I said I was gonna do one of these every day, so here it is.
Today I am grateful for thunderstorms, rain, wind and needed change. I am grateful for my husband, whose absence during business trips only makes me appreciate his kindness, patience, and deep love for me all the more when he returns. I am grateful for friends new and old, for summer stuff like cookouts and fireflies and festivals (one of which I would like to go to tomorrow.) I am grateful for not having been in too much pain to enjoy myself today, and to have been able to help Matt at least a little bit with chores. I'm grateful for inexpensive shiny things that nonetheless make me very happy. I'm grateful for Miss Valkyrie Gingerpaw Wagner and her antics, even if she does knock over everything I own. I am grateful for the fact that the bed bugs don't seem to be in my room, and don't seem to be affecting Matt much. I am grateful that whoever parked in our spot moved before we had to have them towed. I'm grateful for candles that smell nice and for my big squishy stuffed wolf whom I have yet to name. I'm grateful for my sacred space and for order amid the chaos. I'm grateful for the chaos because it leads to rewards once it's all untangled. And finally, I'm grateful for the new car, and my new tablet, both of which make it easier for me to get around.
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Friday, June 28, 2013
Grateful 6.28.13
I'm going to try to do one if these "grateful" posts daily, at least for a while, even if all I can think of is "I'm grateful I'm not dead yet." Because, seriously? I need to do everything I can to kick the demon's ass.
Today, I am grateful for cooler weather, frozen mochas, fuzzy kitties, free WiFi, and for the fact that Matt will be home tonight after being gone since Tuesday morning. I am grateful for my friend Isa, who got me out of the house. I am grateful for not feeling anxious or depressed at this moment, but also thankful I was able to get my anxiety meds refilled. I am grateful for my own self-awareness and my ability to know when to reach out for help. I am grateful for my marriage and the way Matt and I communicate. I am grateful for my spirituality, which helps me make sense of the madness, if not immediately, then in retrospect. I am grateful that there is always something more to learn and new ways to grow.
Today, I am grateful for cooler weather, frozen mochas, fuzzy kitties, free WiFi, and for the fact that Matt will be home tonight after being gone since Tuesday morning. I am grateful for my friend Isa, who got me out of the house. I am grateful for not feeling anxious or depressed at this moment, but also thankful I was able to get my anxiety meds refilled. I am grateful for my own self-awareness and my ability to know when to reach out for help. I am grateful for my marriage and the way Matt and I communicate. I am grateful for my spirituality, which helps me make sense of the madness, if not immediately, then in retrospect. I am grateful that there is always something more to learn and new ways to grow.
Thursday, June 27, 2013
The battle continues
Matt has been gone since Tuesday morning. It is now Thursday evening, and despite my best efforts, I've succumbed to my depression. Yesterday was the worst. To be fair, I was triggered. On Tuesday morning I woke up covered in itchy bumps, and I found a bedbug in my husband's bed. (We usually sleep in separate rooms, not because we're fighting or anything, but because we have very different needs when it comes to sleep. I like it freezing cold, he likes it warm, he uses a CPAP, I toss and turn, he goes to bed early, I go to bed late, et cetera.) Anyway, he was leaving in the morning, so I spent the night with him. There was sex, which was good, because I've either been in too much pain or too sick or too "meh" for sex for a while. And I managed to fall asleep next to him, though I spent much of the night itching. Man, talk about a buzz kill. I'm really glad we found the bugs after... anyway.
I am, at this point, genuinely phobic of bed bugs. Last October, we went through a horrific situation in which the apartment we moved into was so infested that we were forced to move after only three weeks. The allergic reaction I had to them was so bad that I had to get a cortisone shot to counteract the swelling. To make matters worse, we were harassed by our landlord and threatened with eviction when we brought the problem to their attention. We spent weeks in fear that we were going to lose our home. In the end, we lost our deposit, spent $3000 treating everything we owned, and had to move to our current apartment with less than three days' notice. The entire thing was a nightmare, and given my past -- I've often been in situations where the roof over my head was tenuous -- I was in a constant state of panic for two weeks straight at least.
Since moving to our new apartment in November, I've been super-paranoid about the bugs. I change my bedsheets often, and each time I vacuum the mattress. I feel my heart rate rise every time I see some little crumb that could possibly be a bedbug. I had been relaxing about it lately, though, because I figured if we hadn't seen any sign of them in 8 months, we should be fine. And as soon as I let my guard down ... bam. (This has done nothing to ease my phobia.)
Immediately I went into "battle mode." We told them we had bugs when we moved in... well, that was stupid. They're going to blame us and all the cost will be our responsibility. We can't afford it. We're going to be kicked out. We're going to lose our home again.
Matt says we'll be okay. That's what I needed to hear... "It will all be okay. Don't worry." And my rational mind knows this. My rational mind knows damn well that whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger and that if I got through this shit once, I can do it again. Besides, this time we are doing business with a reputable rental company. It's not like dealing with the slum lord we had before.
But I talked to our rental agent, and he said that it was our fault. There's no way they're paying for an exterminator, and we better take care of it before they spread to the next unit. Well, what if we can't afford it? I mean, you could kick us out, but you'd still have bugs and you'd still have to treat the building anyway. So we're at a stalemate.
I just wish we'd omitted the bed bug story when we had rented in the first place. We were understandably concerned and did not want a repeat experience.
We're going to lose our home. We just can't get rid of all the bedbugs. They're just going to keep coming back, and no one will rent to us because the rental company will tell them. It's like having a communicable disease. It's not our fault, but we're being blamed. What the fuck are we going to do?
With Matt out-of-town, I just had to stop thinking about it. I am just not able to conjure the strength to deal with this shit on my own. I'm itchy and miserable. Yesterday I didn't even put clothes on. I left my room only to go to the bathroom and get food. I laid in my bed (which does not seem to be infested) and watched documentaries all day. I dissociated. I was ten years old. The one thing that cheered me up was that I got my new wolf plushie in the mail, and I clung to it and napped.
Then, today, I was able to get out of the house, and, thank the gods, my shrink refilled my anti-anxiety meds. I realise that I haven't done anything that I had thought of doing when Matt went out of town. I was going to fix his trousers and work on digitally restoring his parents' old wedding photos. Have I even touched those things? No. I just shut down.
I think that at this point, I am willing to concede that there is something wrong in terms of my meds. I am cycling harder than I have in quite some time, and I am absolutely not functional when left alone for more than 48 hours without actual, face-to-face human interaction. I am unable to break through the heaviness of the depression, which seems to weigh me down like a sodden wool coat. It's just easier to sit down and do nothing, zone out, get as far away from emotion as possible. I can't seem to focus, even for a moment, on artistic pursuits. I have even lost interest in some of the silly stuff I do-- internet games, writing fan fiction, chatting on Facebook.
I'm going to preface this next paragraph by saying that I'm not feeling it. I don't get this kind of thinking, and I don't think it's this simple. But at this point, I'm willing to try anything. My therapist suggested that instead of asking my gods for help, I should thank Them for what I need as if it has already come to pass. I find this idea rather presumptuous and counter-intuitive. She insists that it's a test of how much faith I really have in my gods. (Boy, did that get my hackles up.)
So, here goes nothing.
Odin, thank You for the wisdom you have given me to see my way through this dark time in my mind.
Freyja, thank You for Your protection in my battles with the forces of doubt and despair. Thank You for Your love.
Thor, thank You for the cleansing rains and blustering winds that scour the filth of apathy from my mind and allow me to forge new creations with newfound strength and inspiration.
Sigyn, thank You for imparting Your serene patience and comfort, as One who understands and appreciates loss as mortals could scarcely understand.
Loki, thank You for Your light in the darkness, Your laughter and Your tricks. Thank You for giving me the strength to fight on, to vanquish fear, to come back to ritual, to make things in Your honour, and most of all, keep the Hearth Fire lit in my own home.
Hail the Aesir!
Hail the Vanir!
Hail all the Gods of Old!
I am, at this point, genuinely phobic of bed bugs. Last October, we went through a horrific situation in which the apartment we moved into was so infested that we were forced to move after only three weeks. The allergic reaction I had to them was so bad that I had to get a cortisone shot to counteract the swelling. To make matters worse, we were harassed by our landlord and threatened with eviction when we brought the problem to their attention. We spent weeks in fear that we were going to lose our home. In the end, we lost our deposit, spent $3000 treating everything we owned, and had to move to our current apartment with less than three days' notice. The entire thing was a nightmare, and given my past -- I've often been in situations where the roof over my head was tenuous -- I was in a constant state of panic for two weeks straight at least.
Since moving to our new apartment in November, I've been super-paranoid about the bugs. I change my bedsheets often, and each time I vacuum the mattress. I feel my heart rate rise every time I see some little crumb that could possibly be a bedbug. I had been relaxing about it lately, though, because I figured if we hadn't seen any sign of them in 8 months, we should be fine. And as soon as I let my guard down ... bam. (This has done nothing to ease my phobia.)
Immediately I went into "battle mode." We told them we had bugs when we moved in... well, that was stupid. They're going to blame us and all the cost will be our responsibility. We can't afford it. We're going to be kicked out. We're going to lose our home again.
Matt says we'll be okay. That's what I needed to hear... "It will all be okay. Don't worry." And my rational mind knows this. My rational mind knows damn well that whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger and that if I got through this shit once, I can do it again. Besides, this time we are doing business with a reputable rental company. It's not like dealing with the slum lord we had before.
But I talked to our rental agent, and he said that it was our fault. There's no way they're paying for an exterminator, and we better take care of it before they spread to the next unit. Well, what if we can't afford it? I mean, you could kick us out, but you'd still have bugs and you'd still have to treat the building anyway. So we're at a stalemate.
I just wish we'd omitted the bed bug story when we had rented in the first place. We were understandably concerned and did not want a repeat experience.
We're going to lose our home. We just can't get rid of all the bedbugs. They're just going to keep coming back, and no one will rent to us because the rental company will tell them. It's like having a communicable disease. It's not our fault, but we're being blamed. What the fuck are we going to do?
With Matt out-of-town, I just had to stop thinking about it. I am just not able to conjure the strength to deal with this shit on my own. I'm itchy and miserable. Yesterday I didn't even put clothes on. I left my room only to go to the bathroom and get food. I laid in my bed (which does not seem to be infested) and watched documentaries all day. I dissociated. I was ten years old. The one thing that cheered me up was that I got my new wolf plushie in the mail, and I clung to it and napped.
Then, today, I was able to get out of the house, and, thank the gods, my shrink refilled my anti-anxiety meds. I realise that I haven't done anything that I had thought of doing when Matt went out of town. I was going to fix his trousers and work on digitally restoring his parents' old wedding photos. Have I even touched those things? No. I just shut down.
I think that at this point, I am willing to concede that there is something wrong in terms of my meds. I am cycling harder than I have in quite some time, and I am absolutely not functional when left alone for more than 48 hours without actual, face-to-face human interaction. I am unable to break through the heaviness of the depression, which seems to weigh me down like a sodden wool coat. It's just easier to sit down and do nothing, zone out, get as far away from emotion as possible. I can't seem to focus, even for a moment, on artistic pursuits. I have even lost interest in some of the silly stuff I do-- internet games, writing fan fiction, chatting on Facebook.
I'm going to preface this next paragraph by saying that I'm not feeling it. I don't get this kind of thinking, and I don't think it's this simple. But at this point, I'm willing to try anything. My therapist suggested that instead of asking my gods for help, I should thank Them for what I need as if it has already come to pass. I find this idea rather presumptuous and counter-intuitive. She insists that it's a test of how much faith I really have in my gods. (Boy, did that get my hackles up.)
So, here goes nothing.
Odin, thank You for the wisdom you have given me to see my way through this dark time in my mind.
Freyja, thank You for Your protection in my battles with the forces of doubt and despair. Thank You for Your love.
Thor, thank You for the cleansing rains and blustering winds that scour the filth of apathy from my mind and allow me to forge new creations with newfound strength and inspiration.
Sigyn, thank You for imparting Your serene patience and comfort, as One who understands and appreciates loss as mortals could scarcely understand.
Loki, thank You for Your light in the darkness, Your laughter and Your tricks. Thank You for giving me the strength to fight on, to vanquish fear, to come back to ritual, to make things in Your honour, and most of all, keep the Hearth Fire lit in my own home.
Hail the Aesir!
Hail the Vanir!
Hail all the Gods of Old!
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Anxiety is a douchebag
Isn't anxiety an amazingly talented douchebag? Anxiety can take a stuffy nose and turn it into a lethal fungal infection of the sinuses. It can take an upset stomach and turn it into a heart attack. It can take a splinter and turn it into a flesh-eating virus. It can magnify any tiny, insignificant problem and convince you that you are only seconds away from taking your last breath.
I fucking hate it. I'm fucking tired of it. I was doing so well today, and yesterday. Suddenly, bam. I'm "dying" again. I'm thirty-five and it's a miracle I've made it this long, what with all my undiagnosed heart problems and skin cancer and brain aneurysms. And there's just enough truth to my fears -- because I am overweight and I smoke -- that it makes anxiety's illusions all the more convincing. Then, it actually raises your blood pressure and respiration! What a crafty asshole anxiety is. (No offense, L. You're a crafty asshole, too, but you're the kind I like.)
Anyway, I'm going to try fighting fire with fire. I'm writing down all the things I'm afraid of. Reading them over and over again.
First, the physical stuff:
Heart attack
Stroke
Cancer
Lethal infection
Suffocating
Throwing up
Passing out
(Yes, I am actually more afraid of throwing up than I am of passing out.)
Now, the mental stuff:
Losing my mind
Losing Matt
Distorted memories/ stolen memories
Never feeling "okay" again
Losing my mind
Losing my mind
Losing my mind
Losing my mind
... you get the idea.
My therapist showed me a new technique to help with these fears. I'll write more about that later. For now, I just wanted to get this shit down while I'm in the midst of it. I've had quite a few mood swings in the last few days which I am attributing to recovering from the stuff I mentioned in the last few entries. Or it could be hormones. My periods have been screwed up lately.
I fucking hate it. I'm fucking tired of it. I was doing so well today, and yesterday. Suddenly, bam. I'm "dying" again. I'm thirty-five and it's a miracle I've made it this long, what with all my undiagnosed heart problems and skin cancer and brain aneurysms. And there's just enough truth to my fears -- because I am overweight and I smoke -- that it makes anxiety's illusions all the more convincing. Then, it actually raises your blood pressure and respiration! What a crafty asshole anxiety is. (No offense, L. You're a crafty asshole, too, but you're the kind I like.)
Anyway, I'm going to try fighting fire with fire. I'm writing down all the things I'm afraid of. Reading them over and over again.
First, the physical stuff:
Heart attack
Stroke
Cancer
Lethal infection
Suffocating
Throwing up
Passing out
(Yes, I am actually more afraid of throwing up than I am of passing out.)
Now, the mental stuff:
Losing my mind
Losing Matt
Distorted memories/ stolen memories
Never feeling "okay" again
Losing my mind
Losing my mind
Losing my mind
Losing my mind
... you get the idea.
My therapist showed me a new technique to help with these fears. I'll write more about that later. For now, I just wanted to get this shit down while I'm in the midst of it. I've had quite a few mood swings in the last few days which I am attributing to recovering from the stuff I mentioned in the last few entries. Or it could be hormones. My periods have been screwed up lately.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
God talking
Last night, I posted that I have been having a depressive episode publicly on Facebook. I didn't do it because I wanted people to feel sorry for me. I did it because I wanted some public accountability for getting out of it, and also to let people know that if I don't talk to them as often, it's nothing personal. I was contacted by a friend I hadn't heard from in a while. He told me he empathised, and the reason I hadn't heard from him was because he had been in and out of in-patient psych treatment. I remembered when I was in the hospital for a while. At the time, I truly was a danger to myself and others, and it was the safest place for me, but I remember feeling as if I was being punished. It's like a minimum-security prison. They take away your phone and Internet and monitor everything you do. I'm glad I went, at the time, but the thought of going back to a place like that is scary. Isolation is one of, if not the biggest trigger I have. Talking to him should have comforted me, I suppose, but all I could think about was, what if I have another psychotic break? What if I have another episode like I did the other night, and I can't snap myself out of it? I don't want to go back to that place in my head, or that place in my past. So what are my options? Medications that will take away my creativity, my sex drive and my personality? It scares me. Why can't I just excise the fear that infects my mind, and still be fully who I am? What will it take?
And then, I feel it. I feel the fire in my soul. I feel Him reaching out to me, with a bright beam of light like a life-line, pulling me from the dark. He shines in the darkness, making me beautiful, making everything sparkle. He pulls me straight through the fire to burn away my fear. He turns terror to laughter and madness to beauty. He distracts me with His magic, and tricks me into believing I am okay... and it works, because eventually, I am. Every time. He holds me close to Him and I fall asleep like a child in His arms. He tells me stories and brings me dreams of passion and power, to be made manifest in words and in art.
More must be made.
More must be done.
And then, I feel it. I feel the fire in my soul. I feel Him reaching out to me, with a bright beam of light like a life-line, pulling me from the dark. He shines in the darkness, making me beautiful, making everything sparkle. He pulls me straight through the fire to burn away my fear. He turns terror to laughter and madness to beauty. He distracts me with His magic, and tricks me into believing I am okay... and it works, because eventually, I am. Every time. He holds me close to Him and I fall asleep like a child in His arms. He tells me stories and brings me dreams of passion and power, to be made manifest in words and in art.
More must be made.
More must be done.
Force of will
I finally admitted to myself that I have been in a depressive rut for the last three weeks or so, maybe even a little longer. It started with my sciatica acting up, and when Matt and I both got sick, it continued. I have slept poorly and my sleep schedule, which had been normalising, has now become irregular again. I have been sleeping a lot during the day. I have also had an increase in nightmares. I don't feel like I'm getting restful sleep at all, at least at night. For some reason, it seems easier to sleep during the day.
Anyway, pain, illness and fatigue have kept me from having the spoons to leave the house, and the longer I go without going out, the worse my depression gets. It isn't enough, either, to have someone pick me up and take me somewhere. I need to actually pack my shit and walk to the bus stop or the coffee house on my own, without assistance. Walking is about the only exercise I can do without a lot of pain, and I know how important exercise is in terms of alleviating depression.
For me, depression and anxiety are a cycle. Depression sneaks up, settles in, saps my will, and then anxiety takes advantage of my weakened emotional immune system. It often happens that this coincides with an actual physical illness, as it did this time. My immune system took a hit from the flu-like virus I shared with Matt, and I not only ended up with thrush, but emotional illness as well. I explained to Matt that it seems to take me a long time to recover mentally from physical illness. My sanity is a fragile thing, and when my physical health is compromised, my mental health suffers, too.
What makes all of this several shades worse is that I feel shame for being depressed. I think part of me even feels shame for succumbing to physical illness, which is, of course, ridiculous. The thought process is, roughly, "You should be stronger than this. Why are you so weak?" In reality, I am only feeling weak because I am using most of my strength just to do normal, every-day things, like get up and feed myself. I am doing the best I can, but because it isn't as good as I know I can be, it's shit. All-or-nothing. Yes, I'm familiar with the way this mode of thinking works, and I do try to counteract it, but when I get into a serious rut like this, it gets harder and harder to say "This is the best I can do today, and that's okay." I fear complacency, so I push myself, but not always in the right ways.
Today, I woke from another nightmare of Matt leaving me. My heart was pounding and I was awash in a cold sweat, even though my room was cool. Luckily, Matt wasn't too busy at work to talk to me for a couple of minutes. It did help in terms of re-setting my reality meter. Uh, let me explain that. When I wake from dreams suddenly, I don't always have a sense of where -- or when-- I am. It doesn't last long, maybe five or ten minutes at most, but it often throws off my whole day.
I felt like I was being pulled along on puppet strings today, like some inner will to break the cycle was pushing me to get up, shower, get dressed, put on make-up, pack my shit and walk a mile to the bus stop. I really didn't have much conscious will to do so. It was action without thought. When I fall to depression and anxiety, thought is the enemy. Thought is paralysing. Thoughts swarm my mind and get in the way of what I need to do. Here is an example. All the thoughts running through my brain as I wake up:. Ever read the kids' book, "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie"? It's like that.
Where am I? Okay, I'm here, this is good, I'm safe.
I have to get up.
I am exhausted, I need a couple of more hours of sleep.
I have to get up and take my pills.
I want a cigarette.
If I get up I need to put clothes on.
But that means I also need to shower, because gross.
So in order to go downstairs and take my pills and have a smoke, I need to take a shower and put clothes on.
If I take a shower, I need to shave my legs, because it's hot and I want to wear shorts.
If I shave, I know my back will hurt and it will wear me out.
But if I don't do all these things, I will never get up.
Maybe I should just go downstairs naked and take my pills and come back to bed.
No, that wouldn't be good, because I have to get up.
I don't feel like shaving or drying my hair. Those things make my back hurt.
But I have to do those things because I have to go out.
What time is it?
Oh, I have to call the doctor.
But I have to get up first.
I really don't need to have a cigarette, I can just go take my pills and come back to bed.
But I have to get up.
And if I get up, I have to ...
Everything is so complicated.
So what did I actually do? I asked Isa to give me a wake-up call with enough time for me to faff about in my usual way and eventually make it to the coffee house, so that I could write this entry. I set a realistic goal of 3:00 p.m. I just kept thinking that I need to be there by 3:00, but I didn't even look at the time. I got up and took a shower. As predicted, my back started to spasm while I shaved, so I laid down. While I was resting, though, I made some phone calls, one of which was to make an appointment with Matt's sleep doctor, something I have been meaning to do for quite some time. So there's that. At least I accomplished some things while I was lying down.
After that, puppet strings. Just sort of did whatever I could to get ready. Decided not to dry my hair because of noise and hot dry air and my shoulders hurting. Put clothes on. Finally had a cigarette. Chased the cat around for a minute because she took my hair tie. I even put make-up on. Then I stuck the headphones on and headed out the door. The music did the rest, and I barely noticed the walk.
Once I get to wherever I'm going, I always feel better. Well, almost always. There are days when the anxiety wins, but not often, and not today. When I got to the coffee shop, it was just before 3:00 p.m., so I had accomplished my goal. It might not seem like much to most people, but to me, today, it was huge. I even did more than I'd set out to do, because I made the appointment at the sleep clinic, which should be a step forward for me.
I should feel good. I do feel better, much better than I did this time yesterday, but... I'm tired of this shit. I'm tired of this never-ending battle with my brain. I would say that I am clearly not on the right meds, but there have been too many extraneous variables lately to say that. This depression was clearly triggered by illness, and I had only started the mood-stabilising medication two months prior. At any rate, I'll talk to my prescribing psychiatrist soon. Maybe she can sort me out. But gods, I hate being dependent on pills.
Anyway, pain, illness and fatigue have kept me from having the spoons to leave the house, and the longer I go without going out, the worse my depression gets. It isn't enough, either, to have someone pick me up and take me somewhere. I need to actually pack my shit and walk to the bus stop or the coffee house on my own, without assistance. Walking is about the only exercise I can do without a lot of pain, and I know how important exercise is in terms of alleviating depression.
For me, depression and anxiety are a cycle. Depression sneaks up, settles in, saps my will, and then anxiety takes advantage of my weakened emotional immune system. It often happens that this coincides with an actual physical illness, as it did this time. My immune system took a hit from the flu-like virus I shared with Matt, and I not only ended up with thrush, but emotional illness as well. I explained to Matt that it seems to take me a long time to recover mentally from physical illness. My sanity is a fragile thing, and when my physical health is compromised, my mental health suffers, too.
What makes all of this several shades worse is that I feel shame for being depressed. I think part of me even feels shame for succumbing to physical illness, which is, of course, ridiculous. The thought process is, roughly, "You should be stronger than this. Why are you so weak?" In reality, I am only feeling weak because I am using most of my strength just to do normal, every-day things, like get up and feed myself. I am doing the best I can, but because it isn't as good as I know I can be, it's shit. All-or-nothing. Yes, I'm familiar with the way this mode of thinking works, and I do try to counteract it, but when I get into a serious rut like this, it gets harder and harder to say "This is the best I can do today, and that's okay." I fear complacency, so I push myself, but not always in the right ways.
Today, I woke from another nightmare of Matt leaving me. My heart was pounding and I was awash in a cold sweat, even though my room was cool. Luckily, Matt wasn't too busy at work to talk to me for a couple of minutes. It did help in terms of re-setting my reality meter. Uh, let me explain that. When I wake from dreams suddenly, I don't always have a sense of where -- or when-- I am. It doesn't last long, maybe five or ten minutes at most, but it often throws off my whole day.
I felt like I was being pulled along on puppet strings today, like some inner will to break the cycle was pushing me to get up, shower, get dressed, put on make-up, pack my shit and walk a mile to the bus stop. I really didn't have much conscious will to do so. It was action without thought. When I fall to depression and anxiety, thought is the enemy. Thought is paralysing. Thoughts swarm my mind and get in the way of what I need to do. Here is an example. All the thoughts running through my brain as I wake up:. Ever read the kids' book, "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie"? It's like that.
Where am I? Okay, I'm here, this is good, I'm safe.
I have to get up.
I am exhausted, I need a couple of more hours of sleep.
I have to get up and take my pills.
I want a cigarette.
If I get up I need to put clothes on.
But that means I also need to shower, because gross.
So in order to go downstairs and take my pills and have a smoke, I need to take a shower and put clothes on.
If I take a shower, I need to shave my legs, because it's hot and I want to wear shorts.
If I shave, I know my back will hurt and it will wear me out.
But if I don't do all these things, I will never get up.
Maybe I should just go downstairs naked and take my pills and come back to bed.
No, that wouldn't be good, because I have to get up.
I don't feel like shaving or drying my hair. Those things make my back hurt.
But I have to do those things because I have to go out.
What time is it?
Oh, I have to call the doctor.
But I have to get up first.
I really don't need to have a cigarette, I can just go take my pills and come back to bed.
But I have to get up.
And if I get up, I have to ...
Everything is so complicated.
So what did I actually do? I asked Isa to give me a wake-up call with enough time for me to faff about in my usual way and eventually make it to the coffee house, so that I could write this entry. I set a realistic goal of 3:00 p.m. I just kept thinking that I need to be there by 3:00, but I didn't even look at the time. I got up and took a shower. As predicted, my back started to spasm while I shaved, so I laid down. While I was resting, though, I made some phone calls, one of which was to make an appointment with Matt's sleep doctor, something I have been meaning to do for quite some time. So there's that. At least I accomplished some things while I was lying down.
After that, puppet strings. Just sort of did whatever I could to get ready. Decided not to dry my hair because of noise and hot dry air and my shoulders hurting. Put clothes on. Finally had a cigarette. Chased the cat around for a minute because she took my hair tie. I even put make-up on. Then I stuck the headphones on and headed out the door. The music did the rest, and I barely noticed the walk.
Once I get to wherever I'm going, I always feel better. Well, almost always. There are days when the anxiety wins, but not often, and not today. When I got to the coffee shop, it was just before 3:00 p.m., so I had accomplished my goal. It might not seem like much to most people, but to me, today, it was huge. I even did more than I'd set out to do, because I made the appointment at the sleep clinic, which should be a step forward for me.
I should feel good. I do feel better, much better than I did this time yesterday, but... I'm tired of this shit. I'm tired of this never-ending battle with my brain. I would say that I am clearly not on the right meds, but there have been too many extraneous variables lately to say that. This depression was clearly triggered by illness, and I had only started the mood-stabilising medication two months prior. At any rate, I'll talk to my prescribing psychiatrist soon. Maybe she can sort me out. But gods, I hate being dependent on pills.
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Edge of madness
First, some annoying minutia. Matt was in Utah on business for three days and nights, returning very early Saturday morning. In the time that he was gone, I was still recovering from the flu-like virus he'd shared with me, so I did not leave the house much. On Thursday it became apparent that I had another problem: I had developed oral thrush. (That's a yeast infection in your mouth, for those uninitiated.) This morning, I woke up with a lazy eye. Really weird. So, Matt took me to the doctor. The doctor on-call was not my regular doctor, and the nurse on-call wasn't a nurse I'd ever seen before. The nurse took my blood pressure with the wrong-sized cuff, and of course it came up high. The doctor re-checked it (only after I pointed it out to him, mind you) and it was still "borderline high." Of course it was. By that point I was freaked out by the previous reading. He told me to buy a blood pressure cuff and check it three times a week and gave me the standard "lose weight and exercise more" song-and-dance, which irritated me, but you know, whatever. He'd never seen me before, and did not know my history of chronic pain. He pretty much ignored the thing about my eye, suggesting it was somehow related to my allergies. (Really?) It seems to be getting better, so maybe I was just being paranoid, which is entirely possible. And now that I've spent an entire paragraph saying essentially nothing, I'll get down to brass tacks.
While Matt was gone and I was sick, I started to lose my mind a little bit. Being without any in-person human contact for more than 48 hours is never a good thing for my psyche, and being ill exacerbates things. My mind starts creating new symptoms and making the symptoms I'm having worse. My heart starts to pound and I can hear my pulse in my ears. I start to question whether I am awake or dreaming, and I am not sure how to answer. And when I really start losing it, I start having auditory hallucinations. They are never voices telling me to do stuff, or anything like that. Just weird noises, like a clock chiming. We do not have a clock that chimes. The one I always "hear" when this happens is a clock that still hangs in the living room of my mother's house. It has an octagonal face and was the inspiration for my first word, which was "clock." Well, "gock," but infants can't do dipthongs. Other sounds I "hear" in this state include a knock on my bedroom door when no one is home (always three times), or strange music coming out of my air conditioner or another source of white noise.
If I close my eyes, I see unpleasant things flashing before my eyes. Brief, but incredibly detailed images of destruction and decay, or people screaming, or hands reaching toward my face. That's when I know I need to put my mind to something, and quick. So I go online, and I play a game, or read a story, or even just look at funny pictures. I play loud music, I sing, I pinch myself, I scream into a pillow. Anything to get myself out of my head and back into some semblance of ordinary thought. Yes, I realise this would be the perfect time to meditate, to ground and centre myself, but you try centring with all of that noise. No, I don't want to know where those images came from. No, I don't want to analyse why they have been the same kinds of images ever since I had night terrors as a child. No, I don't want to know whose hands those were. It's all just the product of anxiety, nudging me over the line between genius and insanity. I say that with my tongue firmly wedged against my cheek; I am certainly no genius, despite what the tests used to say.
I digress. What I'm trying to say is that, despite medication and therapy and support, I still do not do well alone. Though the episodes are shorter and less severe, I still have these instances of psychosis. They are completely different from when I "hear" my spirit guides, and rather than being constructive, they lead me to want to just stop. Stop creating, stop talking, stop writing, stop loving, stop hating, stop crying, stop laughing, stop breathing. It is the polar opposite of the manic creativity that I experience at times. Frankly, I love my manic. I wish it would drop by more often. I am certainly saner when I'm manic than I am when I'm depressed or anxious, and the depression and anxiety does not necessarily follow, especially not since I've been medicated. But whatever... manic is bad. Manic is bad. Manic is bad. That's what everyone has always told me, despite the fact that I have never done anything "crazy" while being manic, yet I have done scary things when depressed.
So ... yeah. This entry ended up being about something entirely different than I thought I was going to write about. I guess I will write about that other thing later. In the meantime, I really, really need a cigarette.
While Matt was gone and I was sick, I started to lose my mind a little bit. Being without any in-person human contact for more than 48 hours is never a good thing for my psyche, and being ill exacerbates things. My mind starts creating new symptoms and making the symptoms I'm having worse. My heart starts to pound and I can hear my pulse in my ears. I start to question whether I am awake or dreaming, and I am not sure how to answer. And when I really start losing it, I start having auditory hallucinations. They are never voices telling me to do stuff, or anything like that. Just weird noises, like a clock chiming. We do not have a clock that chimes. The one I always "hear" when this happens is a clock that still hangs in the living room of my mother's house. It has an octagonal face and was the inspiration for my first word, which was "clock." Well, "gock," but infants can't do dipthongs. Other sounds I "hear" in this state include a knock on my bedroom door when no one is home (always three times), or strange music coming out of my air conditioner or another source of white noise.
If I close my eyes, I see unpleasant things flashing before my eyes. Brief, but incredibly detailed images of destruction and decay, or people screaming, or hands reaching toward my face. That's when I know I need to put my mind to something, and quick. So I go online, and I play a game, or read a story, or even just look at funny pictures. I play loud music, I sing, I pinch myself, I scream into a pillow. Anything to get myself out of my head and back into some semblance of ordinary thought. Yes, I realise this would be the perfect time to meditate, to ground and centre myself, but you try centring with all of that noise. No, I don't want to know where those images came from. No, I don't want to analyse why they have been the same kinds of images ever since I had night terrors as a child. No, I don't want to know whose hands those were. It's all just the product of anxiety, nudging me over the line between genius and insanity. I say that with my tongue firmly wedged against my cheek; I am certainly no genius, despite what the tests used to say.
I digress. What I'm trying to say is that, despite medication and therapy and support, I still do not do well alone. Though the episodes are shorter and less severe, I still have these instances of psychosis. They are completely different from when I "hear" my spirit guides, and rather than being constructive, they lead me to want to just stop. Stop creating, stop talking, stop writing, stop loving, stop hating, stop crying, stop laughing, stop breathing. It is the polar opposite of the manic creativity that I experience at times. Frankly, I love my manic. I wish it would drop by more often. I am certainly saner when I'm manic than I am when I'm depressed or anxious, and the depression and anxiety does not necessarily follow, especially not since I've been medicated. But whatever... manic is bad. Manic is bad. Manic is bad. That's what everyone has always told me, despite the fact that I have never done anything "crazy" while being manic, yet I have done scary things when depressed.
So ... yeah. This entry ended up being about something entirely different than I thought I was going to write about. I guess I will write about that other thing later. In the meantime, I really, really need a cigarette.
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Dreams, flashbacks, and self-image (trigger warning: emotional rape)
On Wednesday morning, I woke to the sound of a loud bang. I had been having a nightmare. I called for Matt, but he had already left. The bang I heard was probably just his car rolling over the metal plates in the parking lot. I felt alone and vulnerable, but glad to be awake in this reality, and not the one I had been dreaming.
In the dream, I had never met Matt. It was as if he had been erased from my memory entirely. I was living with my mother. The dream took place over a long period of time-- several weeks or months, I can't be sure which. There was the odd comfort of being alone in my room at my mother's. That was a place that I had worked hard to make into a sanctuary, and I felt safe there, especially during the days when she was at work. I was online, and my ex-husband, Blair, contacted me for the first time in many years. He said that he wanted me back. He was going to come back to the US and marry me again, and bring me back to the UK with him. At first, I was happy, but I felt like I was forgetting something. I didn't know what it was. Flash-forward to a scene of me and Blair at the courthouse in my mother's hometown. They ask me my name. "It's Morgan W-- Wagner," I say, and suddenly, all of the memories of Matt come flooding back. "No, wait, I can't marry you. I don't want to marry you, I'm already married!" I say to Blair. But he doesn't hear me. No one does. I watch myself start to sign the papers. Then I wake up.
I suppose this isn't so unusual. It speaks to my fear of losing Matt, of my feeling that my life would be much worse had we not met. It speaks to my fear of back-pedalling, of somehow losing all the progress I've made in the last decade or so. I do wish I could have the time back, yet keep the experience. Maybe my brain was trying to show me what would have happened. I'm sure some episode of Doctor Who had influence as well, because, y'know, time travel.
It was a bad dream, but it reinforced my gratefulness to have such a wonderful person in my life. It also reminded me of how emotionally dependent I am on him, and that part bothers me. One of the issues I had with Blair was that he would never, ever say that he needed me. Yet, I needed him, in every way. I need Matt. Does he need me? Is need bad? Does "need" automatically lead to co-dependency? I am very afraid of that dynamic. I do not think Matt and I are co-dependent, but because of my past and my upbringing, the fears remain.
I guess I need to examine what is co-dependency is, how to identify it, and how to deal with it if the relationship starts to tip in that direction, but that's something to discuss with my therapist. I can sit here and list traits I think are common in co-dependent relationships, but it isn't that helpful from the inside. I'm in need of validation from an outside source on this one.
There were other elements of the dream that were nightmarish aside from the apparent loss of memory. I looked different. I remember looking in the mirror and seeing myself as someone much older. In fact, I looked a lot like my mother, but, you know, with way better hair. Obvious metaphor: becoming my mother. Not something I want to do, ever, in any way.
I actually envy people who want to be like their parents. People who look up to their mom and say, "I wanna be just like her when I grow up." I never had that. I looked at both my parents and said, "I don't want to be anything like them at all." I didn't even care if I turned out any better than they were; I just didn't want to be like them. I remember having a secret list of stuff I would never do to my own kids when or if I had them. My mother, of course, confiscated the list, but that's another story.
She isn't a bad person. Yes, I can say that. She isn't a bad person. She is a sick person, so trapped in her own labyrinth of twisted thinking that I doubt she would know happiness if it bit her on the ass. I still think that everything she has ever done to me, she did because she truly believed it was right. She does love me, she just has no idea how to express that love in a meaningful way. I hate the things she's done, the things she still does sometimes. I hate the way she broke me. I hate the way she is broken, but I do not hate her. Hating her as a person isn't constructive to me. She does try. She just has a lot fewer mental resources than I do. I remind myself of these things because hating her takes too much energy. It would also necessitate hating a part of myself, because no matter how much distance I try to put between us, I am still her daughter and always will be.
Three days after that dream, on Friday, I had two separate PTSD flashbacks involving her. The first one happened while I was taking a shower. I had my eyes closed as I rinsed my hair, and suddenly I actually saw myself in her shower at her house. I thought I heard her calling me from the other room. I knew that I couldn't actually be there, but I rinsed my face as quickly as I could so that I could open my eyes and be sure of where I was and what I was doing. The feeling passed fairly quickly, but it still shook me up for a while.
The second episode happened while I was in the bathroom again. It's going to sound stupid, but I was squeezing this tiny little zit just below my eyebrow. Suddenly, a memory came flooding back of my mother actually holding me down under a bright light on her bed, plucking my eyebrows with tweezers and squeezing pimples with her long, sharp fingernails. What the actual fuck? Why would she do that? I was crying. I can't have been more than ten or eleven years old. Was it so important to her that I have perfect eyebrows? What was that even about?
I recognise this now as a kind of emotional incest. She violated my personal space and my body in order to alter my image to suit her ideal. I also remembered that she would chastise me for not shaving my legs correctly, and tell me that only "horrid women" shaved their private parts. She was also obsessed with my weight, and forced me onto a Slim-Fast diet when I was only nine years old. Yeah, that's healthy.
I recognise this now as a kind of emotional incest. She violated my personal space and my body in order to alter my image to suit her ideal. I also remembered that she would chastise me for not shaving my legs correctly, and tell me that only "horrid women" shaved their private parts. She was also obsessed with my weight, and forced me onto a Slim-Fast diet when I was only nine years old. Yeah, that's healthy.
These bathroom flashbacks are very telling, I think. They illustrate the way my mother taught me to hate my body and to be ashamed of all of my imperfections, from stray hairs to extra pounds. I don't know how I made it through childhood and my teenage years without having some kind of eating disorder, to be honest. I don't know how I managed to become an adult who does not hate her body, at least most days. It makes me sad, really, because she must still hate herself so much. I know my grandmother abused laxatives and monitored her own weight obsessively, fretting over every inch even into her 60s. They tried to teach me to do the same thing. It didn't take. Thank the gods.
I think what I will try to take from all this-- the dream and the flashbacks-- is gratefulness. Gratefulness that my life did not turn out the way it could have. Gratefulness that I have a mostly-healthy physical self-image. Gratefulness that I have a wonderful husband who would love me no matter how many zits I have or how much I weigh. Gratefulness that I have managed to find people throughout my life who give me a feeling of validation and bolster my resolve to become a better person. I think I have become a good person, and I'm grateful for that, too.
More hospital adventures
The past week has been a complete wash in terms of doing anything productive. In addition to my own painkiller fog and continued pain, Matt has been sick. I mean, really sick. I spent most of the day on Thursday at the hospital with him. He was severely dehydrated and he was experiencing a lot of pain and dizziness in addition to congestion and coughing. I was really worried about him, so we called his dad to take him to the ER.
He seems to be feeling much better today, but ... I'm not. What semblance of a schedule I've had has been obliterated over the past week, and not in the fun "I decided to take a spontaneous trip" kind of way. I am having a lot of trouble focusing on anything, which muscle relaxants do not help. (The pain does not help that either, but y'know, six in one at this point.) I am struggling to maintain the focus to write this entry. Matt was good enough to get me out of the house and take me to the coffee house so that I could focus better, but I suddenly wish I was doing this back home.
The ER visit on Thursday brought with it varying emotions, some constructive, some not so much. Since Matt was in pain, my inner caretaker came out and I did everything I could to make sure he was comfortable. (I might have been a little pushy a couple of times, but come on, there's no reason why he should have been waiting 45 minutes for some water.) Thankfully, his fever was already going down by the time we got checked in. Other than dehydration, there were no major issues. I even managed to talk to Aunt Marilyn on the phone for a while. (She triggers me because she reminds me a lot of my mother in certain ways.) I even managed to deflate the feelings of guilt that began to take hold when Matt's father had to take us to the hospital. I'm talking about the voice that said,"Well, if you weren't so lazy and stupid and terrified of driving you could have..." Yeah, I told that bitch to shut the fuck up, and she did.
I felt pretty good about how I handled the situation, but I wondered if being on painkillers had something to do with it. I have a pathological fear of side-effects from drugs and of becoming addicted. I had been taking one to two 350-5 Percocet per day for about 4 days. Logically, I know that this is a comparatively low dose and that I am taking even less than what was prescribed for me, but, you know, that's how I am.
I still feel some guilt about the fact that, because of my sciatica, I wasn't able to help around the house as much as I feel I should have while Matt was unable to. Why? Because I think I should feel guilty, I guess. In this case, the feeling is not so intense that it is disruptive, but it's a good example of the mental gymnastics I need to do sometimes to remain functional. I think I should feel guilt. I either feel guilt because of the situation at hand, or I feel guilt because I'm not feeling guilt. But really, I know that with a few exceptions, guilt is a stupid, useless emotion. So I say, "Hey, I'm doing the best I can in this situation, with the physical, emotional, spiritual and mental resources that are available to me at this moment. I don't have the additional resources to spend on guilt, so guilt can go take a flying leap." On good days, it works. On bad days, I stagnate.
Anyway, situations like this seem to strengthen Matt and I as a couple. It sounds cliche, but it's true. It isn't vacations or parties or weddings that cement a relationship; it's how you face adversity together. I don't think of these things as tests or trials, but rather as opportunities for levelling up. We started this quest together and we're going to finish it that way.
So that concludes the second hospital adventure for the week. My next entry must be separate, because it has to do with stuff in my head that isn't happening right now.
He seems to be feeling much better today, but ... I'm not. What semblance of a schedule I've had has been obliterated over the past week, and not in the fun "I decided to take a spontaneous trip" kind of way. I am having a lot of trouble focusing on anything, which muscle relaxants do not help. (The pain does not help that either, but y'know, six in one at this point.) I am struggling to maintain the focus to write this entry. Matt was good enough to get me out of the house and take me to the coffee house so that I could focus better, but I suddenly wish I was doing this back home.
The ER visit on Thursday brought with it varying emotions, some constructive, some not so much. Since Matt was in pain, my inner caretaker came out and I did everything I could to make sure he was comfortable. (I might have been a little pushy a couple of times, but come on, there's no reason why he should have been waiting 45 minutes for some water.) Thankfully, his fever was already going down by the time we got checked in. Other than dehydration, there were no major issues. I even managed to talk to Aunt Marilyn on the phone for a while. (She triggers me because she reminds me a lot of my mother in certain ways.) I even managed to deflate the feelings of guilt that began to take hold when Matt's father had to take us to the hospital. I'm talking about the voice that said,"Well, if you weren't so lazy and stupid and terrified of driving you could have..." Yeah, I told that bitch to shut the fuck up, and she did.
I felt pretty good about how I handled the situation, but I wondered if being on painkillers had something to do with it. I have a pathological fear of side-effects from drugs and of becoming addicted. I had been taking one to two 350-5 Percocet per day for about 4 days. Logically, I know that this is a comparatively low dose and that I am taking even less than what was prescribed for me, but, you know, that's how I am.
I still feel some guilt about the fact that, because of my sciatica, I wasn't able to help around the house as much as I feel I should have while Matt was unable to. Why? Because I think I should feel guilty, I guess. In this case, the feeling is not so intense that it is disruptive, but it's a good example of the mental gymnastics I need to do sometimes to remain functional. I think I should feel guilt. I either feel guilt because of the situation at hand, or I feel guilt because I'm not feeling guilt. But really, I know that with a few exceptions, guilt is a stupid, useless emotion. So I say, "Hey, I'm doing the best I can in this situation, with the physical, emotional, spiritual and mental resources that are available to me at this moment. I don't have the additional resources to spend on guilt, so guilt can go take a flying leap." On good days, it works. On bad days, I stagnate.
Anyway, situations like this seem to strengthen Matt and I as a couple. It sounds cliche, but it's true. It isn't vacations or parties or weddings that cement a relationship; it's how you face adversity together. I don't think of these things as tests or trials, but rather as opportunities for levelling up. We started this quest together and we're going to finish it that way.
So that concludes the second hospital adventure for the week. My next entry must be separate, because it has to do with stuff in my head that isn't happening right now.
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Chronic pain and adventures in painkillers
Missed therapy today. Opted instead for hanging out with Isa at Crimson Cup. Coffee is therapeutic, right? Anyway, I do my best writing when I'm out of the house. Currently, being out of the house also means less exposure to whatever creeping ailment Matt has contracted. Poor guy. Got sick, is on call this week, and of course his phone rang every hour on the hour last night until about 04:00.
Chronic pain sucks, and people not taking that pain seriously because I am fat or I "look fine" is frustrating as hell. It's seriously affected my self-image over the years, and contributed to my depression. Conversely, when a doctor actually takes me seriously, it makes me feel better about myself. The pain is no longer "my fault." It's real and treatable and it isn't "all in my head." So, oddly enough, my visit to the ER on Saturday night was actually a good experience.
During the afternoon, my sciatica started acting up. I did everything I was supposed to do-- went home, stretched, tried ice and heat, laid down with a pillow between my knees, took some Aleve. It just continued to get worse. My back was in spasm. The last straw was when the cat startled me from my nap and I fell out of bed onto my hip. Ow. With the pain shooting down my leg and my toes going numb, I knew it was time to go to the ER, but I hesitated. Most of my past experiences with ER staff in terms of dealing with pain have been negative. I once actually waited for five hours in searing pain, was given a couple of ibuprofen and told to lose some weight. I've become accustomed to being treated like a drug-seeker, and not taken seriously.
Thankfully, this experience was different. The staff at Riverside were very accommodating and friendly, and they got me in to see the doctor in a reasonable amount of time. I was given the choice of pills or shots; I chose shots. I left with matching band-aids on both ass cheeks, and one on my arm. Anti-inflammatory, steroid and dilaudid. Oh, gods, the dilaudid. I'd never had that before, and I was seriously on the nod for the rest of the night. Kinda freaky. More importantly, though, I also left with a referral to see a real spine doc, and I've made an appointment with him. He will likely order an MRI, something I have desperately needed for years.
Receiving this kind of validation for my pain does a lot for me. It makes me less apprehensive about going to the doctor, and thus more likely to take care of myself in the ways that I should. It makes me feel that I am a person who happens to have a painful condition, rather than simply a collection of problems to be methodically written off. I am so used to being written off that it's disgusting. Fibromyalgia is such a waste-basket term for many physicians that, when I tell them I am in pain, they usually give me a metaphorical pat on the head and tell me I should exercise more. Since I have had no health insurance for most of my adult life, I have not been officially diagnosed with anything other than fibromyalgia, even though X-rays about 10 years ago showed a bulging disk in my spine and bone spurs. I can only imagine how bad it's gotten since then. I muddle through most days, but when my back decides to act up, I can't function. Now I feel like I have some hope that something can be done. Maybe physical therapy, different medications, whatever. I don't really care what the final outcome is. The point is that I am being taken seriously.
As a side note, I am somewhat troubled by the change in how I am treated by doctors. I suspect the difference in how I have been treated in the past and how I am treated now when I visit an ER has a lot to do with the fact that I have health insurance. This isn't the venue to go on a rant about how unfair and fucked-up healthcare is in this country, but I will say that it's been eye-opening. Since getting on my husband's insurance, I haven't had a single doctor blame all of my problems on my weight, treat me like an addict, or suggest that my problems are all in my head.
Medication notes: For the last three days, I have been on painkillers, muscle relaxants and steroids. I try to pay careful attention to what these medications do to my mood. Percocet makes me a little giddy and euphoric, and I try to keep it in check so that I don't tip over into hypomania. The muscle relaxants don't do a whole lot, or at least they don't seem to. The steroids can make me a little agitated. I am well-aware that opioids are addictive, and I do not ever take more than prescribed - usually a little less. This does take discipline, since I like the way they make me feel, and aside from the psychoactive component, just not being in pain can tempt me to overextend myself. Compared to the last time I was on a regimen of painkillers, I think I am handling it better. It may be due to the fact that Neurontin is acting as a mood stabiliser. Whatever it is, I am thankful for it.
Chronic pain sucks, and people not taking that pain seriously because I am fat or I "look fine" is frustrating as hell. It's seriously affected my self-image over the years, and contributed to my depression. Conversely, when a doctor actually takes me seriously, it makes me feel better about myself. The pain is no longer "my fault." It's real and treatable and it isn't "all in my head." So, oddly enough, my visit to the ER on Saturday night was actually a good experience.
During the afternoon, my sciatica started acting up. I did everything I was supposed to do-- went home, stretched, tried ice and heat, laid down with a pillow between my knees, took some Aleve. It just continued to get worse. My back was in spasm. The last straw was when the cat startled me from my nap and I fell out of bed onto my hip. Ow. With the pain shooting down my leg and my toes going numb, I knew it was time to go to the ER, but I hesitated. Most of my past experiences with ER staff in terms of dealing with pain have been negative. I once actually waited for five hours in searing pain, was given a couple of ibuprofen and told to lose some weight. I've become accustomed to being treated like a drug-seeker, and not taken seriously.
Thankfully, this experience was different. The staff at Riverside were very accommodating and friendly, and they got me in to see the doctor in a reasonable amount of time. I was given the choice of pills or shots; I chose shots. I left with matching band-aids on both ass cheeks, and one on my arm. Anti-inflammatory, steroid and dilaudid. Oh, gods, the dilaudid. I'd never had that before, and I was seriously on the nod for the rest of the night. Kinda freaky. More importantly, though, I also left with a referral to see a real spine doc, and I've made an appointment with him. He will likely order an MRI, something I have desperately needed for years.
Receiving this kind of validation for my pain does a lot for me. It makes me less apprehensive about going to the doctor, and thus more likely to take care of myself in the ways that I should. It makes me feel that I am a person who happens to have a painful condition, rather than simply a collection of problems to be methodically written off. I am so used to being written off that it's disgusting. Fibromyalgia is such a waste-basket term for many physicians that, when I tell them I am in pain, they usually give me a metaphorical pat on the head and tell me I should exercise more. Since I have had no health insurance for most of my adult life, I have not been officially diagnosed with anything other than fibromyalgia, even though X-rays about 10 years ago showed a bulging disk in my spine and bone spurs. I can only imagine how bad it's gotten since then. I muddle through most days, but when my back decides to act up, I can't function. Now I feel like I have some hope that something can be done. Maybe physical therapy, different medications, whatever. I don't really care what the final outcome is. The point is that I am being taken seriously.
As a side note, I am somewhat troubled by the change in how I am treated by doctors. I suspect the difference in how I have been treated in the past and how I am treated now when I visit an ER has a lot to do with the fact that I have health insurance. This isn't the venue to go on a rant about how unfair and fucked-up healthcare is in this country, but I will say that it's been eye-opening. Since getting on my husband's insurance, I haven't had a single doctor blame all of my problems on my weight, treat me like an addict, or suggest that my problems are all in my head.
Medication notes: For the last three days, I have been on painkillers, muscle relaxants and steroids. I try to pay careful attention to what these medications do to my mood. Percocet makes me a little giddy and euphoric, and I try to keep it in check so that I don't tip over into hypomania. The muscle relaxants don't do a whole lot, or at least they don't seem to. The steroids can make me a little agitated. I am well-aware that opioids are addictive, and I do not ever take more than prescribed - usually a little less. This does take discipline, since I like the way they make me feel, and aside from the psychoactive component, just not being in pain can tempt me to overextend myself. Compared to the last time I was on a regimen of painkillers, I think I am handling it better. It may be due to the fact that Neurontin is acting as a mood stabiliser. Whatever it is, I am thankful for it.
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