Ready for a break.

I'm supposed to be writing an essay but I can't think straight. That's a common occurrence lately. I can sit here pondering the viscosity of various cheeses on my own time, but put me in a classroom and my mind goes blank at even the simplest of questions.

Some maintenance men did a lot of stuff in my residence hall last week. They stirred up so much dust that the hallway looked like it was filled with smoke. I don't know precisely what was in that dust, apart from drywall, but I was allergic to it. I was miserable all week. They came back on Monday and were at it again, right outside the door to my suite. What can you do when you're too miserable to get up and go somewhere, but the very thing making you miserable is your home? And what are you supposed to do when the hallway right outside your door is even worse?

If my allergies weren't bad enough on their own, my insomnia has been worse lately. I'm exhausted all the time. I mentioned before that I can't focus or think properly. I've also started losing a bit of control over my fine motor skills. Each day it gets harder and harder just to grasp a pencil to take notes in class. My handwriting is all over the place. And my ability to concentrate is completely shot, so by the time I manage to get, say, half a slide covered, the instructor moves on to the next subject and I have no clue what I missed. Sunday night I began taking a stronger dose of melatonin, hoping it would help me sleep better. I barely slept at all last night.

I shook literally all morning and had to prop my head up with my hand just to stay upright in class. I went to a lab section that is not my own to make up the lab I missed on Monday, and the questions were very basic. I should have been able to answer them relatively quickly so I could leave. It took me almost the entire lab period to finish, and I only left then because I gave up and made up something for the last two questions. I just couldn't comprehend the material before me. I came home and promptly had an emotional breakdown.

I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. I'm sick of missing out on things because they're outside, or the atmosphere is loud and hurts my head, or because it's in a place with fluorescent lights and would be even more painful than dealing with noise. I'm sick of not being able to read because I can't get my eyes to focus on the text. I'm sick of having absolutely no energy and coming home and collapsing after every single class. I forget everything. Assignment due dates, words for things I really do know the name of, the ends to sentences I'm in the middle of voicing. I can't spell. I can't type. (I can't tell you how many mistakes I've deleted from this.) I'm just fed up with all of it. It's so incredibly frustrating not to have control over my own mind and body.

I have spent so much time praying for strength, for peace, for sleep. That's all I have the power to do. And honestly, at this point I'm tired of that, too.

I've been putting up with this for eight years, and I'm tired of it. I just want to be healthy. I just want to be normal. And right now, I'd love it if I could break down crying and then feel better like other people do, but I can't even have that because crying makes my head hurt even more.