Today, I am drained

I didn’t sleep last night.

Not one little bit.

Every time I would drift off I would startle myself awake, much like a newborn who hasn’t lost their startle reflex yet, one of the reasons why people used to put their babies to sleep on their stomachs before scientists realized that this caused them to die of SIDS.  I don’t think that is why babies die of SIDS, but what do I know?  Babies have a startle reflex to  protect them.  It’s left over from pre-evolutionary times when babies hung on their mothers, much like monkey babies do.  The startle reflex causes them to “hang-on” to their mothers so they don’t fall off.   And the reflex remains, un-needed, much like a gall bladder or an appendix is no longer needed.

My startle reflex came from being stressed and very, very anxious.  And not feeling safe.  The times that I was able to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time, I had dreams I was fighting someone.  Not arguing-fighting, fighting-fighting; like punching-hitting-scratching-slapping-defending myself fighting.  It wasn’t a safe feeling.  It felt bad.

Today, I tried to sleep some more.  After I fulfilled an obligation of taking some photos for a friend from work, I stripped down to my underwear, crawled under the covers and tried to comfort myself into sleeping.

Sleep wouldn’t come.

Every noise seemed like a warning, every movement felt threatening, the pounding of my heart felt like a drum, loud and methodical, but not soothing; more frightening than anything.

Even as I sit here in bed alone, except for the dogs outside my door I have nothing but that heavy, hard feeling of someone pushing on my chest and my gut.  Draining me.  When I am without sleep, I feel nauseous.  I feel cold.  I am feeling so nauseous .  My arms feel so exhausted, typing this feels like strained effort.  I can’t take a deep breath.  I don’t know how this happened.

In one hour I will go to work.

I will put on a happy face and do my job that I hate, but I have NO idea how I will do it.

Last night I went to work, and somehow during those five hours my life got turned upside down in a weird and bizarre way that doesn’t make any sense.  I can’t wrap my head around it, and it’s just. fucked. up.

The issue is not huge, just strange.

It seems that something in our home was put in a strange place and no one, not me, not HG, not the girls, not our neighbor, not our recent house guest has any idea how it got there.  And because  of this, I feel like I’m going crazy.  Crazy, wondering how it happened, and crazier because I’m being blamed and I didn’t do anything.  All I did was go to work.

Am I losing my mind?

Sometimes the girls will lose or mis-place something, often blaming one of their sisters for doing it.  “She lost my whatever,” they will scream to me, only to find later that they had it all along.

I keep waiting for that to happen.

Please, let that happen.

Before I make myself crazy.

Crazy-er.