Aaaand right back down.

It seems every day turns to crap.  I wish it didn’t, but every single day seems to degenerate into a horrible nightmare, even when nothing goes wrong.  I might wake up with renewed optimism, only to have it utterly destroyed by the time I get home.

I told Matt last night that I’m pretty much done with hope.  I’m done with anticipation of the future, except for the inevitable bad.  The other shoe is always positioned just above my head, waiting to fall at any second.  It only takes one thing for me to spiral out of control into the depression and panic attacks.  It only takes half of a bad thing to eclipse all of the good and leave me balled up in a corner, shaking and crying.

I didn’t want to end up this way.  But here I am – a wreck.  A complete mess, someone who can barely control my own movements or thoughts.  A terrified, irrational shell of a person, too weak to fight back and too tired to go on.  I hate life.  I hate the sun when it rises and sets.  I even hate things I used to love, just because I used to love them.  I hate the people around me who are nothing but positive – cause it’s not realistic, and when I feel like a beaten, broken woman, the last thing I want to see are plastered fake smiles.

I am living everyday in hell.  I can't even choke down food right now - I had a cup of coffee, which I'm sure was terrible for my already agitated state.  I can’t stop grinding my teeth, and then I get horrible headaches.  My hair is falling out in clumps.  I look in the mirror and hate everything I see.  Everything I am just looks awful.

I was actually really happy (for half a second) that this blog got so many views – it meant that other people were reading Coraline’s story, and mine, and that part of her is still alive, if only in memory.  I had an iota of hope because I actually got a call about a position within my company that I applied for.  I picked up the dress I’m wearing to my friend’s wedding.  Then I got home and tried it on.  It was all over after that.  I felt like a walrus.

I wait for the bad now, it's never far around the corner.  If something positive happens, I'm waiting for the catch.  We are going away this weekend, on a wonderful trip, and I can't even relax enough to enjoy it because I'm constantly thinking of what is going to go wrong.  I need this - WE need this - and I'm just worried I'm going to screw it up like everything else.

I could put 19 different labels on the psychological issues I have – depression, anxiety, paranoia, post-partum, PTSD,  body dysmorphia…  but labels don’t help.  Neither do meds anymore.  I feel trapped - inside my body, inside my head, inside this life, with no way out.  Just drowning.

Ten years ago today I was bringing my first-born home from the hospital.  Today I will go home and my second-born won't be there, just like every day.  I'm trying.  I know it doesn't sound like it, but Christ, I'm trying.  I've been trying, and failing, so hard every day.  I've had to be strong waaaay too long, and its taking a toll on me and my husband.  I don't know what to do anymore.  I want to be that positive person, that optimist, that spark of light in the darkness.  But I've been extinguished, and I don't know what is going to bring it back, or if it's coming back.