Feeling Blue


I am feeling very low today.  Physically, I look awful.  Mentally, I am not with it.  Emotionally, I am neutral/numb.  

I feel invisible.  I feel weak.  I feel not enough.  I feel unneeded.  I feel all of these things that I was hoping an antidepressant could just magically eliminate.  I guess no pill can be a substitute for reality, but isn’t that always the expectation when beginning an antidepressant?  Just the name of the class of drugs give you hope that one will eventually not be depressed.  

I know part of the reason I feel this way is because I have been sick, again...yet again.  This time it was a sore throat, one that has lasted a week now and is only now starting to get better.  I am frustrated because part of me has the mistaken belief that I should not get sore throats since I no longer smoke.  

I am tired of my life being a sentence composed of illnesses strung together with no period at the end.  If it isn’t one thing it is another.  I honestly think I would punch someone who ever said “HIV? No big deal, I can just take a pill.”  Sure, being on meds keeps me alive but it does nothing for allowing me to live.

Just yesterday I had to put on latex gloves to change my cat’s litter box.  Why?  Because cat poo can possibly have something in it that causes some horrible illness.  Oh, I am sure I could Google it to find out exactly what it is called, but suffice to know it is probably horrible so no Googling for me.  

HIV changes you.  Sometimes it is for the better.  I no longer do meth, I no longer smoke, I no longer have unprotected sex. I drink so rarely I might as well not bother at all.  

Yet, HIV changes you in ways that are not so great.  It is easy to develop hypochondria, where every cough must surely be lung cancer or every stomach bug is the beginning of the end.  There is always a little voice in the back of your mind, especially when it comes time for you to have your lab work performed, that whispers to you “are you SURE your meds are still working?”  I always have this back and forth in my head, a war of worry versus pragmatism.  It leaves you exhausted trying to convince yourself that you are fine.  

And God forbid you voice your worries, your fears, because then someone will say you are being silly or that you are worrying for no reason (which doesn’t help).  Then you question your sanity, or the very act of questioning your sanity drives you crazy if you weren’t already crazy before.

In a perfect world, you would have that person, at least one but ideally more than that, who you could turn to and let them hold you for awhile.  In a perfect world, the person you are with would support your HIV, even if they themself does not have it.  In a perfect world, you would be taken care of when you are truly ill instead of being made to feel like you are silly for being sick.  In a perfect world, you wouldn’t have to explain over and over and over again why it is that you have no energy, especially on the tail end of being sick.

Anyway, at least tomorrow is Friday and at least I will see my therapist next week.  

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