Psychosomatic Symptoms

It's how I roll.

I've always been that way, I suppose, but I remember the first ugly day.

It was when dad's dementia was first becoming problematic.

On my day off, I visited mom and dad and spent a good part of the day with them and dad was just crazy. It's hard to describe unless you've been around dementia.

He was not the old dad and what he was from somewhere in The Twilight Zone.

And, I dealt with it and was as pleasant as I could be. The time came for me to leave and I left. I told Evie about it and finished the day.

The next morning I woke up and immediately concluded that I had developed the worst case of flu I'd ever had.

My brain was fuzzy and every muscle in my body ached. In fact, looking back, every part of me ached like muscle aches, even places where there are no muscles.

I rolled out of bed and called the store to say that I wouldn't be in and crawled back into bed.

I went back to sleep and woke up later, still aching and I realized that, for all of the other symptoms, I didn't have a fever.

After thinking it through, I realized that this was how my mind and body processed the previous day's experience.

It's who I am. I understand that now. I'm not ashamed of it and I can even plan around it.

While I was still working, just a few days ago, when the home called and began to talk about mom in an end of life way, before the COVID-19 results came back, as I left at the end of the day, I told my boss that I'd probably develop vertigo over night and that I might not be in the next day. And, that happened...bad, not as bad as I expected...but, bad enough.

So, this morning, after all the news about mom yesterday, I woke up feeling like I had a bad case of flu.

I don't.

But, physically, I feel awful. Not as bad as I felt on the first day with dad, but way bad enough.

And, today's another day. It's not over yet.