Loosing My Mind (and Body)

The title to this work is dramatic.

I'm dramatic, so I guess that it fits. But this is also somewhat of a rant.

So, I'm obviously not going to go into a great amount of personal detail here (funny, because I spill all my mental secrets), but I do want to talk, so talk I will.

I have a tremor disorder.

That doesn't sound all that bad when it's written out in front of me, which is somehow better and worse at the same time.

But the fact of the matter is that I do have a tremor disorder, and I do have a tremor disorder to a severity that most likely shouldn't be as bad as it is. I'm young and I'm pretty in shape, so it's not like I have the physical predisposition to develop such a thing.

The only aspect that maybe even suggested that this disorder would be a possibility was the fact that it is genetic, and both my mother and grandfather have had it to an extent.

BUT.

The thing is that this specific disorder, it's supposed to develop to a noticeable severity when you're in your late 40's or early 50's. In my family, it seems to develop in a person's mid-30's, but that's fine. The issue is that I am still significantly younger than in my mid-30's. So, in theory, I should have a pretty okay expanse of time before tremors start to become an issue for me.

You'd think.

But starting at the beginning of the summer, I noticed that my hands were shaking a little bit. I dropped things a little bit more than usual, and was a little less delicate, but it was whatever. I was kind of sick with a bug at the time, so I had just assumed that it was a side effect, and that once I got better, so would the shaking.

The issue was that about a month later when I was finally feeling back to normal, the shaking had gotten a little better, but it wasn't gone like the rest of my symptoms.

Naturally, I ignored it.

Then summer ended. I went back to school. And it got so much worse.

Shaking every day went from just a vague shaking sensation, maybe a bit of clumsiness, to dropping my pencil and pens, losing my fine motor skills, just the parts of life that you don't think about a lot.

Let me tell you: loosing the skills that you learned in kindergarten sucks.

I used to have nice handwriting.

I used to be able to use scissors.

I used to be able to play the piano.

(That last one was a lie-I always say I'll teach myself how to play the piano, but I haven't. I mean I can't do it anymore even if I wanted to)

I used to be able to draw.

And I've lost those abilities.

And that drives me insane. I am a person. I am someone who used to love to draw and use my hands and everything like that, but now I can't. I am slowly loosing my ability to do the things that I used to love.

I miss it.

I'm slightly delirious as I'm writing this, but I'll probably add more soon, because I guess that this is an outlet, and I don't know, maybe someone or other might enjoy this "journey".

-s.j