When people ask how I’m doing these days, I never know how to answer, so I just say to everyone:

“I’m tired.”

But this isn’t a tired that can be relieved with a good night’s sleep, a break from school, or a hot cup of coffee—this is a tired that penetrates my very soul. It’s a tired that makes simple tasks take untold mental effort. It’s a tired that makes me uninterested in anything more than surviving each hour ahead. It’s a tired that makes me wish people would stop asking about my post-college plans, because I don’t even know how I’ll get through today.  This is a tired that’s sucking the very life out of me.

It’s now been about two months since I began Lyme treatment, and I’ve been herxing every two weeks; just as I recover from one reaction, I start having another a few days later. Each herx not only makes me physically tired, but the roller-coaster of symptoms leaves me mentally exhausted as well. With the last two herxes, I’ve ended up worse than before once they’re over.

Now, after three herx reactions, I feel like my life is slipping away between my fingers, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I neither recognize myself nor the nightmare unfolding before my eyes.

Lately, I’ve felt totally out-of-control; one moment, I’m almost okay, and the next, I’m repeatedly telling my mom that I want to die. One moment, I’m able to struggle through homework (albeit slowly and with great difficulty), and the next, it’s as if someone has “wiped my brain;” I suddenly become confused, disoriented, and unable to say little more than choppy words and gibberish.

To make matters worse, my eating disorder is so severe now that my psychiatrist thinks I should start intensive outpatient therapy. My mom has moved in with me, because I can no longer take care of myself. I usually can’t go to work, and I’ve had to drop some classes that I was really enjoying. But truly the worst of all of this is that I’m so depressed that I’m sometimes mad at God in the mornings simply because He let me wake up again.

I’m tired of watching myself fade away. I’m tired of getting better only to get worse later. I’m tired of PANS. I’m tired of Lyme. I’m tired of endless treatments and trips to the doctor. I’m tired of watching life go by while I stand still. Sometimes, I’m simply tired of living at all. How much longer can I keep doing this?

But you know what? The runner in me still knows that being tired doesn’t mean you have to give up. No, “tired” is a challenge and a dare to keep moving forward despite your body screaming at you to quit. Some of my best runs have been those when I was sure I couldn’t take another stride, and yet I went on for several more miles, running faster than I thought was possible.

I may be tired, but with God, I’m stronger than I’d ever dare to believe. I don’t know how many more miles I have to run like this, but one thing’s for sure: I will keep pushing forward, even if it means crawling across the finish line of this disease, tired, exhausted and gasping for breath.