Oh god, i'm so itchy. Can't sleep can't put limbs down comfortably can't do anything but not scratch or touch.

There are other ways to not-scratch but scratch. My unconscious mind is resourceful, creative, and willing to exploit any loophole.

A few times, in attempt to relieve my fingers of that constant, stinging pressure, I bend my fingers forcefully where the swell had immobilized my joints, popping the blisters and the capillaries alike in satisfaction, squeezing my hand shut (oh god, when was the last time I was able to to that?) and watch little pin drops of blood blossom underneath the skin where it's too thick to pop, thinking that the little bits of red are nicer to look at than watching blisters blossom above the skin. I squeeze and damage myself as the a little bit of itch leaves with each little bit of liquid.

Do you know what dead skin smells like? I do, and that's because the sour, damp tinged smell lingers on my hand.

I very much believe that my morbid fascination and lack of squeamishness in ruining my own skin is due to early and long-term exposure to my own bloated and liquid-soaked dead skin, white and undeniably dead and uncared for yet stubbornly kept by the body because that's all it has got against the outside world.

You know, about four days after a bout of very bad episode, the skin above hardens as new skin is made underneath the layer of liquid; you can peel the old skin off in big, satisfying flakes. sometimes it's like peeling a croissant, sometimes like peeling dried white glue off your hands, and sometimes it's like peeling a sheet of leather, tough and thick.

The new skin underneath is smooth and shiny and prone to tearing—there are no guarantees on it staying healthy for long before bubbles rise up to, and press against, the thin barricade again.

I suppose the one upside to these explosive onsets have against the slowly manifesting kind is that the skin becomes tough but not brittle, a little more forgiving about movement than the dried and brittle skin that cracks and tears deep since motility is restrained from the inside and not the outside.

Whether the pain or the itch threw me deeper into hopelessness, I do not know.

Scratch until it bleeds.

I have begun to worry and daydream a lot more.

I worry about skin atrophy and scratching and infections and stressing my hand by holding bowls and plates and chopsticks and by getting into bed and also quite possibly from typing this out right now (I have stopped trying to hold pens some time ago). I worry every time I feel minute bumps underneath my skin, knowing by now what blisters feel like long before they are visible.

Don't laugh it off when i say i think my hand is going to rot off or that I will get skin cancer one of these days because they are fears not completely illogical to me.

You wouldn't be able to go though this stoically, either, if you have watched your fingers swell and fill with liquids before your eyes, hundreds of blisters growing beneath the skin, stretching and merging into one giant bloat. It crushes.

Sometimes the tips of your fingers prickle from not getting enough blood, sometimes they turn blue. A few times the pressure of liquids exceed the force the skin is able to push and liquids ooze out in great droplets on their own. You would squeeze or force your fingers to bend so the outer skin pops to relieve the stinging pressure from the inside, not caring about the damage of the perforated skin that is left behind.

Don't scoff and tell me it can't be that bad when I scream that I itch because I always itch (when have YOU experienced constant itching?), and if I tell you it means I will soon be more than happily compelled to scratch all my skin off, literally, for the possibility of alleviating the itching for that instant. Stop me or I will head off that cliff, as I have done many times.

Don't tell me there's nothing such as unbearable itching until you have stayed awake, fearing sleep, to grasp at the controls that keep you from just scratch, scratch, and SCRATCH.

End of the quarter and everything, except I'm not in school anymore

Woke clawing at my hands again at approximately 08:00, but at least I got five hours of sleep this time.

The heaviness in my head that accumulates with each waking hour is doing a number on me. Almost dozed off at my computer a few times so far, and have been a little prone to leaning back, stare, then have my head droop and eyes closed in a parody of a nap. The chair is comfortable.

Never thought I would dread sleeping as I did, fearing the lack of control slumber brings.

Awake since 5:30, with only two hours of sleep.

The coughing, after the last four days of silent hell, is finally doing what it's supposed to do. Doesn't make it any less obnoxious, just much less hurty.

That said, I couldn't fall asleep until at least 03:15 last night due to coughing spasms that wouldn't go away.

Then at 05:00 I woke up finding myself clawing fiercely at my fingers and wrist, unable to stop myself, feeling the hundreds of blisters on my fingers pop and the liquid inside coating my fingers.

Half an hour later I quelled the urge to scratch and laid my hands above my bed covers, idly considering the possibility of getting Elizabethan collars for my hands. My coughing spasms resumed soon after due to my uncovered throat and sternum, at which point I thought since I don't seem to be too tired, screw this. Not going to chance waking up scratching up myself again today.

Tiredness is pressing on my forehead now; maybe I will go take a nap sometime this afternoon.

I'm tired of my disabled hands. I can't do much when they're this swollen from inflammation. I also can't do much studying with this lack of sleep, either.

But I'm almost scared of sleeping and what it not brings.