week 5 - emotional meltdown

With an attempt to cleanse my system without affecting the results of my tests, my situation rapidly deteriorated. While no new symptoms presented themselves during the week, the effort of trying to remain positive and limit the impact of anything to my team was wearing me down. Given the kinds of feedback I get when I am “normal” and “in control”, I was putting a lot more effort into not only attempting to be “normal” but trying to overcome that perception and reality all together. This was both emotionally and mentally taxing. It’s amazing I found time to work at all really!

Anyway, with great relief, the weekend came. My husband and I went to a lovely little French café called Sel et Poivre in Darlinghurst. They have some really nice breakfasts and one of the only places that we’ve been to that sell bowls of coffee (though given that I don’t drink coffee I realise this may seem irrelevant). Here we both enjoyed some lovely fresh baguettes with butter and jam and discussed who it was that put ham and cheese on everything. Seriously, who started that?
I found my state of mind a little conflicting. On one hand I just wanted to stay at home, not speak to anyone, and be grumpy and self-loathing on the couch. On the other hand, I wanted to give my husband a bit of a break from me, which required other people, and me to go out with him and them.

Going out on the bike always seems to calm me. So that seemed the logical answer. We would take advantaged of the beautiful weather, we would be doing something together, but for the most part I just had to concentrate on the road and not talk to people. We did go visit some friends after brunch, and for the most part that was uneventful from me, but their invitation to go out later that evening, with more people, was something that I knew I wouldn’t cope with well. So we didn’t go.

Later that weekend, I had managed to have a screaming fit and have a panic attack that put me in a fairly serious life-threatening situation. I was hyperventilating. I couldn’t function, I couldn’t even really respond. Fortunately for me, my super hero husband was on hand and helped me out. Though the crying for the rest of the day was probably a little bit much for him to take.

It’s these moments when people point out the obvious as if you haven’t noticed. “You’ve been in a bad mood all morning” – “No really? I hadn’t noticed. After all, I’ve only been poisoning myself for the last 5 weeks, trying to stop the symptoms that I knew would suck, and attempting not to revert back to a person I left behind – but thanks for pointing that out!” I know people are trying to be helpful, but sometimes, things like that are not helpful. Not in these conditions anyway.

I did try and make it up to my husband for being such a crack pot, and bought some pastries from a place called “The Bourke Street Bakery” – recommended to me by a friend. It was really nice. We got some pain au chocolat’s, pizza, pies, brulee and chocolate tarts. They were delicious. Highly recommended for those that can, should.

But even with all these lovely treats, I was over this test. I wanted it to finish. I hated it, the food and myself. I felt like crap constantly, and I hated how I was hurting the people around me with no real sense of control or ability to stop it.