I"m writing this in my kitchen/living room at 6.40am where I am chugging paracetamol. I am recovering from something akin to flu. The time I'm taking off to recover is making me panic. I was awake over half the night worrying about it. Lesson: I really need to learn to separate my physical/mental symptoms. I have made myself worse.
OF COURSE people with mental health issues can be physically unwell. The two aren't always interlinked. I was absolutely fine until I started shivering/being sick on Sunday. I was in the zone. I was succeeding at life.
I was just unfortunate, I blame poor hand hygiene in others.
But there is a blurry line between what ails me physically and mentally.
Here is a list of my current physical ailments:
- Recovering from flu - knackered, head aches - this is okay, I can explain this one, and I know it's non-fatal.
- Nagging ache in my left shoulder - I've had this for years. HEART ATTACK.
- Stomach pains - I get these almost every day. DEFINITELY DYING. CANCER.
- Heartburn/indigestion - this occurs regularly too... DYING. CANCER.
Aaaaaand the two significant losses in my life up until now have been to? You've guessed it... HEART ATTACK and CANCER. I'm so cliche, I sicken myself.
There is a perfectly rational explanation for all of those physical symptoms up there, I'm just choosing to catastrophise matters. This is when I talk myself into total and utter self-destruction, real Armageddon Bruce-Willis-pointing-space-drills-at-my-brain stuff.
Here is an example of me catastrophising last night:
"You need to sleep. You've been unwell. You have to recover to go back to work."
"Go to sleep. Go to sleep now."
"Seriously, go to sleep."
"Why aren't you asleep yet?"
"My stomach hurts. Ow."
"Maybe it's cancer."
"Fuck! It's CANCER!"
"Well now you're not going to sleep. Well done, you berk."
"Okay, it's 2am. You haven't slept yet. Now you're going to feel awful in the morning"
"You probably won't get better now."
"How are you going to manage this one, eh?"
"You're going to spend all day worrying now too."
"And all tomorrow night as well."
"You're going to get worse."
"You'll need more time off work."
"People will ask questions."
"You'll probably lose your job."
"If you lose your job you'll have no money and you'll lose your nice house."
"OH MY GOD, WHERE WILL THE CAT LIVE?"
"YOUR FIANCE IS NEVER GOING TO MARRY YOU IF YOU'RE DOLE SCUM."
"YOU WON'T GET ANY BENEFITS, THE GOVERNMENT HATE YOUR KIND.""
"YOU ARE AN UTTER FAILURE."
This all took place gradually over approximately 2 hours. No wonder I couldn't fucking sleep, I was ending the world in my head.
Now. Let's look at where I should have had a word with myself:
"You need to sleep. You've been unwell. You have to recover to go back to work."
"Go to sleep. Go to sleep now."
"Seriously, go to sleep." HERE. STOP BEING A DICK.
I should have got up, read a book, made some tea, anything. But I was so bloody desperate to sleep that I started to berate myself, and that's when all the DOOM started occurring.
The irony is, if I die of cancer or a heart attack, I won't have a job to lose and all of the worrying will have been in vain. I do know this. But it's like smack, I keep crawling back, I've become used to being terrified.
So today I'm going to try and have a word with myself. If I have the energy. It is much harder when you've been poorly, the germs have infiltrated my forest moon of Endor and disabled my deflector shield.
I'm going to call work in 5 minutes and tell them, truthfully and rationally, that I am still unwell and will be back tomorrow.
