I’m so scared this evening.
I feel like I’m a few seconds away from full-blown panic.
I keep thinking back four weeks.
Flashbacks is too strong a word, but my goodness, the memories are frightening.
And it makes me realise – this is never going to leave me.
I’m never going to be the same as I was before.
I know that all sin is equal in God’s eyes, but to me, mine feels overwhelming.
But at the same time, I feel like it was out of my hands.
It’s this strange conflict – am I sick or just sinful?
Do I deserve sympathy or disgust?
I feel ill at the thought of this weekend ahead.
A weekend where I need to do everything I can to be a proper, normal wife to Ian. Where I will try my hardest to act, in front of my parents, as if all is well. As if it was a temporary blip and now I am my normal self again.
I don’t want them to know how small and raw and vulnerable I feel.
I want to be the person they want me to be.
Not this huge let-down, this failure. No longer their clever, capable, confident daughter, but their daughter with a shameful secret.
How am I going to do this? How am I going to go to the gig with Ian on Saturday night when I just want to hide away at home, in my own bed? Or sit in a pub for Sunday lunch and keep that smile on my face when inside, I feel like I’m falling apart?
These are supposed to be happy times, not scary, overwhelming, unbearable ones. I *should* be thankful for each day that God has given me.
I feel so guilty that I don’t.