The stranger in my bed / Beth Calder

I've copied this from the piece of paper I wrote this entry on in hospital. I feel it's important to have everything saved, so you can look back and see how far you’ve come.

The last couple of days have been impossible. I have never felt so alone and so scared, I wish that the numb feeling that used to consume me would return, because now I realise it was invaluable. I would rather feel numb than wild.

It’s like living a half life.

I don’t want to eat.

I don’t want to move.

I feel like I’m half here.

For the past week I haven’t felt myself.

I’ve been angry, irritable and above all ill – being ill may not seem that surprising given what I have been through, you’d think I was used to it, but I’m not. This has been the first week where there hasn’t been a light at the end of the tunnel, where there is no progress, only regression. The first week where every single time you wake up, you feel worse than the night before and you wonder when it’s going to end and how much longer you can stand it.

Of course there are distractions...the charade of normality is a big enough distraction in itself.

But at the end of the day, when the sun sets and you’re lying in bed, that terrible, inconsolable fear wells up from deep within and nothing can stop it.

Some nights I try to sleep and end up staring hollowly at the ceiling, wondering if I close my eyes whether I’ll ever open them again. The inconsolable fear grips me like a vice and I feel as though I’m about to choke.

Everything around me suddenly carries immeasurable meaning.

The ticking of the clock drives me mad because it seems to mock me.

The days drag, but I don’t relish them.

I have time, but I don’t want it.

The ticking of the clock only reminds me that with every second that passes, infinite seconds await me.

I know that I am going to lose everything.

I’m told to be positive.

I’m not going to die.

I have the rest of my life to look forward to…

Except that’s a lie.

I don’t have the rest of my life to look forward to.

I have a stranger’s life ahead of me.

When I say that I wonder whether when I close my eyes, I’ll ever open them again.

I know that they will open again.

But they are not my eyes.

They are alien eyes.

An invader who has stolen my life.

The person who has lived up until now will be dead.

Replaced by a twisted creation...

Frankenstein’s monster.

Do you know how it feels to know that you’re going to forget everything?

It is a nightmare that I wake up to everyday.

A daily indignity.

Parts of your very soul float away…and do you know what the worst part is?

I have no idea that they have gone.

Parts of me drift away and I can’t mourn them.

Memories that have shaped the person who sits writing this…

vanish.

Gone.

And with each erased part of me, a new person is forming.

The person that will go on to lead my life.

This stranger in my bed.