You Don't See Me

You don't see me, not really. You see the mask I've carefully crafted over years of imperfect practice.

You see me on Facebook; all the pictures I bombard you with. You see me picking out pumpkins and climbing toys at the park but you don't see me crying in the bath, water so hot it burns my skin, trying to stop the ache because every joint in my body feels like they've been in a head on collision with a semi; the surrounding tissue and ligaments stretched until broken.

You see my positive posts and the inspirational bullshit I try to flood my overactive brain with. You don't see the blood and ruined skin of my fingernails because I compulsively pick them. You don't see me standing in front of the mirror twisting into a human pretzel trying to find an angle I can actually like. You don't see me scrubbing layers of dry skin from my face and hands or slathering myself in extra strength lotion so my skin doesn't split open and bleed.

You don't see me researching different ring braces and crying over the prices, cursing disability because I can't afford to help my joints stay in place.

I'm too poor to be disabled.

You don't see me unable to hold a spoon because my fingers aren't working; they just stop. Every nerve and muscle in them suddenly becomes jelly that's dripping in the sun. Droopy. Not there.

You don't see me unable to sleep::

Is the door locked? All 3? Did we leave the heater on? Or the stove.. oven? Is the fridge working? What if the freezer stops working? Will everything go bad? We can't afford for everything to go bad.

You don't see me collecting pillows like a childhood obsession because I can't sleep without them. I have to stack them perfectly underneath my joints so I don't hyperextend in my sleep or ache too much to close my eyes without wishing for death.

So I don't dislocate something rolling over.

You don't see me spending nights in the ER; my pain finally too much to control. I try desperately to hide it from my kids with lies and laughter.

You don't see me unable to pick up my kids because it stretches and pops my shoulders and elbows out. It's excruciatingly difficult to keep a child from falling when your arm doesn't work for a moment.

You don't see me questioning myself until I'm crying too hard to breath. Life with an invisible illness means constantly being worried because, "it's not real" and "you're not trying hard enough." Living with a lifelong prison sentence inside a barely functioning body can be just as devastating as a fatal diagnosis.

But no one believes that.

You don't see me debating whether or not I can physically afford to shower; weighing how long it's been against the pain invading every cell of me. Most people get 15 spoons but I'm lucky to have 7 and that includes just getting out of bed in the morning. Is it worth it?

You don't see the brain fog. The repeat calender entries and notes and reminders that I need but still end up forgetting.

You don't see me with Steven - him trying to help hold my body together with tape and prayer.

You don't see me frustrated because my back is so flexible and curved that it's permenently damaged itself.

You don't see me.

You don't see.

My Scariest Nightmares

**If you don't talk to me I'll have you locked in a psych ward.**

The words rattle around the inside of my skull like weights; slapping me, breaking me, with every turn.I'm visibly shaking so my husband grabs my fingers with his and squeezes. I look up through my lashes because lifting my head would hurt and try to manage a smile.

**You have to talk now. You don't have a choice.**

I shut my eyes so tight it hurts; the pain reverberating across my eye sockets and into my temples. A stupid moan slips from between my clenched teeth and I force myself to relax enough to open my eyes and untangle my tense muscles from each other. If I'm too loud someone will hear and I couldn't bare that.

I kept expecting them to call my name because mentally unstable patients usually get taken back pretty quickly.

But they don't.

I bounce my legs because the anxiety has to go somewhere. My fingers tremble around my phone, I can't stop it, and it falls to the floor. I bite back a sob; I clench my teeth around it and grind it into submission before it runs down my face. 

"Roze Tronsen?"

I jerk, startled. Steven pulls me to my feet keeping an arm wrapped tightly around my shoulders.

"I'm not running.." I mumble it under my breath but I know he hears me because he chuckles and eases up a little. He's no longer grabbing onto me so tightly my bones were bruising; now it was just my skin.

They're going to ask why I'm here.

Obviously they're going to ask but that thought makes my feet stutter and my skin grow cold and wet. I try to control my breathing because it's my biggest tell.

"What brought you here today?"

I run my pointer finger back and forth across my upper lip erratically. I can't really think past the terror lodged into my throat with spikes of pain so it's more of a croak than anything when I finally answer.

"Suicidal thoughts. I just.. I just want to stop hurting."

The nurse tilts his head and wrinkles his eyebrows. I know he's confused but I can't care. Steven helps me onto the table - because I'm short and can't jump - before answering.

"She has physical health problems. They cause her to be in agony on a constant basis."

"I'm just tired.."

I shrug lightly looking at the floor. I'm drilling into it with everything I have but it's not enough to distract me. I clench my fists and answer the onslaught of questions. Every time the nurse speaks my anxiety rachets up another notch until my entire body is shaking and Steven has to physically hold me still.

"She has issues with hospitals."

"They terrify me..." I whisper softly into my chest.

"Can she keep her phone, please?"

He promised they wouldn't take it away and the relief that literally sped through my body in a cool wash was embarrassing. My phone was that important?

My phone was definitely that important.

It meant they couldn't just lock me away. A tear starts to slip from the corner of one eye so I clench my teeth and swallow hard in an effort to stop it from snaking down my cheek like a flood. I dam it up.

"This shirt is too small. Talk about bad timing.." I try to joke about the situation; because how awkward to feel insecure and broken and be reminded of how fat you are.

I think if Steven hadn't been there to request a larger size I would have just suffered through not being able to breathe because I couldn't expand my chest.

"Why do I have to change anyway? And no panties??"

I just feel gross.

I grip Steven's hand in mine until my fingers start to ache. I know he has to leave. Visions of me pounding against the glass of a locked door leak into my brain while he wraps his arms around my shoulders to say goodbye. I clutch his shirt like it's holding me over an abyss. My fingers are slipping and I'm spiraling into the darkness underneath. My legs are being swallowed up and eaten into nothing as I fall.

"I'll text you all night Roze I promise."

His words pull me back and I loosen my grip. My fingertips hurt a little while feeling comes back so I concentrate on that instead of his back as he walks away stiffly.

"It's going to get busy for awhile; you're by the wrong room I guess haha."

A nurse pats my shoulder comfortingly and it startles me. I smile; nervous and in a panic.

'I just want to come home' I text.

'You can't.'

I feel tears threatening to escape my eyes. My head is foggy so fighting is difficult. I see people crying and struggle not to join in. The tears in my throat burn me until it hurts but I blink and blink and blink and blink...

I breathe; they stop for now.

"It's going to be awhile until someone can see you, like a few hours, so why don't you come with me?"

I stand up, grateful to leave the busy and way too public hallway, but apprehensive because these doors are completely locked. I pause in front of them unable to breathe. Breath is caught in my chest like it's too big to pass through; painfully sitting there like a lump of anxiety. 

Instinctively​ I clench my fists because the pain helps me breathe but I feel my phone instead of my palm and finally exhale. I'm not stuck. It doesn't matter if the door locks. I'm alright.

Security has to check me again and I woodenly spread my arms and legs; mostly unable to feel. I've turn it off because until I'm alone I can't afford to totally relax. I just can't.

"If you don't let me out I'm going to kill everyone in this place!"

I sit up quickly - wincing when it hurts. My head is pounding again. A band of iron is tightening around my skull and I can't stop it. More banging and more screaming has me rubbing my temples so hard it hurts​ in a desperate attempt to stop it.

The screaming has stopped - though it reverberates through my head painfully - so I close my eyes and clutch my phone to my chest. I've never depended on anything so much in my life. It's the tank of oxygen keeping me alive while everything else drowns me.

I fall asleep with my face pressed into the hard and uncomfortable couch; thin white blanket pulled up around my neck.

"I didn't do nothing!"
"Sir you punched your father. Are you on anything?"
"Fuck you!"

I jerk so hard I fall from the couch. My heart thuds against the inside of my chest like tiny horse hooves stampeding through my veins. I quickly sit up and watch the open door.

A time bomb. Psych ward are freaking time bombs and I'm terrified. I realize after a second that my body hurts so much because I can't stop shaking. The trembling is jerking my joints and muscles too much and I stiffen myself in an effort to stop. Nothing will happen to you. Nothing can happen to you.

Silence settles once again and even though I stop myself from shaking I can't escape the panic or convince myself to fall asleep. Instead I twirl the blankets fabric between my fingers and wiggle my toes inside the bright yellow hospital issued socks.

"Are you going to be in here long?"

The woman screaming threats last night shuffles into my room and I glance up quickly. I must have fallen asleep sitting here because suddenly it's morning and my back is too stiff to move quickly. Hopefully she isn't a threat.

A nurse quickly runs in and ushers her off with a smile of apology before I can finish wiping my eyes to fully assess the situation.

I've been here all night. All fucking night. I spent all night in a pysch ward and I am still intact. My heart speeds up a little at the thought because I had just crushed my biggest fear.

A knock jars me from my celebration and panic comes rushing back. I am not a bad ass. I am a broken girl unable to escape the physical pain overwhelming me.

"Can you tell me what brought you here last night?"

I sigh. I hate this part. 

My fingers start twitching; I'm pretty sure it isn't my fault. It's involuntary so I grab my phone with both hands to stop it. An ocean is cascading through my veins and pounding in my ears. It's so loud I can barely hear my own thoughts. I watch her lips move and furrow my eyebrows because for a second I truly can't hear her.

"Uhm," I start quietly. I still can't hear myself so I clear my throat and start again. "I. Uhm." I take another breath expanding my lungs until my skin won't go any farther and slowly letting it out. "I was feeling suicidal because I hurt. It's overwhelming me. I can't breathe without pain."

She smiles sympathetically and nods. My eyes dart over every surface of the room but I know I won't remember anything - my head isn't clear. There's another lump in my chest but I knock it away and begin speaking.

I'm unwilling to let my scariest nightmares take over my world; not any longer. 

Nightmarish Reality

The sunlight is damp on my skin. My feet slap against the cement as I cross to the grass barefoot.

My feet are freezing and stuck.

I wiggle my toes; straining against the tape and stumble as I walk, unable to lift my feet from the hot grass.

The hot grass slips between my toes as I pick up twin #1 and wave at #2 over the length of the playground. I lean my face down to #1's face and I'm stuck.

Tears are plastered to my face and hair is a mess of veins against my cheek. My husband has his skin against mine and his tears twist into mine as twin #1 laughs into my hair and I set him back on the ground.

He runs away laughing. I pause to catch my breath because it's trapped in my chest like lead. I twist the balloon strings around my fingers.

They constrict me.

The strings are wrapped across my thighs and ankles.

I know what they're doing so I try not to move. But they're ripping apart my skin and muscle  so I jerk impulsively at the straps. And scream. "I can feel you!"

I can feel you... Tiny hands tug at my pant legs; dirt and ice cream stained.

I look down and smile. Well. A macabre play of one as I fight the razers in my throat and grit in my eyes. That's all he wanted; acknowledgment.

"Please just stop, I can feel it!" Just hear me. Tears are running down my face like acid leaving trails of black in the rivulets. White flashes in the corner of my eyes, pressing against my face; he wipes it all away. "Please." I sob.

I just want to enjoy this birthday. Their birthday. My throat cracks while I watch them both wander across the pavement. But I shake my head slightly to throw the tears from my head because I don't cry in public.

I don't cry. I don't cry. I don't cry. I don't cry. I stare at the ceiling feeling my stomach jerk to the left; my skin split jagged. I concentrate on the stupid dots so hard they're all I can see everywhere I look. My husband's face is covered in dots, the moniter I distantly hear people screaming over is dots, the sheet draping across my expanded belly is dots and I can't think.

I can't think past the flashes in my head for a minute. They impose over my family like flickers of an old TV screen that isn't quite right.

I'm not right anymore because my insides were scooped out to bring these wonderful twin boys into existence and I felt every second.

They're laughing in the hot sun and I'm buried in ice; frozen to the hard table that I can't get off of no matter how hard I jerk. My thighs hurt because I'm pulling at the straps. They're digging into me and splitting the flesh underneath like my body is rotten.

Why? The ceiling and dots blur as my body goes numb and I'm no longer in it.
Floating above myself I hear them talk about my blood pressure bottoming out but it doesn't matter anymore.

It doesn't matter anymore. It doesn't matter anymore because I'm not there anymore. It's over. It's been over for a year; why won't it go away?

It's splitting into my skull like a jackhammer. The resistance I try desperately to throw up is futile against the onslaught of images and feelings that are scraping my insides raw.

My insides.

Those same insides that were pulled outside. They pawed through me; a human treasure chest..

My stomach twists and I'm wretching into the grass next to my sons' first birthday cake.