Write something, write something, write something. I keep telling myself to write something, anything; nothing comes to my mind but I am not empty, rather filled with this synthetic fatigue and exasperation because the skin on my arms, face and neck is itchy as fuck and I have to keep my sleeves rolled up because the t-shirt’s fabric makes everything worse, and I pull away when Hoss tries to kiss me because my lips are inflamed too.
My scalp is burning, and it’s like the continuation of an endless stream of thinking, it stops at the epidermis and bounces back in a needling nervous tick throughout my system. I want the world to stop, I wish I could lie down and cry but I know that the salty tears will burn my cheeks even more and I will struggle to keep my eyes open afterwards, and when I’ll try to wash off the tears with fresh water, everything will flare up again.
Eczema.
My only way out is to sleep, or take illegal drugs because alcohol has a devastating effect on my body. Sex is also not the easiest choice because if I want to be fucked from behind, I need to be careful not to lean on the sheets with my face, if I am on top or in any other position that leaves my face visible to my partner, I lose my confidence and even though I know no one cares and I probably still look beautiful and it doesn’t matter if I don’t, I dissociate.
Perhaps I can write and dive into this, accept it, feel it, allow myself to hate it without retaining the bad energy for too long. It’s like physical pain, when Hoss says “focus on the pain, and now let it go”. Maybe I can do this with this inflammation too. It’s my body literally fighting itself, me not accepting this condition equals to not accepting myself.
What would I do if a friend of mine had an eczema flare up? Would I be checking on their physical appearance at every occasion? Would I tell them off if they’ve mistaken or overlooked a triggering food? Would I make a list of all the things they should have done better to prevent the inflammation from happening?
No.
But here I am, struggling to love myself when I need it the most but pushing myself to write because I know I’d hate myself even more if I failed at this commitment. When it comes to writing, the best advice I’ve ever heard was “write about what you know”. Sometimes I don’t know... but I feel, and I just focus on describing that feeling and somehow I end up knowing.
My dear readers, I am so tired. I am tired of my overly sensitive body, so open to harm but so stiff and afraid of pleasure because of my PTSD: I am tired of not having a place I could call home, as I am so easy to adapt and I happily live on the move but I wonder how much of it is in my nature and how much of that personality trait is actually pure survival; I am tired of giving my soul away to people I believed nice but who just don’t know what they want and project their shit onto me, blaming my “luck” instead of focusing on what they could do for themselves without comparing their life to someone else’s; I am tired of pulling back and dosing myself because sex work is not seen as a real normal job, and I am tired of my privileged point of view only because most of what I create doesn’t involve my face in front of the camera; I am tired of being told off by the people I trusted because of their poor communication skills and my ADHD, because I do fucking care, my dear readers, I care, I care so much, I care too much and I am harming myself to keep me grounded in order to listen to every single word I’m told and I will still miss some bits and beat myself up to put a sentence together and show you that I did my best, my absolute best but my brain is not like yours and the only tool I have to absorb everything and say everything is writing.
I am tired of not sleeping at night because I am already thinking of how to structure my morning in order to get shit done, no one else will, this is my life and I have the absolute control... and that scares the shit out of me.
To come back to my eczema, maybe it’s food, maybe it’s stress or a combination of both, but maybe it’s me in the need of love for myself, craving acceptance and rest. Maybe it’s time I say a big “I don’t give a fuck” and move on and if things don’t go as the others expect them to go – I don’t have any expectations, I just always do my absolute fucking best, so I see no issues -, maybe the others can go fuck themselves (and ask me for advice re sex toys, but hey my job is not a real job).
You see? I was in agony, and I didn’t know what I was writing about, but I could feel... and now I know.
