an admission

For about five or six years now, I have been tired. Exhausted, even. But it was always something I could ignore: I could always get up and do the things that needed to be done, and the fact that I was tired was nothing more than an inconvenience.

During this time, I noticed my muscles hurt. When I shaved my legs, the pressure of the razor on my flesh was painful. When I started dating Sid, I became aware of the fact that his arms around me sometimes was pretty hurty. If he got to tickling me, I would laugh for a few seconds, but then it would start to be really painful, and he didn't understand that my begging him to stop wasn't because it was tickly.

About three years ago, it started to hurt when he would hug me. He'd just come up and wrap his arms around me and I would have to ask him to stop. Sometimes he'd just playfully run a finger down my arm, and I'd say "ow, that hurt!" and he would reply "but I barely touched you!".

I think it was about this same time, I started feeling foggy. I can only describe it as an exhaustion so total that my mind simply fades out. I don't feel smart anymore: I struggle for words, and my joy - my writing - is nearly impossible because I can't focus for long periods of time. I feel dull and listless and stupid.

And I've put off seeing a doctor because I'm afraid. I'm afraid that I will be told that this is all in my head. Sid tells me that all the time, and he has no idea how damaging and hurtful that is; to be told that I'm tired because I don't "get up and do things." To be told that I claim to hurt just because I "don't want to be touched."

I bike ten miles a day. I do yoga. I can swim faster and farther than Sid - and he's pretty fit. I do get up and do things, every day, even though I feel like it's going to kill me. And I wish to high fucking heaven that I could be touched by my husband without feeling physical pain. Why would I make this up?

My menstrual periods are spotty and irregular, and no matter what I do, my weight is just sloooowly creeping up. I am never warm. This is not how I should be feeling, this is not normal. I don't feel like the same woman from even a year ago. I feel like shit, utter fucking shit.

And even though I'm sick of feeling this way, and I've called my doctor, I'm terrified. I'm afraid it's nothing. And yet I'm afraid it's something. And even though I hope with all my heart that I will finally have answers, I dread hearing an actual diagnosis.

I am so scared.