Pad Thai

I had Pad Thai today for the first time since leaving Wellesley. It was good, actually. Kind of fancy. Different from the Lemon Thai take-out I'm used to. I associate these particular stir-fried noodles with a sense of comfort: I would have Pad Thai on the days where I hadn't been able to eat during dining hall hours, often ordered just before their gracious late-night deadline was up, and that Pad Thai was usually the best part of those disjointed, ghostly days.

I may have a connective tissue disorder. My PCP -- primary care physician -- talked about blood work and immune systems and my frequent, long-lasting fevers, the sort of phone call conversation you wish you were alone for. My mind first went to all of the doubtful teachers I've had over the years, I told you I was sick, and then flicked through all those the week-long and two-week-long fevers, I knew this wasn't normal. And then the entire process remembered the word disorder and froze up on the spot.

Tests, diagnoses, and treatments are advances. Once you've identified the issue you can figure out what to do about it. Names have power. This is low-grade paranoid thinking is a valuable tag to add on to the deeply ingrained belief that everyone is in on a conspiracy to kill me.

I'm seeing a rheumatologist tomorrow. I probably won't mention the conspiracy to kill me. I would jokingly say that I don't want to let him know I'm onto him, but that's a little too real to be funny.

Humor is a valuable tool for making yourself seem less weird. I've spent years deeply depressed and Jack has confirmed that I've come out of it with a finely honed sense of dark comedy. If you're going to wake up convinced that someone, somehow, is watching you (and judging your messy room), you might as well imagine them in ridiculous sunglasses. Something flowery and Lana Del Rey.

My life is going to change tomorrow. That's true of every day, and I'm never ready for it, but I feel quite definitely unready for tomorrow.

#mentalillness #physicalillness