tramadol toxic bitch nightmares

so I wake up sweating this morning... but freezing cold... half 6am and I am in too much agonising bladder pain to reach the bathroom and I need my Tramadol which is in the bathroom cabinet and is running out anyway.... what is the matter...

gradually my dream comes back to me.... why why WHY are you so stupid so fucking useless you're in deep dark grey ocean drowning you are not working why are you not working you stupid cow..... what is wrong with you.....

your family protect you too much, they always have, you spoilt brat, stupid fucking spoilt brat, cut your hair, shave your head, SHAVE YOUR HEAD, don't you hear me, you'd be better off dead....

so this is it, i am finally drowning turning my head this way and that... trying to breathe my lungs filling up with water, is there not some reason to go on, is there not some reason to swim? am i not somebody's mother, somebody's daughter?

then suddenly we are on land, i don't understand but here is the man i respect most in the world, the head of my family, the admiral of the fleet. at a table. he is pouring out wine, from a glass tumbler. 'i just feel so tired all the time,' he says, his eyes are sad. he is giving up.

and all the time my TOXIC FRIEND her words in my dream burning my ears, i'm better than you, i'm better than you, stupid cow, spoilt brat, whining, whingeing, your family have always protected you, most people have to work for a living.... you failure, you loser, you nothing, you are worth NOTHING can you do NOTHING CAN YOU REMEMBER NOTHING

and i wake up coughing up the water in my lungs and shivering from the seaweed draped all over me thinking what is the matter with me what is THE MATTER with me? why don't i have a job why am i not married why am i not normal?

Then i remember. I have never been normal. And now I have a serious chronic illness. And before that, I had a seriously fucked up relationship. And before that - there was always something, some reason, some delay. There was always something wrong. I had too much going on. I didn't realise I had to get things together TODAY because I didn't realise I was about to get IC. I didn't realise the urgency because I had no idea I was about to become disabled by disease. Like so many innocent people in their late twenties and early thirties, I thought I had the luxury of time. If I'd have known, I'd have prepared.

Even if I HAD got things sorted and DID have a job when I'd got this illness, I wouldn't be able to work now, anyway, would I? Some days it is a struggle to move; some days, like today, I'll be texting round the school mums seeing who can take my children to school as there is no way on earth I'll be well enough and ready to do the morning school run. I wish I had a husband, though, I wish some other adult was here. I do wish that, but then my life has never run smooth.

And when my daughter was young and my son was a baby, before it all got too much, I worked, didn't i? I am waking up now, gradually, trying to remember. I was a writer; I was a teacher. And didn't I get a good degree from a top fucking university? Didn't I get straight A grades in my A levels and all kinds of awards and scholarships? Wasn't I just as clever and beautiful and smart as my beautiful daughter? It all feels so unreal, like that life happened to someone else.

And now I'm an unemployed single mum with two kids, just struggling to survive, just doing my best, shivering in bed at 6.40am, needing to reach the bathroom; alone.

And I will be ok if I can just reach the bathroom cabinet, the medicine, the toilet, my kids..... for this hour I will be ok. I hold onto the door, I hold onto the bannister, I half grope, half crawl my way into the bathroom, and I bolt the lock.