Into the void...

2003-04-04

2:44 p.m.

There is definitely something wrong with me. I can’t quite figure out what it is, but there is definitely something wrong. For the past several days, I’ve had a really sore throat. Now, it was only REALLY bad for one day, but that day was fucking miserable. I felt like there was a golf ball stuck in the back of my throat. Now, it just feels a bit scratchy. The throat isn’t really the big complaint anymore.

I’m not quite sure what the big complaint is.

Almost every night this week, I’ve gone to bed around 8:00 or 8:30 in the evening. I just can’t seem to be awake any later than that. I get home, I eat dinner, and I’m out by 8:30pm. And for the past few days, I’ve just felt really disoriented, like I don’t know what the hell is going on. I feel kind of like I’m going to puke, kind of like I’m going to cry, and kind of like I’m about to go into a seizure. Everything looks foggy. My head feels heavy and light at the same time. I’m dizzy. I can’t eat without feeling sick afterwards. I can’t feel my extremities.

I don’t feel like myself; I feel like an empty body.

This morning, I nearly had a heart attack because I couldn’t find anything to wear. That’s not really normal for me. My heart’s been beating really fast. I’ve been extremely irritable. I keep feeling like I’m choking. I’ve felt like I’m constantly on the verge of hyperventilating. I’ve been completely void of anything to say to anyone about anything. I had a headache this morning that hurt so badly I could barely move without it throbbing so much that I thought I was going to fall over.

I think I may be sick, but I’m not sure.

Before I went on medication, I used to get “visions” all the time. I call them “visions” for lack of any other way to describe them. Most of the time, these visions were of cars hitting me as I crossed the street. It was also common for me to see broken glass on the ground and get a vision of myself picking up the glass and shoving it through my wrists. I used to constantly think I was falling down stairs or being followed by someone who was about to shoot me or stab me.

Common paranoia, I guess.

The thing that made these visions go from relatively normal to not so normal was the fact that I would literally lose track of all touch with reality for the few seconds these visions took place, and I would come back to myself wondering where the hell I was and what the hell I was doing. Not only that, but I also began to physically feel the effects of the visions. If I saw myself fall down stairs, I would physically flinch and involuntarily make some exclamation of pain even though I was just fine.

Eventually, the visions got to a point where I could feel the sensation in my brain so intensely that the separation from reality collided with my consciousness so violently that I would feel as though a blade had pierced through my skull from one ear through the other. The pain I felt during these experiences would literally knock my head aside as if the blow had actually occurred.

It was not fun.

Well, the medication has helped these problems dramatically. I very rarely get these visions anymore. But I got one yesterday on the bus ride home, and it made me practically jump out of my skin in an effort to catch myself. We’d driven past a track that had hurdles set up on it, and I thought to myself, “It would be fun to jump over hurdles.” So, I envisioned myself running track and jumping over hurdles, but I missed one, caught my ankle on it, knocked it over, and landed on top of the overturned hurdle with my leg all crunched beneath me. Of course, aside from the crunched leg that probably broke were the skinned hands that had tried to catch my fall and the knee that was scraped down to the bone.

Ow.

I hate the visions. They hurt, and they make me feel crazy. So, as if I didn’t have enough trouble to begin with this week, now I’m experiencing painful bursts of craziness that I haven’t experienced in years. Goddammit, why can’t I just feel healthy for one day?

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