Hitting Four Weeks and Experiencing Emotions

It’s been almost a month. Crazy. It’s been almost a month, and I’m not sure when I’ll be discharged, but it definitely won’t be in the next few days, and I’m secretly happy that it won’t be in the next few days since a little part of me knows that it isn’t time to go home yet.

My body doesn’t like new medications: they often don’t work for me, and I inevitably get those weird side effects that people (not me, I swear) start forum posts to brag about because if you have to deal with the unpleasantness, you might as well be internet famous, or at least get a lot of internet sympathy/internet complaining out of it.

And so, hesitant as I am to break the illusion and reveal myself anything less than a super-patient void of negative emotion, I’ll admit that I’m kind of scared. Nope: really scared.

Scared that after all this time in the hospital, removed from my life, only half-working on my thesis, etc. (not that I have a choice, but my guilt complex has been doing its thang as of late), the medications that I’ve been adjusting to won’t end up doing anything.

After what brought me here in the first place, scared of my brain.

Mostly just scared. Is generalized scaredness a thing like generalized anxiety is?

There’s this rhetoric of strength attached to being “sick”: fighting one’s illness, conquering one’s disease etc. This language leaves little room for words that better speak to my current reality, “scared” being at the top of the list.

I suspect, though, that it’s OK to be afraid, as long as I don’t let fear consume me, and it’s kind of empowering to admit that I’m not striding through this month-long-and-counting hospitalization like a total champ (don’t get me wrong, I’m still a champ, just not a total one). Life’s not great right now, and I’m allowed to acknowledge that, just as I’m allowed to do as many crossword puzzles as I want, wear sweatpants all day, and order ice cream on every dinner tray.

Things will, however, get better. Sooner rather than later, I hope: I have a whole summer of frozen yogurt and Murakami in the park to look forward to.