a Scarlet D

Last night at 3:09 (I looked) I woke up with that feeling. *That* feeling. Stomach tight. Something doesn’t seem right. Sharp saliva at the back of your tongue. Dread. Lay there for a bit thinking oh it’s nothing, maybe sit up and burp and that makes things okay. But it doesn’t. It just makes it clear you’re needed in the bathroom. Sit on the rug by the toilet. Exhausted, falling asleep, bored. Then you feel something like your blood pressure rising. A sense of an amassing of energy. Lean over the toilet. Nothing. Spit. Sit back. Repeat.

Maybe everything will be fine. Roll up a towel and lay on the bathroom rug. Drift off a bit, but not really. Get some unidentified signal from your body that it’s going to happen. Back to swaying in exhaustion by the throne. The cold sweat, the curl of the sides of the tongue. The burps.

And then it hit me. Nature’s Heimlich. Except last night.. nothing. My body throwing me forward but all I can do is cough and gag and retch. Dry heaves, the only thing worse than throwing up. After the initial waves are over, a sense of relief. I took a sip of water. A literal sip. Like, not even a mouthful. Sat back, waited. Cold sweat, the feeling of being committed to something you know you don’t want to do. And then it all starts again. This time with a little bit to encourage the Heimlich machine. But mostly just praying to the porcelain gods knowing you have nothing to tithe. And then you lose count of the number of cycles you’ve gone through.

Two things about last night. First, waking up and seeing it’s 3:09 was very strange, as I hadn’t gotten to sleep until right about then. And second, I didn’t have anything to eat on Sunday, so what on earth caused this? (disordered eating FTW?)

And then I tried to sleep. Probably around four in the morning, maybe later. And of course I woke up at six, not able to get back to sleep. Worried about being sick, how long will it last, how does this affect my appointments? So I spent some quality time last night sleeping on tile with a towel for a pillow, then ended up with minimal sleep after a handful of days of pretty dark depression (yay TMS!) – it just all adds up for one big happy smile. /s, duh