Shitty things about TSW

rated pg13 for language? Or something you have been warned (check out the tag for a sample!)

The horror that is TSW – how I hate thee, let me count the ways.
It’s three am and I have been up for at least two hours scratching and tossing and turning and crying from frustration. For the past hour or so I’ve been playing candy crush to take my mind off of the itches. It worked somewhat. My exhausted fiancé sleeps on after giving me rubs and cuddles, and otherwise generally loving on me in attempts to make me feel better. It succeeded somewhat. He is amazing I love him. When we get married and I’m healed, all the favors belong to him.

So it’s been a while I’ve been this (all consuming itch that won’t go away and won’t let me sleep and it itches in so many places at once I want to be like that one Hindu god with crapload of arms because two is not doing the job) uncomfortable and scratchy. I’ve been good at sleeping for months and to go back to this cycle of scratching and tossing and turning is massively frustrating. For me, the worst parts about TSW isn’t even the physical pain. The worst part about TSW is the way it thoroughly fucks with your mind as it takes you along this roller coaster of a journey filled with highs and (mostly) lows. It’s the hopelessness you feel when you flare up again after seemingly improving for a while. It’s the knowledge that the scabs and oozing patches that are all over your body might not be there if only you had the strength and self control to not scratch (although fuck me if I know how to have said iron will). It’s knowing vaguely that this will all end sometime but not having the slightest fucking clue when that would be. It’s the constant state of fear you live in, not knowing when the next flare will come and push you off the cliff of positivity and into the pit of despair. Sounds dramatic? The amount of feels this illness gives me are most definitely of the dramatic proportions.

One would think that since I have already been through one huge flare, I will meet the next one head on, bravely, assured in the knowledge that if I got through it once, I can do it again. In reality, the opposite seem to hold true for me. Because I already know just how shitty it really gets, if anything I’m more scared. A pediatrician once told me that kids are better at coping with pain because they don’t know any better. I believe it. I guess in the recess of my mind plays the tune “I did it once, I can do it again” in a loop, but in the forefront of my mind stands a boombox, subwoofer and all, and it goes “ah shit shit shit I don’t want to do this again first time was shitty enough I can’t even why nonono” in full volume.

I’m going to have some form of PTSD when I’m through with this.