mystic_savage

Everything is blank and flat and slow. What do I mean by that? Nothing is sharp, except in writing. What is blank? I would continue to write until I got a clue about myself, but I could write for a thousand years and compile a billion clues and I still wouldn't have a self. Self must be an illusion, a construct, a god we've created to have an image that we can say is in our own. Double intended, this construct. Nothing I write or do or say or think makes any sense. Nothing is sharp, even in writing. Everything is -- I am -- blank and flat and slow. But even that is constructed. "Meaning" is meaningless. I could do this -- say anything about myself, and it would be simultaneously both true and untrue.

Must bring myself into focus.

Today I will be a person who likes hummingbirds and enjoys math. Someone who wears a too-bright hand-painted t-shirt her mother bought for her just because her mother bought it, not because she likes the t-shirt. Someone who wears tennis shoes and black twill pants and waddles over to the south campus center to read a book at lunch. Someone who will enjoy sorting mail and updating spreadsheets. Someone who would never think about stopping, who will not be halted by the blankness of a computer screen or overwhelmed by a list of a dozen tiny tasks.

Even in its graceful moments life is a disappointment. Even in sunshine, surrounded by greenery, in a quiet neighborhood in a moment when nothing is being asked of me, I feel tired. In the bath last night, relaxing, I looked at my toes and they seemed a continent away. The distance from my soul to my skin is unfathomable. I don't know why I'm in this body or how to stop. Nothing seems like an option and no place feels like home.

The friction of motherhood, what happens when I lose it, and how ashamed I am. My decision to go back on medication. The healing my parents did around all of it this weekend, and the talks and repair my kids and I have done with each other. What happens when I'm not true to myself, and how unsure I am of what that is. My decision to be celibate and single for a few months and the emotional fall-out from that in my own heart as well as in other people's. Why I did that, what it is about, the dismantling of my okcupid and fetlife profiles, the phone conversations, the in-person conversations, the weekend with A, the feeling of life-and-death struggle with myself, too familiar to be interesting, aging, fear of aging, and pain and where the hell is all this going? Don't know. Again: back to taking it one day at a time, not knowing. Allergies, chest cold, bronchitis, suffocation, inability to breathe, punishing myself and --- don't feel sorry for me, I'm a monster -- and the struggle to stay alive, affirm life, be human and find a way to accept it. I feel so, so, so...? odd. broken and not broken at the same time. On the right track, though you'd never know it to look at me. Unless you saw auras. Dunno. I'm probably (once again) much more ok than I feel like I am. Don't feel bad. Just...kind of don't feel. And then feel too much. So all this? Maybe medication's not such a bad thing.

Just thought you should know.

Today I:
woke up with a headache, overslept, missed a bus by half a block, made a dumb pedestrian mistake and was almost hit by a car, was late to work anyway, discovered that i'd left the door open all weekend, screwed up a dictation, lost emotional control in front of my supervisor and another co-worker and told him to just fire me already, and now am sitting back at my computer and can't seem to stop crying. Utterly humiliated. One inch, people. I'm one fucking inch away from completely letting go of reality. Stupid reality. Who needs it? You know what I need? A fucking drink.

2:20 -- edit: While not completely better, I am now calmer. Had another short temper tantrum around noon, but I've dosed myself with melatonin & can make it until 5. Plus--you know, all that virtual support. Thanks all.

I went to the first session of this last night.  Thought it would probably suck and be a review of everything I already know.  But--although most of the *information* is a review, processing it in this way isn't, and I really liked the other people who are taking the class.   It's nice to be with people who struggle with the same kinds of things I struggle with.  The first thing we did last night was to go around the table, introduce ourselves, give one of our chronic conditions (most people have, like, one big one and then a couple of others) and then tell how it has affected us.  Some of the common things:  fatigue, pain, frustration, memory loss, sleep loss, depression -- all so very familiar.  Areas of life affected:  work, social, parenting, relationships -- also familiar.  Fear of the future, etc.  And yet, for a group of folks so affected by their condition and pain, we were laughing a lot by the end of class.

And I did pick up a couple of new things--the fact that most people will experience at least two chronic conditions by the time they reach late adulthood.  (See?  I'm not sick, I'm ahead of the curve!)  A method for forming an action plan, which we are going to do on a week-by-week basis.  And a new distraction technique for dealing with short-term boredom, insomnia and shorter-term pain.  My action plan this week is that I will try out a different distraction technique for five minutes a day, either at lunch time or on the bus ride home (Tues through Friday) and before noon (Sat & Sun).  So last night?  Trying to get to sleep?  I listed potential cookie ingredients alphabetically, starting with "amaranth".  I was asleep after "ginger" -- and never had to take melatonin.  Not bad, that.  

I'm going to try poets today, alphabetically.

This morning is good -- almost no pain at all & am having a productive day at work.  Looking forward to an evening to myself tonight & more sleeping.  I didn't sleep that long last night & there isn't any reason that I can spot why today is good, but I'll take it!

Posted via email from mysticsavage's posterous

More like a 4-5 instead of an 8 on the pain scale.  Will probably be recording a bunch of stuff about physical pain in the next month in prep for the appointment at the pain clinic.  De-friend me now or skip over those posts if you don't want to read that stuff -- I won't hold it against you.  It's only interesting to me because I'm trying to tease out all of the things that add or subtract from pain.

Here's what I know--

Some foods make me feel more pain, particularly when I eat them in abundance -- the nightshades (potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers) and corn are the worst.  Wheat & dairy seem to be more or less ok if I don't make them too central in my diet.

Getting less sleep makes me feel more pain.  In fact, if I don't get enough sleep 2 or 3 nights in a row, that's almost a guarantee that I'm going to be hurting all over in a few days. 

Exercise is supposed to help, and very, very mild exercise does help (right now, about 10 - 15 or 20 minutes of exertion at a time).  A "really good workout" of 30-45 minutes feels good right afterward, but then wipes me out for a couple of days, and increases pain.

I'm taking fish oil capsules 3x a day since Sunday.  I don't notice any analgesic effect yet, but am committed to taking them for a couple of months to see if some wondrous magical health benefits come raining down all over me. 

Cold/warm doesn't seem to have an effect.  Very bright light and loud noises bring on headaches.  Sunlight often hurts my eyes. 

Headaches and acute pains are sometimes dulled by acetominophen, but I pay for it later in gastric pain.  Ibuprofin and aspirin are even harsher.  Alcohol numbs pain for a short period of time, but it's fairly toxic to my body and my gut is then inflamed for days, even with one drink or one beer.  Marijuana has helped in the past, but I can't afford the brain cells.  It has helped most with IBS symptoms, but has not really done much for next-day fibro pain.  Narcotics seem to help for acute things, but, like the NSAIDS, they don't do very good things for my innards.  So, all in all, I avoid medication unless I really, really can't stand it anymore.

Distraction/other sensation helps a lot in the moment, but not afterward.

So that's what I know so far.

V.

It's been long enough since I've had a full-blown stretch of fibro symptoms that I had forgotten what they were like.  A couple of weeks ago I was reminded what the pain was like -- body on fire from the inside out, all over achiness, feeling flu-ish and exhausted and crabby, getting IBS symptoms, the works.  I had it for 3-4 days and it got better each day and had mostly dissipated by the time I got to the doctor last week.  Then this weekend, I must have over done it again.  Little sleep plus lots of effort reorganizing my room.  Stayed home yesterday to try to sleep and recover, but the achiness continued into today.  Went to work, but the pain was so bad I was crying on and off for 3-4 hours this morning.  So:

I've got an appointment with Group Health's pain clinic -- April 10th;
I've downloaded music that's supposed to enhance delta state sleeping;
I'm keeping a pain journal;
I've canceled my dates for the next three nights;

I'm trying to calm down enough to sleep, but I'm wired from so much activity at home tonight -- helping Penny do homework; playing with Sar; helping pick up a game; helping Tera button and unbutton her jacket; watching the play Penny & Sam made up while the rest of us were finishing dinner; mining the ITunes store for songs with the kids' names in the title (we were especially delighted that there is a group called the Elessar Trio doing Latin music!); trying to get Sar settled.  Home was good tonight...and things still hurt.

Sar is waiting for me now to finish this and cuddle him down to sleep.

One last good note from today:  Mike gave me a ride home.  When he heard how bad I was hurting, he offered to pick me up & he arrived right at 5 with a bunch of roses for me on the front seat.   And he made me laugh during the right home.

So it wasn't a bad day.  Just a painful one.

( a post of complaint )
And I paid $115 today for accumulated co-pays from the last month.  That's $115 I had to borrow from my bank to pay my healthcare provider.  Suck.  Sucky suck.  Suck.

I don't know what it was.  It might have been something big--a serving platter thrown against a wall.  Or it might have been tiny -- a glass tube, a vial.  What it might have contained is still a mystery.  Maybe nothing.  Maybe a toxic virus.  Or anything in-between.

I felt the shatter.  It happened at dinner. 

( Read more... )
There is, of course, fall-out from the shatter.  Kevin doesn't trust me not to bail on him again.  Karen and I are more bonded.  I'm realizing that this divorce thing is real to me -- more real than it was during the entire last year when Kevin and I were getting divorced but still living together.   I realize that in a sense, I'm homeless.  But I realize this:  that belonging is claimed.  Not given.  And it is ephemeral.

One of the worst things about being a temp is that you're perpetually on a first date.  This is lovely if the match is good and you've been taking your happy pills and you've just had a great haircut and all is right with the world.  But:  say you show up to work the first day and your allergies are acting up and your nose is running.  From then on, you will be known as the Sniffly Temp, and there is never enough time to say "Oh hey, yeah, I ran out of Claritin D, but I don't always sniffle like this."

In my old job at Women Studies, I was occasionally out of sorts, but mostly I was known as cheerful, warm and welcoming.  Even when I was depressed or people thought I seemed out of it or sad, no one took it personally or assumed it was because of them or what they asked me to do.  They had enough experience with me to know that, in general, I put a lot of effort into my work and was dedicated to what we are doing.  Here, however, I fear I am known as the Disgruntled Temp, and that it is stamped across my forehead so that no matter how cheerful I act, everyone is going to think I'm faking it -- because  i am faking it.

So yeah, I'm not giving good first date here.  I feel like I'm out on a blind date with a guy named Fred.  We're at a football stadium and it's first quarter and he's already drunk or well on his way to it.  I'm freezing my ass off, my boots are too small, his friends are leering at me and cracking jokes about the size of my breasts and I'm supposed to be charming about all this?  

My complaints are metaphorical of course.  My real complaint is that the work is physically exhausting and repetitive and causes all my fibromyalgia symptoms to flare up.  That us, erasing lines causes my thumb to ache and my wrist to swell and by the time I'm into the afternoon my entire body feels like it's on fire from the inside.  But: you don't talk about pain or illness on a temp job the way you don't talk about politics on a first date.  Especially not if you have a condition that other people don't think exists.  Dropping the word "fibromyalgia" in the workplace would be like declaring my feminism to Fred.  The end of the date.

So today, onward and upward.  Working on correcting a bad first impression.  Trying to use my left hand as much as possible and adjusting my chair every half hour.  Popping the ibuprofen.  And calling you on my cell phone from the ladies' room just to let you know how awful this date is.  Thanks for listening.

It's been almost three months since I took myself off of meds, and things are radically worse internally.  If I want to do this med-free mastering of depression thing, I have to do a lot more than I've been doing.  Basic things, like exercise.  Drink water.  Get out of the house.  Or clean it. Get my sleep schedule normal again.  Meditate.  Write.  And I've done almost nothing intentional to master depression or take care of things emotionally, other than the one thing I always do:  seek comfort.  Which works fine in the short term but seems to work against me in the long term.

Today I'm struggling with the question of:  do I really want to commit to doing some, all or most of things. Or do I really not want to commit to doing some of those things and do I instead want to commit to taking the medication consistently.

What I am committed to is making a change.  Because frankly, I can't live like this for very long. 

And I'm grateful to Chuck and Laurie and Celia for helping me crystallize those thoughts today.

1. I read a whole chapter of a book last night and at the end of the chapter I knew what I'd read.
   
2. I enforced boundaries with the kids last night and didn't take it personally when they threw fits.
3. I listened to SJ Tucker and Gaia Consort on the bus this morning instead of Evanescence and Garbage.
4. I'm cautious about this, but I'm actually starting to feel some of that...whaddaya call it?...hope.

I'm a 12 year old with black hair and a nose-ring. I feel too much.  Wish I had a dark crowded place full of eurotech or goth music where everyone was just doing their own thing.  I'd thread through the crowd holding a drink and feeling apart from everyone and superior.  I'd bump into someone and the drink would slosh slightly over my hand and I'd just think enh.  Not worth even getting a napkin to wipe my hand off.  I'd put the fucking drink down and go dance. Hard. Until I couldn't anymore.  And then I'd sit in a corner with my back against the wall and my knees up and watch people's feet and knees as they danced around and past me and I'd probably feel like that's where I belong.  Which is probably why I was on facebook for four hours today, mostly on the human pets application, doing dumb ass postings of polls and quotes to try to get people to vote on them.

"Break up" -- such a high school term. It's been 13 hours now & I'm doing fine.  But I'm listening to my same old songs on my same old iPod and new lines jump out at me tonight:  "I have the sense -- to recognize -- that I don't know how to let you go"; "when you love someone but it goes to waste, could it be worse?".  Every time I think I'm ok with how things stand with Kevin, something new happens and it hurts all over again.  Not sure tonight if I'm grieving the loss of Ian or Kevin.  One kind of opens up the other.  I'm really ok though.  Fundamentally ok.  Just.  Have had weekends that are more fun.  And can't sleep.

I'm having one of those I-could-sleep-but-I-wish-I-had-somebody-to-talk-to nights.  Feeling reflective and unsettled, nostalgic, anxious, optimistic, guilty, sad -- all in rapid kaleidoscopic order.  Wish I could call someone tonight, have them answer, talk for an hour, turn my mind to something new.  It's always after 1 a.m. when I feel like I have to make new friends.  When I lived in Hays, Kansas, I used to go for long drives at this hour, hitting up all the convenience stores and talking to the people who worked there.  I was lonely and susceptible at those times, which would explain how I ended up in the storage room at a Quik-Trip, kissing a Republican.  Over the years, my need to talk to people in the wee hours has abated...or maybe has just gone underground and masqued itself in LiveJournal entries.

I miss having a husband I can talk to.

I am half-turned
toward the morning
reluctant to face

what?

there is nothing
out there
to destroy me

that can't destroy me
just as well
right here.

Last night I remembered a song I wrote in 1988.  I remembered it as I held someone who had had a very rough week, and I sang it to him.  I hadn't been able to remember the lyrics for several years, so I want to get them written down right now in the hopes that I don't lose them again.

This is a perfect poem for this time of year, as the sun ages a little more each day and dear friends fall to old depressions.  My weariest time of year is usually October-November, but I can already feel it creeping up on me, bit by bit.  So here:  a reminder for me, and hope.

Since the End of the World is Upon Us (sigh) I will now attempt to distract myself with answer to the Friday Five:

1. Tea or coffee?

Does it matter?  They're both picked by unpaid orphans who are locked in a shed at night to keep them from escaping.

2. Do you speak your mind?

Since I too am produced by global economic forces, no.  I speak the HiveMind.

3. What is your escape?

There is no escape.  We're all doomed.

4. When is the last time you cried?

Last night.

5. What are your bedtime rituals?

Crying myself to sleep.  Did I mention that we're all doomed?

peanut butter, red chips, blue jeans, Mary screams, gotta lotta nothing in the soup today/but swimming anyway. Pot is hotter/boiling frog. Writer stew. It shouldn't mean anything to you.

( More mumblings of a surreal and schismistic nature )