On bad days NOTHING is right and nothing feels right. On bad days my skin doesn't fit. I wear it like a pair of twisted nylons. My brain hurts. I have to remember to breathe.
I can't connect. I can't talk to anyone because I don't know how. I don't know how to make things seem normal. I see myself going through the motions from outside myself. I am disconnected, and I cannot feel anything that doesn't feel wrong. This is utter isolation, and it is enhanced by the fact that nothing is mine here. Sitting alone in this house is like being in another person's home, and that person isn't here. I have arrived early, to a note on the door that says some on in. And I don't know what to do except follow directions because I don't have a thought that is my own. I am just a body, a shell. But there are no further instructions, so I sit in a corner because this is not my place. I don't want to touch anything. I can't bear to intrude. I am embarrassed that my furniture is in this place because it really doesn't belong here. It is like realizing a sack of garbage has opened up and everything private is strewn about, dirty tampons, medicine bottles, kleenex. Somewhere I hear a voice that tells me I have to put this shame back in the trash bag. I feel my hands clasp each other in fear and humiliation, and it feels strange and invasive. I can't stand the feel of my own skin against my skin.
I know that I am in some kind of nightmare. That I will wake up in my bed at my house and my husband will be next to me, and I will tell him I had a horrible dream. I don't know why I can't wake up. When I close my eyes at night I pretend I am in my old room, and I remember where the door should be, where the window is, I strain to hear the children sleeping and the sound of my sweet dog. I tuck my old room around me so I do not know that I am sleeping with a stranger who is me.
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