I've been without much emotion for a long time. I felt sad, but it always was bland, simple, mindless. I had little interest in anything, in people, in playing. It's probably depression, actually that's what it has to be, but it didn't impede on my going about my day so it didn't really matter to me.
Recently, I got really sick. After months of stomach pain seeming to ebb and then swell up again with a vengeance, I went to a clinic. Then the ER, when the clinic couldn't help. Then a doctor, and the doctor recommended me to a GI specialist. They did an endoscopy, and discovered I have H.Pylori (a bacterial in the stomach) and moderate gastritis (an irritation of the stomach lining). This is the first sickness I've ever had where it was serious, where I was really sick. And even though the doctors seemed to think I should be fine, that the treatment was a "tough regimen" but something that I should be able to get through, it was horrible. It felt like it was getting worse, and I've since clawed my way back to something somewhat normal. But even now, when I'm getting well again, I'm in constant worry that I'll slip back to the agony and I'll be shut up and missing out on everything again. Missing out on seeing my son, on talking to people about anything but being sick, on playing a game I just made, on all of it.
But mostly, what this sickness has brought about, is emotion. Specifically, crying. I know, crying isn't exactly an emotion, but it is accompanied by an overwhelming something- something I can't even name- that hits me too hard to handle. It started with just the sickness, the amount of pain I was in and for how long it lasted. And it was made worse by how the doctors said there was nothing they could do for me, that I'd have to suffer through the medication and just be strong. It was made worse still how, although I was unable to function, I couldn't go to work, I wasn't qualified for TDI. Stress of money, pain, being an absent mother... it's hard. And it's scary, and guilt causing and horrible, and it made me feel so pathetic that I'd just start crying. And I couldn't stop. It all felt like a culmination of everything I'd been missing for the past few years, the ability to actually experience sadness, happiness, misery, frustration, regret, longing, it all came in. And even though I'm recovering from the sick, the emotions aren't stopping. Watching movies while I sit alone all day, I'm crying for fictional problems, for their mishaps and touching moments, for their happiness that isn't mine, that I don't even care about. A wedding brought me to tears, a groom singing to his new bride. A mother and daughter exposing their hurt, their apologies. I've been spending time with my mother, and my mother in law, because I'm so sick of being alone in this unhappiness, of being lonely. I've never been one to need someone to comfort me, to just be there with me, but I needed it.
What I really want is for me to come back. I want myself back. I want my indifference, I want to feel strong, independent, capable. I want to come back to my life. I want to go to work, manage bills, not feel as though I can't handle anything anymore. I feel so delicate, like I'll break, and all the pain and misery of being sick will come back.
Even now, I'm crying because I remember feeling so helpless, so out of control, and I'm angry with myself for feeling it. I'm sick of all of it. I don't want to start crying just because my son started school, or because I think about him growing up, or how the world will be different when my mother dies. I don't want to be touched by tender moments, or well up at a sad story. I've never been one to cry much, and now I can't seem to stop.
I want it to stop. All of it.
