This week I am frustrated. I'm annoyed. I want to scream "IT'S NOT FAIR!" from the rooftops until someone takes notice and bundles me into their arms for a big comforting cuddle, where I can sob until I'm dry. But I won't.
I will take a breath, wake up in the morning, take my meds and get on with the day, pretending to be fine. For a given value of fine.
Now this may make a bit of a depressing read, but this week I've been depressed. Not clinically depressed, not diagnosed depression, just sad, very sad, I suppose, and frustrated, and annoyed, and upset. We all get like this sometimes, don't we? And I felt alone, although surrounded by friends and family. I'll tell you why.
I have Addison's Disease.
Now, for the most part, adfosond doesn't make me feel this way. Doesn't give me this hole in the pit of my stomach and tears picking my eyes.
Usually, I'm fine.
I might be tired (I'm usually tired), but I'm fine.
Not this week.
At the weekend I went to a party - a perfectly normal thing for a 30yo to do, and something I've done many times during the last ten years, since I was diagnosed with Addison's. There have been times when I've stumbled home at 6.30am, drunk as a Lord, and then got up the next morning with no major dramas.
This last week had been a busy week for me, longer hours and earlier starts, several evenings out on top of this, and for some reason is been sleeping really badly. But sometimes that's life, right?
So I went to this party. It was already scheduled to be an all-nighter so I was prepared with pyjamas and bedding in case we did decide to sleep at all. And truth to tell, it was one of the best parties I've been to. It was full of new friends - some I'd only met a couple of times or never before, none I'd known more than a year. But a more welcoming and lovely group of people I couldn't hope to meet! I had a blast. Alcohol was taken, musical theatre songs were sung along to, jokes were made.
And then. And then, at 4 or 4.30am, everyone had just gone back inside and is decided to stay sitting on a little stone step in the air. And suddenly I felt something, like a flood bursting through a dam, a darkness descending upon me. Phone in hand, I tried to send a message to my friend, asking for a glass of water. I'm not sure what happened after that. The rest of the morning has come back to me in flashes, in moments. I'm not a crier, not at all, but I remember sobbing. I remember holding onto my friend's hand for dear life, a lifeline to a world that cared, away from the black one inside my body. I remember being sick, and retching, and feeling uncomfortable, and scared, and helpless. Trusting the kind voices around me while I kept my eyes tightly closed, from sadness, embarrassment - the tiny part of me that was awake to the moment was (And remains) acutely embarrassed. I could hear them discussing and looking up Addison's. They called an ambulance and the paramedics took me from the warm foetal position i was curled into, to their ambulance and gave me my emergency injection.
I came round, and perked up.
They gave me fluids and took me and my kind and tired friends to the hospital. Once I was admitted to a ward they left to go back and get some much-needed sleep, and I spent the rest of the day doing the same, between blood pressure checks or offers of a cup of tea.
My housemate came and picked me up when I was discharged, and we all day together to watch a series we'd started. Within five minutes I was asleep. I woke at the end credits and went straight to bed; it must have been around 8pm. I slept til late morning, when I woke, took my meds, and got up for a cup of tea and to try to work on a job application due this week. I baked brownies to say thank you to my friend for looking after me (she didn't get them but I'll bake more!) I went to bed early but couldn't sleep because of the ache in my belly.
A couole of days later, I was due to go and stay with some family, so I got muself to the bus station and onto a bus. I felt rotten. I felt miserable. I thought I should feel better by now, it's been 3 days.
I felt frustrated at the weakness in my body. I felt embarrassed looking back at that night (or morning). I felt sad. I felt human. I felt mortal.
I was quiet and pale, and had little appetite (despite staying with an expert cook and feeder). I went to bed early and cried. Not much, but I'd been holding it all day. I thought "I'm only 30!" I thought "it's not fair!" I thought "I'm such a burden to my friends! They didn't sign up for this!"
There didn't seem to be a particular reason that it had happened. It's the most sudden that it has ever come on me - I've rarely been in crisis (as it's called) but there's usually some warning. And not knowing why is hard. It means not knowing if or when it'll happen again.
It made me feel old. I've been to all-nighters before without any problems. It made me want to rail against anyone and anything for the unfairness that could make me feel so unwell and so alone.
It made me so grateful for my friends.
I'm much better today, nearly a week later. I'm fine. I'll always be fine.
