Well, I have been trying to write a post on coping strategies vs. maladaptive behaviors, but this week has become a series of unfortunate events that has rendered me completely useless it seems. I didn’t sleep at all last night and hard as I tried, I couldn’t write down a dang, cotton-pickin’ (there’s my Southern coming out) word on my well-thought-out and researched blog post.

So, fuck it.

You get sleepless stream-of-consciousness instead.

It’s amazing to me how little things morph into such enormous things when everything decides it has to fall from the sky simultaneously. It overwhelms me and then I get mad that I can’t get my shit together. It’s infuriating. Are everyone’s lives so cantankerous with them?

This is not a woe-is-me saga, I promise. It is just genuine bafflement.

My week has been full of…writer’s block, canceled visits, not-the-good-kind of wildlife, unrelenting pain, and trauma regurgitation. Here’s the condensed version:

• Monday: Productivity and then… venomous snakes
• Tuesday: Job interviews and the worst UTI of my life to date.
• Wednesday: Worst UTI of my life to date and nothing else
• Thursday: Bladder and kidney pain but finally meds. Trauma therapy session. Lots of tears. Insomnia. Nightly visit from the worst creature on this planet.
• Friday: I don’t know yet but I’m nervous at what else the universe is going to throw my way.

The more detailed version:

The week started off well! I saw a friend over the weekend, and it eased some of the heartache that still lingers with me, at least it did for a couple of days.

Monday

I attacked Monday with gusto. I’ve been working simultaneously on marketing my newly published book, writing content on my blog and Substack newsletter, applying for jobs, maintaining my website, keeping up with medical bills and frequent doctor visits, and trying to find my own place despite the clusterfuck of disability rules, weird finances, and paltry income that is my current state of being. Each of these is like its own part-time job, and it is overwhelming and exhausting for me, I won’t lie.

To decompress, I’ve been visiting the nearby swamp 2-4 days a week, and Monday evening was one of these days. I have fallen in love with the boardwalk that splices through the trees and the Spanish moss that drapes over them like beggar clothes. I spend hours on the trails around the ponds, and I drink up the plethora of wildlife, which is bird life and bird song, stalking alligators, bellowing bullfrogs, suntanning turtles, and squirrels bouncing off of boughs that hang over the paths. It’s been a place of immense serenity for me. I know there are dangers, and I try to be careful. I’m usually out there mostly alone, except for a few scientists, and if I injure something or get bitten by a snake, I could be a long, long way from help. I take precautions like always letting someone know where I am, keeping water on me, packing tape and braces in my bag if I dislocate something, wearing high and very supportive hiking boots, and watching carefully where I step. I even bought snake gaiters the other day because I was worried that the rising temperature was going to bring the water moccasins/cottonmouths out to play. It has been super cathartic for me despite the inherent dangers.

Monday evening, I buoyantly, confidently walked towards a new trail that I had yet to map. It was a mile and a half from the science buildings when I realized that the grass was getting higher. Whoever usually mows had not done so this week. I usually would not have continued going further, but since I was all geared up with impenetrable hiking boots and snake gaiters, I thought I would be fine. I walked slower and really kept my eyes peeled. The trail is like a berm, with both sides sweeping down vertically into either swamp or pond. There’s not much room honestly between the wild swamp on my left and the retention pond on my right and I was trying to figure out where a snake might more likely come from. I had been making a lot of noise down the trail, hoping to scare anything nefarious off. But in a millisecond, a perfectly camouflaged tail whipped by me on my left. I immediately recognized the thick stubby tail and as my eyes swept up it, the water moccasin opened its fangs in warning, it’s lily white mouth screaming silently at me. I calmly walked as far right as I could without falling into the pond, and I thought, wow! I am so glad I wore these gaiters!

But it was disturbing how I didn’t see the snake (even with constant vigilance) until I was right on it. The further I walked from it, the more the unease and panic rose in my throat when I thought of how close I had come to being bit. Ironically, I almost stepped on another snake, which was long and thin like a hefty twig, and even though I was almost certain it was just a nonvenomous water snake, it made me even more nervous. I no longer trusted my eyes and I ended up walking the long way back on boring, yet safer, gravel paths. I was shaky on both the inside and the outside when I finally made it back to my car.

That was a long story, but I tell it because my haven has become deadly, and I am so disappointed that I may lose this too.

TUESDAY

I had meetings and interviews all day. While that would have been enough to take it out of me, my body decided to backfire and hate on me. I had had a few symptoms of a developing UTI over the weekend, but it felt better on Monday, so I didn’t go to the doctor. By Tuesday morning, it was back with a vengeance, and it progressively got worse throughout the day. By the time I had my last interview at 5, I was trying to answer questions confidently and competently, while all I could really think about was how my insides felt like they were being stabbed over and over with a serrated knife and then twisted for fullest effect. It took all of me to keep sitting straight up, and I’ve never been so relieved to have a meeting over. (Funny thing was, I ended up being offered the job despite my internal gasps and spasms. I am VERY good at hiding pain at this point in my life.)

WEDNESDAY

My mom needed to run some errands and I needed to see a doctor, so I drove us to town. Had to stop 3 times in 30 minutes because my bladder was sending urgent messages that I just couldn’t ignore. Because of this, we didn’t make it to the office in time before they broke for lunch, so we had to wait an additional hour. Ended up canceling plans I had to see friends that evening, and instead just waited agonizingly to pee in a cup and then waited some more in anguish for a prescription to be sent. Wednesday was a bad body day for sure.

THURSDAY

I think the antibiotics are kicking in? I don’t quite feel like my organs are being shredded into membranous brisket, though now the pain is running up my back. It feels more like a pouty kid stubbing his steel-toed cowboy boots methodically in my side.

Still not productive and have to cancel another visit.

Had a therapy session that was both enlightening and yet very heavy. I have a new therapist, and he worked with me in EMDR to process the core belief I have that I am permanently damaged/broken, and because of this, I am unlovable. This core belief has taken shape throughout the years, but has definitely been corroborated last year by my ex. I thought I’ve been doing so much better, but God, I was surprised at how gutted I was after purposely trying to work through this with the therapist. He wants me to reframe my belief to I am worthy of love, and I can learn to accept myself for who I am, but I know this will take time.

Therapy is fucking hard.

I felt emotionally wobbly for the rest of the evening, and despite taking my normal meds which help me sleep, I couldn’t shut my brain off or dispel how disturbed I still was. Midnight came. Then 1 am. At 2 am, I got my computer and tried to do some work, hoping it would distract me enough that I could catch at least a few hours of sleep. Around 3:30, I feel a tickle around my ear and down my neck. I brush at it, vaguely thinking I hope it’s not one of the spiders I saved coming back for vengeance after unceremoniously relocating them outside. I was pretty zoned in to my job searching though and didn’t think about it any further. Around 4:00, I think that I really do need to start trying to sleep again. I look up from my computer and lean my head against the wall. Out of the corner of my eye, I see something move, way bigger than a spider, and I whip my head around. A huge roach was crawling past my face and when I gasped, it scuttled to the ground. It looked like he came straight down from the puffy “clouds” that my step-brother stuck on the ceiling back when this room was his. I can’t help envisioning all the other roaches nesting up there. I save all the bugs all the time, but I have a long, sordid history with roaches and I don’t think twice when I slam my slipper on top of him. He’s so big that his guts fly all over the bottom of my shoe and smear disgustingly on the floor beside my bed comforter.

I am embarrassed that I am so triggered by a goddamn bug. I dry heave a couple times and resign myself to the fact that I will not be sleeping any more tonight, today, whatever it is.

I am traveling today to see my grandpa. He will no doubt talk me into a coma, which I would be really grateful for. Thank goodness someone else will be with me if I get sleepy at the wheel.

Who knows what else is coming my way? It is only just Friday after all.