The darkness comes again
A page in the diary "A Day in the Life Of..."
Written by babz 12. May 2008 07:22 PM
Last night was a bad night. I was desperately tired and just wanted to go to sleep, so got into bed but lay awake for hours tossing and turning. I started thinking about things, and through a chain of thoughts started thinking about the rape. I was running through in my mind what had happened and then suddenly there was a flash of light and I was no longer thinking about it, I was back there. I was walking down the street before it had happened and in my mind I was screaming at myself to run away, to stop, that I was in danger. It wasn't a full flashback, because I was still aware of my physical body. It was almost as if my physical body and my flashback body were two seperate people, but the physical body knew what was going to happen to the flashback body. Physical me was screaming at flashback me, begging her to stop, to run away, but flashback body couldn't hear her and physical body was completely incapable of doing anything other than watch completely helplessly as horrible things happened to flashback body. I was having panic attacks, crying and screaming as though I was in physical pain. It was a horrible semi-flashback. I took extra drugs and eventually cried myself to sleep.
I had an appointment with pdoc this afternoon, I had to get him to fill in a uni medical certificate so I could get an extension on essays. Every time I read one of the, I die a little more inside. There in black and white in front of my face are the dreaded diagnoses, the tick in the box marked 'severe impact' and a circle around 'unable'. My personal shames and private traumas recorded so clinically on a piece of paper for my lecturers and tutors to see freely. I have already got extensions, but still haven't been able to do the essays in time. I have been studying really hard, but none of it seems to sink in and when it does I can't construct a sentence that says what I want. I know that I need further extensions, and I know that I am within my rights to get them, but I can't find the words. I have my email sitting open, but all I do is sit there and stare at the blinking cursor. When I put it down in an email, my pain seems insignificant, almost stupid. I don't know how to ask.
Today the world is in darkness. It hurts to breathe and I wonder why I fight to go on. It all seems too hard, too painful. On the way home I was thinking of horrible things I could do to myself. I won't do them though, because I know that this will pass like it always has. It is the blind faith that the pain will go away that keeps me here. Somewhere deep down, I know that it will pass, but it hurts so badly in the present that it doesn't seem worth it. When I cry it feels as though my chest is being ripped in two, that my heart is breaking. I sound melodramatic I know, but that is how I feel. I want to stop crying, it hurts.
I won't do anything bad to myself, I won't throw away everything I've worked for, I won't.