“Only after extracting the last exquisite ounce of agony, only when he had them literally begging for death would he finally kill them.” Snape, Harry Potter

I fell asleep in a dark headspace last night. I think those songs I posted hit a little close to home. Yesterday I also read over an old post I wrote about my horrific ayahuasca experience where I couldn’t breathe and felt like I was dying. Then the corridor here stunk of rotten eggs last night, and somehow my deranged mind contorted up the idea that the hospital was gassing me and the other patients to death, like in the Holocaust. I had a dream where I was trying to get out, but I couldn’t breathe. I felt like I was trying to clamber through thick snow, struggling to move. I felt like I was trapped in a house on fire, the exit routes blinded by thick smoke. The male night nurse morphed into Voldemort, and the female night nurse morphed into Victoria, one of the evil vampires in the Twilight series. I finally made it out and tried to escape on my broomstick but I had them chasing me. I couldn’t wake up. It was their intention to torture me and put me through hell rather than kill me straight away. They certainly did that. I had to draw on the love of my spiritual community and a friend who I called when my old case management team tried to section me and I took off in my car. Her voice overlayed the dream like a commentator. It was another one of my demonic dreams full of sheer terror and entrapment.

I have been scarred so much by people who are meant to help me, such as the mental health system. I don’t know who can be trusted anymore.

I texted my psychologist in the middle of the night saying I didn’t completely feel safe here in hospital and wanted to go home, but evil is everywhere. I never heard back today.

Today I woke up with a headache. I also wanted to vomit, felt lightheaded and was crushed with lethargy so heavy I missed lunch as I couldn’t get out of bed. I could barely reach my phone to ask my NDIS worker to come a bit later. I thought I might be coming down with covid, but this evening’s nurse, who I am actually going to do equine therapy with when I am discharged, knew a bit about dissociation. She told me these were symptoms of the shut down response, which is absolutely correct (there is a great article about the shut down response here).

I’ve been getting this existential angst as the reality of death hits me. I think most people block this out. They are too busy to think about the fact that we’re all going to die. And when they do think about it, it’s in a somewhat detached way, not in the way a person diagnosed with a terminal illness gets. We live in a society who is largely in denial about death. Other cultures frequently hold events in cemeteries, where death is not avoided but embraced as a part of life. A lady I know has actually created a “Community Death Care Collective”. Here are the aims of the collective:

Our Death & Dying Collective aims to:

  • Create a death and dying resource library
  • Create an information and resource based website with links to relevant services
  • Host a regular educational series of talks and workshops on death and dying
  • Host monthly film screenings and open conversations around death & dying
  • Host monthly facilitated grieving Circles
  • Host a local expo/conference in conjunction with National Dying to Know week
  • Host an annual ‘Day of the Dead’ to honour the lives of those who have died
  • Establish a community Threshold Choir

We aim to create a death friendly and death literate community by:

  • Normalising death and dying as part of our natural life cycle
  • Easing fear and anxieties about death
  • Collaborating to empower choices around humane and ecological end of life pathways
  • Building compassionate communities willing to respond to death and loss in conscious and meaningful ways
  • Empowering skills of caring for the dying at home
  • Returning death into the hands of the community to be honoured as deeply sacred
  • Offering opportunities for contemplating death as a whole life experience

My myoclonic jerks/seizures are particularly bad right now. I’m so tired but when I start to drift off it feels like my heart’s been shocked with those pads they use to revive dead people and I jolt awake again. For a second I don’t know where I am and my body and mind thinks I’m dying, disintegrating into oblivion. Little sounds make me jump. There have been times today where I’ve felt like I’m going insane. I haven’t slept well for the past two nights and I never know what medication to take for my sleep as none seem to be particularly effective now.