Category: Time

Solace, where are you?

Published on by Nour LoutfyLeave a comment

I would like to shed my skin like a snake…

I would like to change colors like a chameleon…

I know that personal growth is not always linear.

I know also that sometimes you keep on suffering until you learn the lesson.

Things are more bearable during the day. Yet, when the sun sets, and as the sky becomes darker, there is little left to be done. The few chores of the day end one by one.

I sneak back to my corner in bed. I hold my phone and do nonsense. Minute after minute, tic toc. It is past midnight already. I count the hours I have left in bed, and dread facing the next morning. I will myself to sleep but know to well that this is not how it works.

Someone else got into the control center in my head and took over. I am equally lost between trying to fight and surrendering. They are the same.

I’d do anything if I could. Like walking on shifting sand I lie on this side then on that side seeking comfort.

I finally fall asleep but my dreams are no solace. Of course they are vivid. I stopped trying to know what is true and what is not. They are as real as it gets, and also as fake as it gets.

I usually fixate on things in my dreams. Small details, they keep on coming back. I wake up without any memory of what happened. Just a feeling of weirdness and abnormality. Too much brain activity or too little. All the same.

I find small feet cuddling next to mine. They are seeking comfort and safety in me. In me…

I wake up to the sound of the alarm and hit snooze. I wish I could escape from the responsibility of being me.

I wish I could let go.

I worry about my family and how they will react – again. Pity, love, empathy, boredom, anger, what again will they feel.

I can see my temporary paralysis turning beautifully into a handicap. Will I need to be taken care of again? Till when I wonder… Will I ever be an adult?

I don’t know what to do with every single second of my day. I listen to this song then forward to another. I watch this show and then another. I go out for a smoke then decide it is too cold. I want cookies and cheese at the same time. What the hell is going on.

You know I wish I had a timeshare at a mental clinic. How cool would that be? Hello yes, this is client 44087. I am calling for room 13. Yes, is it time already. Is it empty today? Sure, like last time yes. I would like to start with the locked up package first. And I insist, don’t let me out even if I beg you too. That’s it then. See you later. Oh yes, I know the drill. No sharp objects of belts. Thank you.

Perfect customer service.

A few weeks after, my skin would have shed. Yes I am a reptile after all. Why? Oh am also a chameleon and I change colors all the time. Only difference is this is not for adaptation like reptiles. It is a malfunction, a mutation if you prefer.

At the end of the day, survival is for the fittest…

TBC

Changing psychiatrists like changing socks

Published on by Nour LoutfyLeave a comment

Waiting again this time for my 5th psychiatrist in less than one year.

I am going because of family pressure and not for any other reason.

Waiting on the red chair for her to come out and tell me in.

Recounting endless details- oh, session is over. Why am I here?

I don’t want to hurt myself

Published on by Nour Loutfy1 Comment

I don’t want to hurt myself. I do not want to end up in an emergency room.

My only weapon is my writing.

I have to fight myself as much as I have to fight the system. What on earth am I supposed to do not to end up in an emergency room? How can I control my impulses?

Could my pain make my heart explode? Is this physically possible? Will I let my children see me this way? What does the system offer to those in my position? Waiting and some more…

I wish I could feel numb like the last 48 hours. Today it hurts like an open wound. Will I keep on bleeding endlessly? will I hold this scream till the end of time? Will my tears ever dry? What can I do to protect my children from me? Leave? Go where? Die? They will be motherless just like me.

I have given all my strength in this fight. There is nothing left in me, not even pride. All what I ask is for is that it be quick. This separation that is tearing me apart, could it happen in the blink of an eye?

I am rambling, scared like a lost child in a forest. How can I be a mother when I am like that? God, if you exist help me… and if you don’t, then let me be…

On waiting

Published on by Nour LoutfyLeave a comment

I want to be readmitted to the hospital, but there is no place for me today. Maybe there will not be either till Monday. That means I have to keep my will to go for hospitalization alive till then. That means I have to give my family and specifically my babies the cold shoulder. Otherwise, I will change my mind again.

I know no one else understands the cyclical problem I am facing. Today is the last day before the weekend. This means today is the last day before total meltdown. I want to be safe before it. For others all days are the same. The dread of the weekend is creeping up on me like a thousand ants…

Will I have the will to go after the weekend? What will happen? I keep my drugs with my father. I will not go out alone. I do not even want to go out. I have to wait and waiting is what I hate the most about this whole process. If I could manage to sleep it through…

We have to wait for doctors’ appointments, for drugs to kick in, for drugs to taper off, for places in hospitals, for visits at the clinic, for permissions to go out, for the right moment to leave the kids when on perm, for the nurse to give you the pills, for the lunch tray, then dinner tray, for healing to occur, for convalescence to endure….

We have to wait to kiss our children goodbye, we have to wait to greet our children… We have to wait to explain over and over again what is wrong with us.

To hell with this waiting, yet we even have to wait for hell..

TBC

The concept of time and depression

Published on by Nour LoutfyLeave a comment

Yet another day unfolding, yet another 24 hours to kill. I wonder why we have to kill time when time sometimes kills us.

I used to break the day into sections; before, during and after my kids’ school. Now for a couple of days it is a continuum. I am not only fighting my illness, my side effects, but time.

Till when will this be? Till when shall I sit and watch life go by? Please do not tell me it shall pass.

You know when you are in love and talk to someone who has never experienced it? This exactly the same, they would understand you more on a “theoretical” level than on a real one.

I would do just fine if I was certain that this would end. You see I don’t mind being incapacitated by my condition- I want only to know if it my prognosis.

I lost trust in medication as much as I lost trust in doctors.

My best solution is to wait for these two weeks to be over. I just need the drugs to work – if they do. I will go back to bed now. At least I forced myself to change and to have a shower.

TBC