an impotent fire storm of rage that cannot be quelled.

I have no power.  There are no choices to be made.  And as my friends face their struggles with attempts at being Zen, I find little to be thankful for.  I want to go back to the days before the intruder came when although I was exhausted beyond comprehension, I could sleep.  Heavy drunken sleep, but sleep nonetheless.  Now I flail uselessly about growling and stomping like a toddler learning to master their motor skills.

In the days before he gorged on my sleep, I could at least be thankful for the painful awareness that came with consciousness.  Today I find nothing to be thankful for. 

I am alive, I should be thankful for that.  And maybe tomorrow I can be.  If only that bastard intruder would leave me some sleep scraps, even crumbs.  Then I promise to be thankful.