Anxiety.

An update on the sickness:

So, on saturday, I turned in that stool sample. It was a little bit humiliating, but I was extremely hopeful that it would show me the cause of my nausea, pain, and discomfort.

And, I'm going to make you wait for the results of the test, as I had to. Let me tell you a little more about how I have been feeling, physically, and emotionally.

Physically, all the discomfort is in my abdomen. Sometimes it's burning, sometimes it's nausea. Sometimes it's a stabbing pain. It occurs sometimes in my intestines, sometimes in my stomach, sometimes it switches between the two.

Right now, it's burning. It's burning in my stomach. And it burns like hell. It feels like I haven't eaten in days. It's not hunger, though, I couldn't eat if I tried. It feels like someone is having a very successful campfire in my stomach. I can't find anything that the feelings are tied to. It happens at night too, when I haven't smoked, so it can't be cigarettes. It doesn't consistently happen after eating, so it can't be any type of food doing this to me. It doesn't appear to be any structural issue inside me, the ultrasound would have shown that. It can't be in my blood because they tested that too.

And apparently, it isn't a parasite, because the results came back, and they were clean.

The list of things it may be is becoming small enough to remember without being written down. And, considering the whole point of this blog is so that I stop forgetting the details of things, that should illuminate just how small it is. It is as follows:

+Lack of sleep
+The regularity of my smoking finally wearing something down inside me
+Stress
+Anxiety

Each one just as unlikely as the next. Except the last. If it is the last one, though, what do I do? What CAN I do?

It's probably not the first one, because I feel sick when I sleep enough too.
It's probably not the second one because symptoms started a year before I touched my first cigarette.
Stress may be contributing, but I don't think it's the cause.
And, come to think of it, same reason for the fourth.

My mother thinks it's subconscious. A theory of hers is that I am afraid to fail. And I won't try if I feel nauseous. It makes sense enough, but how do I stop it? Why would my own body do this to me?

Emotionally, I am destroyed. At least twice a week for months now, I have been face to face with my worst fear. Throwing up. his devil that stands just outside of my peripheral vision. Who's shadow I catch just when it's too late to look and see him. I want this to be over. I need it to be. I am drained, and yet it continues to attack me, every day. Every night. Every time I go to the doctor, I cost my parents over $500. We don't have the money for this, and yet, I cannot stop going. This needs to end. It's too much for me to handle. It's ruining my life, my relationship, my job, and my parents, God bless them, haven't complained a bit. I love them. I can't believe what they are doing for me. I can only pray to God that one day I will be as perfect a parent as either one of them. They save my life every day.

I just want to feel normal. I just want to be able to eat a meal without worrying, ride in someone else's car. I want so badly to be free of this. I want to sleep without the fear of waking up in five hours, sweating, panicking, crying, shaking, sick.

My girlfriend has been amazing through all of this too. Every single time I wake up at night, she comforts me. Always the same problem, me panicking about vomiting, and never once has it actually happened. Still, she will stay up as long as I feel scared. She will console me, and reassure me. Thank God for you Steph, I love you so much.

It makes me feel like such shit to be this childish, the uncontrollably afraid. Irrational fear has never before been a vice for me. I hate seeing myself sick. I hate who I am when I feel nauseous, and I never want to be this way again.

All the tests returned normal. So I guess I'm fine.