A Day-mare a day keeps the joy away

My littlest one said that the back of her legs hurt today and yesterday.  Maybe it's just growing pains. She had a low grade fever.  Oh shit, what if it's leukemia?  I pride myself on being healthy.  What if she has cancer and I couldn't protect her from it?  What would I do?  Well, I wouldn't take her to the hospital because if it was cancer, they'd want to hook her up to all sorts of machines and crazy medicines that might just kill her little body.  I'd take her to my doctor in FL and come up with a plan.  She and I would go to the Gerson Institute to learn about their therapies.  I would research every other alternative to help her body heal.  But in the process I would risk being jailed for being a "negligent" parent.  The fear of having her taken away from me - either by cancer or by a medical or government organization - becomes real.  When I have these "day-mares" (I am wide awake, they can happen any time of the day), my body and mind are in the story.  It's reality.  Until I can find my footing again.  Often I need to check in with my DH and let him know what's going on so he can be a stable voice amidst the chaos of the terror I'm in.    

This isn't a one time scenario.  This happens all.the.time.  Maybe the story is a little different, but the plot is simple: something happens to a daughter or myself and there isn't a damn thing I can do about it.  I feel powerless and terrified.  Sometimes the terror that comes upon me is violent - the stories are too horrific to write.  I feel them in my body.  I feel the panic, the powerlessness, the terror.  And I don't know how to stop them.  

I've had therapy.  Lots.  Including exposure therapy.  That was intense.  But I still have some of the same damn symptoms though they're not (at least right now) as overwhelming as they were a couple of years ago.  

I've done healing prayer.  I've cried out for help so many times my throat is sore from groaning and my eyes should be emptied of tears.  I've asked.  I've listened (maybe not as well or as much as I could.)  

I've read books.  I've journaled.  If it's there to do and isn't too crazy, I've done it or have it on my list to try!  

For now I work with horses.  They help me to be in the moment.  They're partners in re-wiring my brain.  

I long for the trauma to be resolved.  For my waking moments to be dreams - good stories with happy endings, with hope and peace.  Laughter and lightness seem to be so fleeting; oh, how I would welcome them as steady companions if I could.    

But I'm not there.  I'm still not convinced that my daughter doesn't have leukemia.  I realize that it's a bit (ha!) hypochondriacal.  But I came by that honestly.  Maybe I will write a story with these plots and characters and let it work its way out through me.  There are great authors who must be working something out - Pat Conroy and Jodi Piccoult come to mind.  

So what if something horrible was wrong with my little one - what then?  My heart would shatter.  So much of what I believe about life would be proven - yet again.  And honestly I just wouldn't want to go on.  So many dreams of growing old with her.  So many hopes.  So much laughter and life lost.  That would be too much.  And yet there's something in me that feels that I know that pain already and is drawn to it like a moth to light.  

It's like emotional cutting.  Through the stories I let some of the pain out and those old buried memories can speak.  And my brain feels "normal" - can't be too happy around here...no, no, wouldn't want that?@!  Oh if the rewiring could just speed up a little bit!!  I want to be happy, not even absent from pain, but simply not drawn to it.  

Today was a good day.  Perhaps it was almost too much for my brain to handle, so I sabotaged it through moments of terror.  

Truthfully, I don't know.  Just not clear what is going on and what to do.  My only Hope seems to have left me or just doesn't think that I need rescuing as soon as I do.  Tomorrow will come and have it's day-mares of its own.  

Screw it.  

For now, I'm going to finish making cocoa oat balls and enjoy the moment.  

Welcome to me on the inside.