I've tried all kinds of tricks. Meditation before sleep, positive self-talk, herbal remedies, setting alarms, not setting alarms, leaving the window open, keeping it closed, eating a small amount of protein before bed, not eating anything before bed... you get the idea. I just have a really unhealthy relationship with sleep, and it affects everything I do.
Speaking of unhealthy relationships... pills. Let's start with Percocet. I still haven't ever taken more than one at a time, or more than one every six hours, as prescribed, but damn if I'm not starting to worry if I'm getting addicted. There have been a couple of days when I haven't taken them, and it's messed me up, both pain-wise, and emotionally. So, great, that's another chemical dependency. Fan-fucking-tastic. I never wanted this. I just want to be able to do things like a normal person. Just ... not skip drying my hair or shaving my legs or putting on makeup because it hurts too much. Being able to take care of the cats. Being able to sit in one position for more than a few minutes without my legs and feet feeling like they're on fire. I mean, there's no question that I have a legitimate medical need for the painkillers, I just... look at this!!
This is my "candy stack." Each colour contains a different medication that I take every day. The clear container is Lexapro, 30mg per day for depression and anxiety. The yellow one is Neurontin, 300mg twice daily for mood stabilization and (supposedly) pain relief. Blue is Klonopin, for anxiety, as needed. I don't take those every day, usually. Orange is Percocet, 5mg/325mg (oxycodone to acetaminophen) up to three times daily for pain. Pink is a muscle relaxer I can't even remember the name of, up to three times per day, but it knocks me out, so I only take it at night. Last, but not least, is Bentyl, in the green container. That's for IBS.
Six medications, all with varying effects on my mood and physical being. Some even interact with each other, though, obviously, not severely enough for my doctors not to prescribe them. How the fuck did I get to this point? I really need to talk to my prescribing psychiatrist, but she hasn't called me back. I hate, hate, hate dealing with medical offices.
So I'm staring down the barrel of this surgery thing, and I'm having nightmares about it. Graphic, disgusting nightmares, about the wrong surgery being performed, about parts of me going missing, about my bones not growing back right, about horrifying infections and complications. Tomorrow is when I have my consult. I don't know whether to tell him how terrified I am of surgery or not. I'll be looking at a man who will potentially be slicing open my skin and fat and muscle and removing bits of my bones and maybe even putting a chunk of titanium in my spine. I get to decide whether I trust him, right? It's just, I dunno. It's like talking to someone who says they're going to rape you. To me, anyway. I have never had my body invaded this way. It's like some last frontier of invasiveness. But it's just surgery. Thousands of people have this stuff done to them every day, for varying reasons, and they live, and they get better. Why should it be any different for me? Why can't I get past this?
And now comes the body-shame. I will probably be forced to lose weight before I can have surgery. All over my Facebook page are posts by friends who are so proud that they've lost so much weight. Several of these people had previously espoused to being "size-positive" and loving themselves the way they were. So the message I'm getting is, actually, no, it's not okay to be overweight, for anyone, and if you love yourself this way, you're delusional. And if you're fat, it's your fault. It's like being fat is a moral failing.
You have to understand, I have worked really hard to love myself in this body. I don't always like what I see in the mirror, but most of the time, I do. I'm curvy and sexy and beautiful. Except when I'm fat and disgusting and ugly. You know what? I just wasn't built for this century, or this climate. Like most people who are fat, it's more nature than nurture. Okay, so I have a problem with froofroo coffee drinks. I can fix that. I stopped drinking soda years ago, and that was no big deal. I can cut carbs. Fine. I've done this all before. I've dropped maybe ten pounds or so. My weight has been about the same, plus or minus 15 lbs or so, for at least the last 10 years. So I'm not continually gaining weight. This is just the size my body thinks it's supposed to be. I don't know how to fix it without doing a lot of exercise, which I can't do, because of the fucking pain. Which brings us all the way back to square one.
I feel so accomplished when I can get out of bed all on my own, fight the anxiety, fight the agoraphobia, fight the pain, fight the depression, and get out of the house, like I did today. But if it wasn't for Matt and medical intervention, I fear to think where I would be. Probably a shuddering ball of suicidal ideation, hiding in my room, unkempt and unwashed for weeks. People don't realize, when they look at me, how close I am to that edge. How I teeter.
I'm just ... tired. I guess I'm done writing, for now.
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