Final Race

Tuesday, March 14th, 2017 – 11:20 pm

…

In Fairview Arms, I flail to free myself from a fevered dream. I run with brilliant torches down God’s chosen path. I yell warnings, begging you follow me to safety. But my bright race cuts back to black. I wake up with my first seizure. I’m eighteen.

My head was nodding wildly and uncontrollably and I reached up with trembling hands and I pushed against my cheeks to stop the shaking. The tears on my palms announced I was sobbing. Night terrors.

Now I cry every day. One or two or ten or twenty times a day. Sometimes for as little as half a second, gasping and choking it back. Often it is while engaged in the mundane, such as making coffee. Little things.

My conversion disorder agitates and aggravates seizures in unpredictable ways. When I cross thresholds like painted lines in parking lots, my brain locks up and the body likewise in basic lockstep. Then I must one, two, three baby steps and one day at a time to push through the seizure to cross the finish line. Each time.

This is typically paired with panic attacks, sharp stabs to the chest and gasps so fast now, I have to be careful not to pass out. Once done hyperventilating and adrenaline abates, I go into seizures again. And then crying. And then.

I cycle through each and all – panic, gasps, seizures and sobs – three or four times each in a twenty minute span of trying to fall asleep. I wake up in the middle of some of the symptoms at random times. Every night.

Every time I push my walker or cane into a new room, it is all I can do to not sob uncontrollably.  All day.

Every transition every input every color every sound every noise every fear and hate and love and empathy and fuck and why and God and too much please stop at once oh no seriously I think we’re gonna crash. Help us.

I struggle every day with the fear the doctors have missed something. Whilst my spirit often soars and I am pushing myself more than before, my physical improvements seem negligible to nonexistent. I’m impatient.

My body is so numb, I barely make it to the bathroom in time, several times a day. We have to schedule reminders to eat, because my brain most often cannot hear hunger. I must also watch that I do not overeat, as I cannot feel fullness. Total disconnect.

Around 2000, seeking God, I fasted many times over a few year span. It was usually days or weeks. I had three fasts that were forty days each. Too long.

Mapping my near demise and demolition is tedious and daunting. From 2000 to 2010, I was on almost maximum doses of Fentanyl. Or Oxycontin. Or Morphine. Or Methadone. Because those are the medicines that good people do. And die.

In 2009, my father was rapidly declining. After my first opiate detox in 2010, I began to drink much more. Two shots of whisky a night became four became ten became twenty became thirty blurry nights in other homes and foreign couches. For years.

After my second opiate detox in 2013, something brain based broke loose and floated downstream and down ptsdream. I hurt so much then and now and later. I ache inside so deeply, it cannot be named. Seeing others suffering now causes me such physical pain. Not helping others is rare to resist. I’m compelled.

October twenty eighth, two thousand fifteen, twenty, thirty blurry hurried shots and my last hurrah. It was the final night I drank alcohol. For life. I had between twenty and thirty dirty drinks in a dangerously small window. Three hours.

My PTSD evolving or succumbing to conversion disorder may have turned the track when I quit drinking. There was no longer enough aqua vitae on the globe to drown a living lake of fire. If I could do it all over again, I would do it the same. Still burning.

October twenty ninth, two thousand and fifteen and fate and faith falter and freeze. I am standing again at the final crossroad and see my end coming soon. I am telling God we are damn well done drowning everything and deluging everyone in my fucked up story Ark.  He is telling me of final fires and floods. He is warning of burning torches to win loved ones lost in slumber. He is reminding me of thirty year visions and a final race to draw witnesses. He is saying it is the brightest I will ever burn. Personal best.

I will never stop burning. I will never stop running. I swear.

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