Today was the first full PMDD day of my cycle. I've been fighting off the creeping anxiety for a few days, but when I woke up this morning feeling like I was borrowing an ill-fitting skin, I knew the switch was about to be flipped. Fast forward a few hours and I was lying in the foetal position crying over Blue Whale statistics. PMDD is fun like that.
As I started digging around in my PMDD survival kit wondering which flotation device would get me through this round of depression and anxiety, I realised I had started to amass a lot of them. So, why not share them here?
I have wanted to write this for some time now. Picture me as the classic writer scrawling across reams of paper only to scrunch them up and throw them onto a colossus mountain of discarded words. I don’t know why I can’t get such a simple story written down. Perhaps it is because there is no way to tie it up into a happily-ever-after. In fact, there is no neat way to tie it up at all, no revelation, no satisfaction, no ending.
But I have to find a way to write it down because the deck has a name, and it is an important name to me. I am uncomfortable with people assuming I have chosen its name because it sounds mystical and arcane. I am worried that people will think I am being flippant about the low vision community. So, here it is in all of its messy, incomplete glory: the story of how the Blind Tarot deck found its name.
At first, when the down days come, they are almost comforting in their inevitability. A thick, familiar blanket to sink into. I bury beneath them and block out the bombardment of sounds and feelings of an ordinary life, let my skin go numb.
A few days in and the mustiness of that blanket is no longer pleasant. I’m ready to break free, but the decision is taken from me. I cannot find the edges of that damp, clinging depression. I tear at my face, fighting for all those times I’ve breathed fresh love, joy and curiosity, and remain piteously tangled. Cocooned in an invisible solitude.
