Dreams and Nightmares 6: Crazy with Fear


Crazy with Fear


The media was relentless. Every day there was some news about some possible treatment, some possible discovery, some possible cure. Most of this was just so much verbal electronic spinning. First such news would bring optimism and hope, and then when the newest promise fell through, it would again stoke our fears and incite panic. There was nothing any of us could do. Monogamy helped, unless one’s boyfriend cheated, which happened. How terribly tragic to think that you had trusted a man with your body and your health only to find out that he infected you, and now you were both on your way to an early death. I heard such stories and did my best to ignore them. I felt like a child who claps their ears and says, “nah, nah, nah,” to drown out someone who’s telling them something they don’t want to hear. There were times when the only peace I could find was when I was with my friends or Vince and I was totally absorbed into the present moment of whatever we were doing. For a moment I could forget.
It was not always easy to keep deeply busy and thus to keep the anxieties and ruminations at bay. One Saturday I got home from my regular errands and sunk into my couch, despairing. I started to breathe heavy and my heart was pounding and my hands began to sweat. An anxiety attack. I had read about them, but never experienced one myself. I went to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face and when I looked in the mirror there were five or six blotches of Kaposi’s sarcoma on my face. I let out a little scream whimper and cried and made my way out way back to the couch, frightened like no other time in my life. After I had calmed down, I told myself the best way to handle it would be to assess how bad the lesions were and then to call my doctor in the morning. I went back to the bathroom and looked in the mirror and my face was clear. Clearly the situation was driving me crazy.

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