Crumpled up in a ball in the dark
My nervous system was fully aware, awake and in action. Every nerve ending was buzzing, pinging, every single one. My body was at the mercy of all the jolts; compulsively shifting and shaking and twitching. I was barely able to hold my form.
Had I been standing, I wouldn’t have been able to; so it's good I was sitting on the floor. I was also in the dark on purpose to lower the visual input. I wrapped around myself; arms holding my legs in place scrunched up to my torso, chin trying to rest a top my knees. Even my arms felt too weak to hold me together, but I braced and held on.
What else could I do? It was too much, all way way way too much. Everything from every input, in every way. It was all coming at me from inside. Emotionally, it was definitely too much. Physically, definitely too much too; but also mentally and spiritually, all the ways.
Everything inside felt overloaded. I was shaking mercilessly. It’s like when you're outside in the bitter freezing cold being ripped apart, sliced through by the cold wind biting. I wasn’t outside though, nor was it cold like that outside where I was in my bedroom.
It was just lights off in my daytime moment. The same feeling of frozen was present though, so my brain wasn’t really sure what to do or think. Maybe it's just busy jazzing all my nerves, pumping all that adrenaline like a caffeine IV shooting my nerves up with too much juice.
My nerve endings were doing their best to burn up all that fuel; flash, bang, zip ignite, Zow. Tears came and stopped and came and squeezed out my eyeballs. I felt wrung out to dry, zapped like a mosquito in the light.
I was forced into movement required by all the expended energy hitting my nerve tips. I turned on loud music, the kind that beats your heart for you. I was kind of afraid of short circuiting my heart and literally dying from a broken, stopped heart if not.
With all this energy zipping around, I needed something to rhythmically pound against my heartbeat, to crash cart my heart into proper thumping. Boom, boom boom. We will, we will rock you.’ Boom. Yeah, that works.
I thought by now the jazzed, pinging nerve endings would have calmed down, chilled out and stopped jolting my body movement. Is this what a seizure would be like, all the alarm bells going off.
This is real with reason and reaction and compelling me to safety and demanding healing to commence. It's all too much. Well, that’s an idea, rocking. I begin to rock myself back and forth with the beat of the music, but slower, maybe quarter speed to the beat of the music count.
Willing my body to slow down, needing the electrical wind to subside and calm the current. Rocking itself is soothing, like when my momma rocked me in her rocking chair. I still have that chair. I still rock in it. I love that chair. I wish I could get to it right now.
I keep rocking back and forth; pushing my toes forward, heaving my hips back, swinging my knees up, muscling my shoulders back. Forth and back and forth; it helps, but this won’t stop. It’s like my system is frozen in over full power mode.
My body signals were still stronger than the blasting music. Still in my darkened bedroom on the floor near the bed, to and fro, to and fro. The rocking is soo comforting. So calming in the electrical storm inside. Back and forth. Deep breath.
Who knew rocking myself was such a thing. Signals triggering aren't stopping but rocking is somehow soothing to the pain and discomfort. I just keep rocking back and forth. I don’t know what else to do.
I don’t feel capable of moving much more than the compulsive moving already present. I can’t seem to stop it. It’s just playing out its process. ‘Mud on the face, big disgrace. Somebody better put you back in your place. We will, we will rock you.’
Boom pound, boom pound. Taze, taze, ugh. At least the music is something else to feel just a little bit. As I rock to and fro curled up in a crumpled ball in the dark, I don’t know what else to do but wait it out.
