Traffic

Almost a month ago, I stood at work on a normal Monday morning looking out at the busy road, rather abnormally however I found myself wondering what would happen if I walked out the door and into the passing traffic.

" How bad will it be this time?..."

The soft ache in my belly that signals the beginnings of "that time of the month" has begun to fill me with more and more dread in the past few months.
I place my hands over my heart, wondering if there is anything I can do to stop it being so illogically afraid of things I cannot fathom. But it is not logical, and cannot be dealt with so.

I realised some time ago, that the body can withstand a great deal of physical pain. Even if at the time you may think you cannot take it.
I used to have crippling pain. I was sent home from work by taxi a few of times because of it.
I've been curled up in various inconvenient places unable to move, tears streaming down my cheeks. I thought that was as bad as it could get. But that was some time ago. And the pain softened to something I guess would be regarded as more "normal"
It is not the soft ache that I fear but the thoughts that began to accompany it.
The paranoia, the abject fear, the darkness. I'm not the most logical of humans...a little too much of a dreamer to calculate immediately the recurring theme to my fears that I was depressed. Almost every month, a couple of weeks before my period. I thought I was going insane.

"How bad will it be this time?"

Restless,sometimes I walk around at night or lay sleepless in bed. Wondering what I can do. I've spent a great deal of time and effort over the past 15 years or so sifting through my psyche to pinpoint all my weaknesses and heal them (...Erm, I have learnt that "Fix" is a dirty word...) After having depression, and using anti-depressants I never wanted to have to take them again. Never wanted to rely on a pill to make anything better for me mentally. I thought intelligence and hard work would save me.
But maybe this is beyond me. I'm terrified. Terrified that it is not in my control.

This feeling cannot be taken away with...paracetamol or ibuprofen...like the usual monthly pain.
And the idea that maybe I will need to take something else, something long term. Mind altering.
Fills me with fear and sorrow and a kind irrepressible shame that I just cannot seem to shake.
Like for all of my courage, all of my work.
I'm still a weak and damaged human being.

I feel like I've lost.

I always wanted to believe I had in me the power to become unbreakable.
That I was somehow working towards a kind of enlightenment.
I believed I had in my grasp all the answers to any ill that could befall my mind.
That the control was in my hands. My head.
But this is unpredictable.

I find myself wanting to believe that I have been this scared before.
That this is no worse than anything else I have been through.
Not depression, or violence, or grief.
It is only the fears very existence that makes it loom so...
And I tell myself how lucky I am. How much I have to be thankful for.
But it doesn't listen to logic.

I place my hands over my heart.

"How bad will it be this time?"