I can't let go, it only takes something small to take me back there again. Back to boxing day when we traveled the four hours to get to T's parents house. Walking in through the front door and coming face to face with the gorgeous big marine tank. It's my first Christmas with T and I've only ever been in this house once before. We stand and admire the tank for a while then after using the loo which is next to the tank we walk through into the entrance hall, the sound of people greets us and we go through the next door into the large living room/diner where a sour, throat clogging smell instantly chokes me. I try to hold my breath, looking around the room for the source of the pungent smell. K our sister-in-law sat on the sofa in a fluffy dressing gown looking pale and ill, her two boys were playing on the floor, and her husband T's brother M was sitting next to K with his eyes closed and his skin as pale as snow. T's dad was sat on another sofa with his head back on the back of it and his eyes closed also. B (T's sister) and her husband and son weren't to be seen. The TV is blaring on but everyone is quiet. T's mum walks into the room from the kitchen, bringing with her the smell of a roast cooking.
She tells us that everyone has caught a sickness bug, only the the two boys and her haven't had it yet. I was instantly panicking about catching it and feeling angry that they hadn't told us despite knowing I'm an emetophobic and knowing we were coming.
Lunch is served and barely anyone comes to the table, only T and me (although I really really do not want to eat here, or even be here), T's other sister E and his dad and the boys. I force myself to eat as much as I can, feeling a growing sickness inside of me from fear of getting ill. I imagine that every bite I take contains germs that are gathering in my tummy to get me. After the meal we all sit around the sofa's talking and catching up and sharing presents. The boys both become fractious and irritable and clingy. The youngest is sick in the kitchen and fortunately for the dogs making noise I didn't hear anything. The older one of the two is being carried around by T's dad as he is clingy and crying, I happen to look up right at the moment he's sick all over and all down his granddad's back and neck. I feel my fears rising, I can't look anywhere to avoid the illness around me, It feels like its coming to get me. I'm surrounded and we can't go home, even though I ask T if we can.
That evening everyone has gone to bed except me, T and T's mum, we're sitting around the fire and i'm massaging T's back. We finally go to bed quite late and I don't remember what happened then except fearing, and knowing I'm infected.
The following morning T and I got up and I decided to try to stay positive. I ate a little sausage meat and toast for breakfast then T and I went out to a small town and picked up a game(sort of like cards but role play). I hadn't felt hungry all day and hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, so when I felt ill on the way back to the house, I just presumed it was travel sickness. It went off when we got back and T and I sat at the table playing the card game while T ate some cakes. I still didn't feel hungry at all, just a bit urgh. Then suddenly I began to feel worse and I asked T if we could move upstairs to our room just for some quiet because I presumed it was panic, i was so used to panic attacks and I had good reason to have one, being surrounded by yack.
We got upstairs but I didn't feel better. I tried to console myself with once I'm sick I will be okay again and I'll be able to get over it. T knew how hard I was finding it and sat down in front of me, looking into my eyes with his hands on mine as I shook with fear. I cried and shook and cried then I started to feel like I couldn't breath, I felt trapped and had to push away and rush into the bathroom which was opposite. At first nothing happened and T told me to let go because if I held back it would be worse. I remember shaking and feeling so so so scared and so ill and running to cold tap to wet my lips and my forehead and calm me down. The hot tears wouldn't stop and then the vomit started. I didn't know how I had so much from not eating all day. Then it stopped and I breathed a sigh of terrified relief and went back into the bedroom. T left me to go to the other bathroom as he too wasn't feeling too well all of a sudden. Then the feeling in me came back. I rush back to the bathroom and locked the door, feeling terrified alone,knowing that T was alone and I wanted to comfort him but couldn't and I couldn't stop being ill. I sat on the loo in between being ill, digging my nails into my arms, wishing and praying for no more. Then I'd feel the feeling building up again. From my stomach to my throat. I was so exhausted and really thought after I'd lost count hoe many times it was that it was over and I crawled into bed clothed, still with T in the bathroom. I'd just fallen asleep when I had to jump up and run to the bathroom again. This happened at least 4 times, from semi-conscious to ill. I don't remember when it stopped. I know I wished no one would come upstairs and see me like that. I felt disgusting and diseased and we had to stay days extra to get the weakness out of our systems. It took me a long with while that to actually get my eating back to normal, even for me.
I can't get that smell away from me, the pictures of it all. The sounds.
I'm not sure how I can even step foot inside that house again, let alone sleep on the same landing and use the same bathroom.
The following time we visited something a little similar happened. They once again didn't tell us that anyone had been ill. This time was was T's sister E who was ill and when we came away on the third evening we thought we'd escaped it. I suffer from travel sickness and get extra panicky in the car so when I started to feel iffy on the way home, we stopped several times and I felt a little bit better again then it would come back. When we reached home I was feeling atrocious and sent T inside as I didn't even feel like I could move from the car. I kept thinking about what I'd had for dinner, imagined I could feel it roiling around. I played with little things from the glove compartment to try to turn my mind away from it but I just felt ill. I managed to get the car door open and my knees on the floor when I was sick, thankfully this time only once, but still mentally scarring. To fight that whole journey home to be ill outside.
These are the memories I'm living, I'm going over and over and over, stuck in in my mind with the funeral for T's grandma coming on the 4th May. I'm terrified to be in that house, to take that same journey in the car and to smell the smells of the house, of the people. To hear the sounds of the tanks humming away, and the TV. The sound of the children and the dogs.
The last time we stayed there I was no more than 6-8 weeks pregnant, before the pregnancy nausea started and we stayed in a different room to the one we'd stayed in with the illness. But we had to use that same bathroom and I didnt sleep all night despite lorazapam and clonazapam. I was terrified and very very triggered. I'm so terrified of going back there. Of my Angel being taken there and catching something. Do we just stay here again like the other week? Even though it was hard? Or do I just do it, just go, even though i know the risks and fears involved?
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