I've been sick.

Now Playing: Breaking Down (Live) by Florence + The Machine (I think I'm breaking down again)

I know people think of me as a drama queen, or at least a wuss with a very low pain threshold, but I am honestly, truly, not very well at the moment.

My pacemaker is being a pain. I don't know whether it's stress or whatever but it's been hurting a lot lately. I'll just be walking and then suddenly it feels like someone's punched me in the stomach, or has stabbed me in the ribs. It's not something I can really explain, not a sensation I can really describe...but I am definitely not making this up. For all the horrible things I have ever wished upon the many people who have hurt me, this has never been one of them. It fucking hurts.

I had a panic attack a week ago and it was by far the scariest thing I have ever been through. You can't think, you can't breathe, everything sort of seizes up and everything just becomes very claustrophobic and intimidating. Which is the reason why I sort of lost my shit the day afterwards.

For the last week my sweet girlfriends have been graciously patient as hormones slowly eroded at my sanity and my ability to behave appropriately in public settings. Every day I would just lose it a bit more, and I've spent the last four days constantly on the verge of tears. That is, hopefully, over now. Thank you thank you thank you.

For the last two days I've been fine, and then I'll cough and suddenly feel awful and cough up blood clots - and then the nausea is over almost as quickly as it began. It sounds scary but the nurse says it's fine, just a consequence of my being quite sick a couple of weeks back. That I can handle. What is harder to bear is people glaring at me as if I'm making a fuss over nothing.

People always assume the worst of people, you know. I've been shocked by the distinct lack of empathy, the selfishness, the lack of understanding by some people - people who see concern as a sign of weakness, not the incredible strength that it is. It takes a strong person, a beautiful person, to ask if everything's okay, to do what they can to help. Not everyone passes through life with just little sniffles and colds. I am not well. Pain has always been a part of my life, and believe me, I know what agony is. I am amazingly self conscious of pain, and so I'll never really show it unless it's bad.

It's somewhat hard to explain the difference between concern and sympathy. Concern makes everything better - you feel like people are there for you, people are looking after you, when you feel weak and horrible and vulnerable. There's this look in people's eyes when they drop everything and run to you, put their arm around you, try to drag you to the nurses' office...it makes everything okay. Sympathy....I hate sympathy. It's condescending and just generally unbearable. And, because at school people are sharply divided between the small group of people who care about me and the large group of people who would like to see me at the bottom of the ocean, sympathy just reeks with insincerity.

I'm fine, really. Things are just a bit rough. But, you know...physical pain doesn't bother me anymore. It's how people react that can sometimes hurt more than anything my body could go through.