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i lie awake at night with my heart racing and with my brain catastrophising. i don’t know if it really counts as catastrophising though. how can it be if the waking nightmares i conjure aren’t far-fetched fantastical situations? everything i imagine is what i have been told by doctors could realistically be my future and it’s a toss of a coin–a roll of a dice–whether i’ll sink slowly into that hellscape. that fact never helps me though. it sucks me further into my head where the thought is worked over and over; every scenario is splayed back and forth, rolling the dread and anxiety to and fro–side to side–like it’s savouring the cortisol that’s being mass produced in my body. or like its chewing on a piece of sinewy meat; a stringy mess of terror that it has to keep gnawing, and chomping, and snapping at order to digest. i watch the minutes slip by. then hours. i cope far worse physically when i haven’t had enough sleep, but every time i close my eyes the aches through my knees and hips and spine turn into burning, writhing snakes slithering up and down my body, their molten scales grating against every nerve they can reach. the pain leaves me winded and useless. it’s a vicious cycle. one i won’t be breaking free of tonight.
Written by Cass Hayward
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