Ugh

I am ridiculously down today. Between a panic attack early last week and the freak out I had yesterday, I just have no idea where I am emotionally anymore.

The panic attack happened at work. It was mostly just my anxiety disorder rearing its ugly head. I got over it enough to go back to work that day, Prince T whisked me off to take my mind off things after work, and then I was down for a few days. I figured I had gotten over it, I was mostly back to normal.

Yesterday was an eventful day. It was my day off and I got dragged off to Dartmouth to go help move an arcade machine. Yes, you heard that right. M bought an arcade machine. We get there and he looks at the back of it and peeks around the machine at me and says, "Hey, Princess, how many pounds is 233 kg?"

My jaw dropped. "233 kilograms?! Are you SERIOUS?" He nodded, expecting an answer! So, I said, "I think that's around 500, maybe 510 POUNDS." (I checked when I got home, 233kg is 512lbs, just about)

And we stared at each other.We had been guessing this thing would cap out at 300, maybe 350lbs. We were not expecting this machine to actually weigh that much. It wasn't a very big machine! (Fighting Mania, for all those familiar. And if you are, you're shaking your fist is sheer envy and rage that M got his hands on a working machine.)

We had a van, a way too small dolly, no ramp, no jack of any sort. And we had M's friend, Al, who was about our size and maybe as strong. I'm not very strong, neither is M. (M and Al can comfortably lift up to 100lbs without hurting themselves, I can do about 50lbs.)

But! We figured the joint effort would do it! (even though we had a combined lifting power of 250lbs, but nevermind!) The machine was on wheels, so getting it TO the van wouldn't be an issue. We were mostly worried about getting it INTO the van. So, fast forward about an hour. We have not managed to get this hell machine into the van. It's 10am, I know Prince T is sleeping, but I know he doesn't have class. I make a desperate call to him, beg beg begging him to come help us. He's got a foot on all of us and is stronger than any one single person we had. SURELY with his help, we could get this blasted thing into the van, right?

Much pulling, pushing, screaming, kicking, swearing, and cursing later, that dreadful machine was in the back of the van. M was crushed between it and the back door, I was in the bitchseat between the driver and passenger seat (don't tell me how illegal this setup was, we were all aware). The other two boys got their own seats. We get to the storage locker M rented and we manage with MUCH LESS EFFORT to get this behemoth out of the van, into the building, and into the locker.

Much rejoicing. Prince T kicked a random stick and screamed at it. We all swore we would never look at that goddamn machine again...or at least for another two or three years. We piled into the van, M in the passenger seat, Prince T and I hiding in the back, Al driving. Eventually, we refilled the tank, got the demon van back to the rental place, and then Prince T and I went off to have a magical adventure at his place.

By magical adventure, I mean we proceeded to pass out in his room from the monumental effort of moving a 512lb arcade machine from the mall to a storage locker in another town. We slept. I'm not sure for how long, really, because I don't even know when we fell asleep. But I'd guess around 5pm.

During this nap, I had a nightmare. A fairly awful one, actually. I react really physically to my dreams most of the time. It's not uncommon for me to cry or scream in my sleep. This time, I was twitching around and convulsing a bit. I remember Prince T waking me up, just barely hearing him say, "Are you alright? Are you okay? You're twitching. What's wrong?"

And then I crashed. The twitching turned into full on convulsing. I couldn't control it and I was just clinging onto him and having full body spasms every few seconds. I could barely talk, not doing much other than whimpering and whining. I kept trying to curl up and hide, but that wasn't really possible with him holding onto me, so I just kept twitching and shaking. He kept talking to me the whole time, trying to calm me down (reassuring me I was safe, that it hadn't been real, etc). Eventually, I calmed down, just twitching a little bit, breathing mostly normally. I was talking a bit at the point,  a bit strained and really quiet and mumbling, but I was talking. He eventually got me to leave the dorm room for a little walk, something to eat, and then we went back to his room where he proceeded to distract me with Nosferatu and Dr. Strangelove.

He cheered me up, quite a bit, but I'm still not 100%. I didn't sleep well last night. I kept waking up every hour or two. No dreams that I can remember, but always this feel of a slight swell of panic.

So right now, I'm depressed, exhausted, and a little shaky. I have work in an hour and I don't really want to go, but I'm going anyhow. It might be a good distraction for me. I'll pull out of this, I always do. I'm just hoping I don't pull out of this using food.

I had a heavy breakfast. An egg and bacon and cheese sandwich with some juice. A lighter lunch, just a hotdog with some tea. This should hold me through my five hours of work today. I'll likely have a lighter snack once I get out and then some chili for dinner.