A Voice in My Head

I was sitting in English yesterday and feeling as if I was in a fog. I could see my teacher’s mouth moving, but all I heard was “wah wah waaaah wah wah.” I could not focus. That morning I had given blood, and I think that had something to do with it. In fact, I think giving blood had a lot to do with everything that’s gone wrong the past 36 hours. Here begins my saga.

I arrived to give blood at approximately 9:52 am. I was very excited. I filled out the paper work quickly enough, so before I knew it, I found myself with a needle sticking out of my right arm and my life source quickly flowing out of me. It went much faster than last time. In fact it was downright easy…too easy. I felt a little dizzy afterwards, but besides that I was fit as a fiddle. I finished just in time to make it to Old Testament Archeology. With high spirits, I entered that class.

I was proudly sporting my “Be Nice I Gave Blood Today” sticker and feeling pretty good. It wasn’t until midway through the class things started to go awry. Exhaustion overwhelmed me. My will to fight it was waning thin. Just when I was reaching for toothpicks to keep my eyes open, the teacher called for a break. I made a beeline for the water fountain. By the time I came back to class, I had caught my second wind. The next hour passed and I went on to lunch. Lunch passed, and I went back to my dorm to finish a paper before English.

Three o’clock rolled around, and I forced myself to leave my room. The fog I had felt earlier was gathering once more. As I stumbled to class, I caught myself humming some Emo tunes, and feeling unwell. I got there early and put my head down. The next two hours slouched by. All I can remember from the class is “wah wah waaaah wah wah” Well that’s not entirely true. I remember being overcome by a fit of inspiration.

I’m not even sure if you could call it inspiration. It’s more like there was a voice in my head, and I began writing down what it was thinking. This is what I wrote:

“Slowly going mad. There’s this drip.drip.drip.dripping. Or is it a tick.tick.tick.ticking? Maybe it’s a mix: drip.drip.tick.dripping. It’s a rhythm. Whether it’s real or imagined, I don’t know. I’m slowly going mad. My doctor tells me I have 6 weeks of sanity left. The beat in my head gets louder each day; constant pounding invades every thought. It’s breaking me like Chinese water torture, and it’s all in my head. drip.tick. I’m going mad. drip.tick.insanity. I barely notice the drool on my face anymore. It dimly registers that I haven’t bathed in five days. My flashes of coherency are becoming less frequent. When they do come, it’s worse than the dripping. When I’m sane, I’m overwhelmed with despair. Depression sweeps over me so that I long to forget myself in my insanity once more. When I’m sane I long for my delusions. Drip.drip.ticking.drip. It’s coming back again…”

Well that was the story in my head. It was a guy talking, or should I say narrating? I don’t know how weird this sounds, but sometimes, I just have to start writing exactly what’s in my head. It’s as if stuff is floating around in there that doesn’t belong, and it’s only escape is through my pen. I think Jamie could relate. It’s a weird feeling.

Anyway, that happened in English class. After that, I can’t remember what I did. I just remember it was a long night. A very long night. When I finally did make it to bed, my mind was begging for sleep, but my body felt differently. My head was a haze, but my legs were twitchy. I felt like jumping up and down, but my head knew I couldn’t physically do that right now. All I could do was shake. It was awful. After what felt like hours I fell asleep. Waking up wasn’t that difficult, but ten minutes later the fog was coming back. I fought it off and won for the next three hours. In chapel, the shaking returned. My poor chapel buddy had to endure my knee rapidly bobbing up and down for the next hour. The rest of my day continued much as yesterday, but seemed to be getting worse. By four o’clock I had dissolved into tears. After calling mom, I went to the infirmary, knowing full well that, physically, I was fine. Sure enough everything checked out. I was simply exhausted and stressed.

Typing this, I feel much better. I’m still not out of the fog, but it isn’t scaring me as much. Oh, I almost forgot to mention what happened in Greek class today. I missed my chair as I was going to sit down. That’s right: I missed the chair completely and fell on my rear. At least I made everyone else feel good about themselves.