If I’m counting right I’ve had 8 periods since May 2016. It’s normal to have 13 periods in a year. I still don’t see an end to this shit soon.

I was up for about 20 hours and slept for about 7, yet was horribly tired when I got up. Determined to live my life anyway, I got up and dyed my hair brown-black. It looks so much better, but it sure is fried.

I went from slightly wound up to depressed and even cried a little because I have such conflicted and mixed emotions about so many things. I have so many fears and worries. In many ways, my life is so much better and so much worse at the same time. I miss some aspects of my old life, be it back in the trailer, Oregon or Phoenix, but then there are some things about those times I certainly don’t miss at all. Some things were just easier when I was a kid or a young adult. When I would lie awake all night I may have known I was going to be tired when I had to get up for school, work or whatever, but I didn’t worry, like I would now, about how I would manage to get through the day and function on the lack of sleep.

I wish we had family close by, but am also glad we don’t. I feel like we need friends, but am afraid to trust just anyone. I know we could have run to Bob and Virginia for showers if we’d needed to when the hot water tank crapped out, but they’re not like Tammy and Mark either, or even like Mary and his mom once were to us.

And I know the Twenties would probably give us a ride if the car broke down, but they’re not like what Andy and Jessie once were to us. No idea what’s up with Jessie, BTW. I simply quit hearing from her.

I wish I could accept more things without questioning them, like why I am so fucking cold all of a sudden when it’s 77° in here. I miss the days when I lived more in the present and didn’t have the types of concerns and fears I have now. So yeah… life gets better but it also gets shittier. The asthma attacks I had for years might have sucked shit big time but they were very straightforward. The problem was in my lungs. Period. But this shit is affecting me both mind and body, in so many different ways, and with no end in sight.

I fear dying alone. I fear HIM dying alone. Okay I know it sounds silly as hell, and like Tom would say, we can’t change whatever’s going to happen anyway. But if there is an afterlife, sometimes I worry that if I have too much fun and happiness while I’m still alive that might mean I’m going to be compensated with more misery in the afterlife. Or maybe the afterlife will be so miserable no matter what just to show me that my worst of times here are a joke compared to what could happen there. I worry about the stupidest things, but then… are they really stupid? They could be very real fears for all I know. That’s what makes it so hard; the not knowing.

Got an appointment tomorrow at a lab we’ve never been to before at 4 PM. Since I don’t expect to be able to fall asleep before 9 AM, and am setting my alarm for 3:30, I’m sure I’ll be totally exhausted.

With my insomnia and sleep issues so much worse, Tom suggested I not take anything at all to sleep for the next two weeks as he believes that could be part of my problem. Yeah, that’s what the neurologist said. Having 2 caffeinated cups of coffee yesterday and a Sugar Babies K-cup close to bedtime probably wasn’t a good idea either.

I’ve been borderline anxious every day this month so far. See? It’s always at the beginning of the month, and getting a period definitely seems to trigger it.

After eating several things and then venting to Tom, I began to perk up. I’m sure I’ll still have a whole shitload of trouble falling asleep when I want to, and staying asleep when I finally do, as is usually the case these days.

Last night I had a dream I was in a private hospital room. It was nighttime and dark. Every now and then a nurse would enter the room and raise the bed to chest level. What they were checking or doing, I don’t know, but I awoke right before one of the next rounds and somehow reached the lever to raise the bed so the nurse wouldn’t have to bother with it. I was lying on my side the whole time and I never moved, but I could crank my head a bit and see on some machine that my pulse was only 45. It never goes that low in real life. His does, but mine never even goes under the 60s.

Anyway, when one of the nurses came into the room one time, she said something about how it was going to be a very warm day.