Stuff. Also, head stuff

So, husband treated me to IHOP new Tiramisu pancakes. It is actually good. They put in real coffee. Adam's birthday was yesterday, July eighth, and it was spent with a beautiful husky malamute mix named Haruka, owned by our friend Adam M., who was passing through to hang out. Good times were had.

Also, I had a panic attack out of absolutely nowhere. Then again, that is why they are panic attacks.
Panic attacks are such wild ravenous monsters. I am helped immensely by caffeine and clonazepam and various Ayurvedic tonics and lots of slow careful breathing with slow careful stretching (except anything that lowers my head; I get too dizzy and panicky again). But hearing, feeling and sensing my heart about to explode is terrible.
I am becoming calm.
My cats are surrounding me with adoration.

I'm going to apply some of my favorite cosmetics...
(Buxom Full Bodied Lipstick in Provocateur, It Cosmetics Vitality Lip Colors in Pretty Woman, In Love, Ruby Slippers, Tarte La Lip Creme Lipstick in Stiletto Red;
Lauren Brooke Creme Concealer in Warm Light, Tarte Creasless Maracuja Concealer in Light, It Cosmetics Bye Bye Concealer, Erzulie Perfect Match Cream To Powder Mineral Foundation in Light, Urban Decay Naked Skin Foundation in 2.0;
Too Faced Exotic Single Eyeshadow in Midnight Mist; Urban Decay Eyeshadow in Gravity; MAC Eyeshadow in Contrast; Buxom Eyeliner in Sapphire)

...and convince myself that nobody hates me and that I've done nothing wrong and that everything is all right.
There is this child inside me that firmly believes that no matter what she does, how she does it, or why she does it, someone will pull her aside and say in a low voice, "Honey, you shouldn't have done that, it's rude." And she won't understand why because parts of her brain just keep going and the parts of her brain dedicated to social cues and politeness are sleeping. And she is just afraid all the time that she has said something wrong and then she just waits and waits to be pulled aside as chastised. Even when it never happens. She waits, and she waits, shivering, because she is so completely convinced that everything she does and is will be scrutinized and scolded. I really must find a way to soothe her.

Where Is Your Mind?

You know it is a bad day when...

A Cerebral Palsy induced fall against carpeted stairs leads to a Complex Partial Seizure which leads to a Panic Attack with wild animal sobbing so intense your partner comes up and worries to death over you and carefully leads you to a couch and gives you water and holds you.

"It's just stairs," you tell yourself over and over. "You can maneuver them. It's just stairs." And at the top, exhausted by victory, you lay on the floor, weak as a new kitten, heart and head pounding to near bursting, crying until it sounds like laughing. And maybe all you can do in that horrific posictal state is laugh. On the inside. Because Epilepsy is a monster and has no qualms about gaining allies.
Now it is time for Fibromyalgia to have its turn. Burn body burn.

I am so tired. I have no more synonyms for exhausted, fatigued, beaten, weakened. I am done.
But I will never stop. If I cannot be myself I will be a dragon.

For those who know my Healthy Multiplicity: indeed, Alicia and Amara were like drill sergeants in my mind. They were the only things that kept me climbing those mountainous stairs. I love my human coping mechanisms.
Typing doesn't make me tired ever. And this must be written.



So... *cough*
I am okay. But I am not okay at all. So many painful things are inside my brain and my body.
It is okay to talk about that, right? To be not okay? To try to pretend to be okay?
See, that is why I love online friendships. Because if I cannot speak without bursting into stuttering wild sobbing, I can type slowly and people will understand. Right? Oh, my everything hurts.
I could say I have a muscle pain, or a joint pain, or a migraine... but I have everything pain everywhere. And I don't know how to explain it without it coming across as "My pain is worse than yours!" and I don't want to do that. Because all pain is horrible. My pain is no worse than yours. Pain is pain is pain.
I don't know what to say. My brain is so everywhere. I feel so split open and raw and drifting. I think some of the things keeping me together are my fictional characters, who still demand their stories.
I want to sob and scream and howl until I am so raw that I cannot speak. Is that okay? I can do that, right? Nobody will bitch at me for complaining, right? I just don't know. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to feel. Fear is something that feels flat but understandable. Like am emotion I am aware of but unable to truly experience in a deep true way. Like crying. It is a thing that is happening. I just feel confused. Why do I feel?
You know?

Oh, yes. The seizure. Oh, Alicia. She appeared to me so quickly, so fiercely, I had no choice but to grab her outstretched hand and run with her. She yelled, "Come with me now! You need to get through the looking glass! There is no time! Amara is waiting! Serena is waiting! Go, go, go!" and she almost shoved me through the portal, and all I remember is Amara catching me in her arms... Amara with her truly calico hair and her stormy eyes of deep purple and darkest blue and pure gold, her short slim muscled hourglass body that held me in an iron grip, my mouth against her olive-colored neck, and our tumble to a cavern floor that was lit with sunlight and moonlight, so I could see her properly, how she was only a few inches taller than me, her mouth pouty and full, her oval face the dream of every American woman in a plastic surgeon's office, her straight teeth bared in strain. She got to her feet gracefully and looked down at me and said in the voice of temple bells, "Rest now. Serena will be here soon. I've never fully introduced myself, but that can wait. We have so much time."
I shook my head. "Alicia said there was no time--"
Amara smiled and entranced me. "Only in her dimension. Here, there is every time. I am everlasting, after all. I love and guard your entire mind and brain, remember? I work with my sister, Amber, who encases everything in your varied forms of spirit and soul and energy and power. Alicia and Serena are limited. Amber and I are unlimited. We shall be with you until the end of everything. You hurt badly. I sense it. Serena will be here in a moment. I will stay with you."
I stared at her. "I've never known you until now. I love you."
"Yes. You were meant to. I am the culmination of your neurology, your neurochemistry, your biochemistry, the stuff in your head that help make you the things that are you. A Self. A Mind. A Brain. I change as you need to change. I will always be here."
Amara my immortal began to slowly fade, and Serena came running. She gathered me in her arms and murmured soothing words, and suddenly I felt as calm and as safe as I ever could.
And then I awoke, and I was a person climbing the stairs.
And I climbed the stairs, sobbing and forcing myself, and at the top of the stairs I lay crying, and then my husband found me and helped me to my work couch and gave me water, and I couldn't talk about my girls, but it was all right. I would be all right.