Unwell

All these posts about people and happenings in my life, a change of perspective and turning the attention to me now... Me, whom I've neglected time and again, and rarely really take care.

The long breakup and loss of my best friend and mum's deteriorating health have together really caused me much pain and anxiety over the past year. And for the past four years, there have been other misfortunes and worries along the way... the loss of my dear dad, the loss of my "mother" in the Netherlands, the loss of a close friend, and now confronting my uncle's imminent passing (all because of cancer...), combined with my own unstable and undecided future.  All these reasons, external and internal influences, combine to make me feel like my world is so disturbed and insecure...

Never before, I don't think, have I felt such stress, such emotional pain that often manifests into physical discomfort... at the back of my head, in my bowels, in my back, around my hips. Sometimes, the pain is sudden and sharp, and it goes away after a while. Right now, after an evening of watching mum in great, great discomfort and throwing up two, three times made my stomach churn...

I know I take too much to heart. I tell others to laugh at things, even the most difficult things in life, and I should heed my own advice at times. But I feel as if there are so many, too many, things I should do something about. And yet I am powerless to do or say anything to affect change or influence things. It creates much stress and tensions within, makes me sleep so badly at night, makes me moody and mentally drained... And I feel, perhaps due to some morbid sense of paranoia, as if something is 'growing' inside of me, as if all the traumatic experiences and feelings, the accumulated fatigue and emotional depression and hurt, might feed the growth of malignant cells...

Yes, sometimes when I hurt in my bowels, or at the back of my head, or on my skull, I see images of my own body. Images like those of the scans I have of mum, which I have stored on my computer... images of 'grey areas' growing on the bone... haunting images of 'dark areas' compressing on the nerves and muscles... I see myself, or imagine things, growing... Stress, long term depression, and exposure to traumatic experiences of seeing a loved one sick and become more sick are very toxic cocktails for the anyone's body and mind.

How do I de-stress? How do I worry and fear less? I try to meditate... I try to calm down and breathe... Who can take my anxieties and stop me trembling when I do, help me feel reassured and safe? Who can I turn to, but here, to the faceless, unknown reader who, from a safe distance, reads this depressing account of a lost boy's life woes and worries?

People tell me again and again to take care of myself. They remind me if I fall ill, who will take care of my mother?

I must not fall ill, I must not succumb to any illness or disease of any kind. Mental or physical, and certainly not the illness I fear the most: cancer!

I must be strong, stay strong, and weather the emotional and physical turbulences that come my way!

For if I fall ill, who will take care of me?