She May Be a Monster, but She’s My Monster

Image by Vorja Sánchez

I haven’t felt like “me” since the November 13th, 2017.

That was the last day I actually remember feeling well, healthy; when I last felt normal.  Oh, I’ve had some good days since then, don’t get me wrong… but since that fateful day, things for me have felt a bit like the “Twilight Zone.” 

Being on high doses of steroids is a double-edged sword!  When you take them, you have to contend with wicked side effects.  If you don’t take them, you have to withstand the  crippling symptoms of your illness.

It’s Hobson’s choice really.

Just for context, I have only been on as little as 45 mg per day (and I thought I would die!) and on as much as 80 mg per day (and I thought I would die!), since November.

Once you start taking corticosteroids you’re hooked.  You’re pretty much a junkie, except I doubt that the high is comparable.  And once you start, you can’t just stop!  If you want to get off them, you need to put an elaborate “taper down” plan in place and execute it very slowly, over a period of time.  And even then, you’re probably going to experience some level of “cold turkey,” withdrawal.

Also, and this is not a well-known medical fact, but true nonetheless, once you start taking high dose steroids you spawn your very own, internal lusus naturae!  It’s like this “mini me,” monster thingy, that spontaneously grows inside of you.  And with whom you quickly develop a unique, and peculiar, love/hate relationship!

For me, she kind of just appeared one day out of nowhere.  I saw her, streaking through the house, out of the corner of my eye.  Wide eyed and frantic, darting from room to room.

I soon became aware that she had somehow seized a pretty good-sized chunk of what had previously been ME… my being.  My essence!

She had somehow replaced odd bits and pieces of what had been ME (for the past 63 years!) with odd bits and pieces of HER!

She is similar to me, but in a much more exaggerated, paranoid kind of way.  She’s familiar, yet strange. Friendly, but distant.  I have this odd sense that she and I have met before, but maybe that’s just déjà vu?

I get the distinct impression, she’s here for to stay… at least for a while.

From the beginning she’s been, shall we say… invasive.  I fall asleep, she wakes me up at 2:00 am, wanting to play.  I try to string a simple sentence together and she projects distracting, random images, inside my heard, making me lose my train of thought.  She has an insatiable appetite and all she ever wants to do is EAT!  When she’s not eating, she’s bitching about being “exhausted,”  “fatigued,” “tired!” (Well. don’t get us up at 2:00am, I scream!)  She has this maddening habit of distorting things… up becomes down, right becomes wrong, now becomes later, and nothing?  Nothing always becomes SOMETHING!

However, even with all the chaos and upheaval she’s brought into my life…  she has become my constant.  My one unwavering friend. She is always here.  Always watching. Always waiting in the wings.  She never tires of my company.

She can be a bit judgemental and occasionally admonishes me, but it’s for my own good, I’m sure.  She prevents me from being overly optimistic and gives me a more realistic and pragmatic perspective of things.

One enormous positive she’s brought with her (and has willingly shared with me) is a shaman-like inspiration and sense of creativity.  I’ve always envied people who were able to get in touch with their creative side, as I’ve never been able to even see mine!

Until now…. until she arrived.

You see, the problem is, I am an analyst by nature.  An Analyst is defined as an {annoying} person who studies the elements of something, often breaking it down into smaller {more tedious} parts {that nobody really cares about} to learn how the parts work together and what the nature is of the thing being studied.  (And yes, it is as boring as it sounds!)

Whereas a creative!  A creative is defined as a {magical} person with a never-ending, intense {burning} desire to produce {create, imagine, invent} based on originality {ingenuity} of thought, expression, etc.

Wow, right?  Night and day.

Well…  I truly believe that I have (and it definitely has something to do with her) begun a magical transformation to an opposite, parallel universe!  A place where I (boring, ordinary, analytical, project manager ME!) am more imaginative and artsy, avant-garde and inspired, original and do I dare say relevant?

Un-freakin-believable, right?

However… this presents me with a  bit of a Catch-22, a quandary, a riddle, wrapped inside a burrito!

She’s a cyclone!  An unwanted, dangerous disturbance.  She brings with her destruction and anarchy!

She obviously can’t stay…  but I’m not quite sure I want her to go.

I find myself in a charmed, but hazardous, love/hate relationship with a wide-eyed, unpredictable, steroid fueled monster, who seems rather intent on taking over my very existence!

Yes, sure, okay…  in exchange, she may continue to bestow upon me this magical, intoxicating, outflow of originality and creativity, but at what cost? 

No she has got to go!! 

However…

On the other hand… as she’s already here and she seems so very much at home and comfortable, what’s the harm, really?

I’m sure, as long as I  keep her away from say bright lights, and I don’t get her wet and perhaps if I don’t feed her after midnight… what could possibly go wrong?

Right?

She may be a monster, but she’s my monster.