Pain Journal: New Psyche Doctor!

I got a new Psychiatrist today, and I can safely say all my worries about another new doc were for not. He was awesome and a great listener. He was better to me than my last one. He actually asked me questions like “How did you get your PTSD at night?” and “Why hasn’t your doctor tried these things with you?” and “You’ve only been seeing people for help after you had your break a few years ago? REALLY? You’ve been trying to do it mostly on your own?”

I had to give him a reader’s digest version of my life up until now. How living with a drug addict and seeing so many doctors chop my mother up from the inside out just made me afriad to try. The most I did was go to therapy. I have carried on and not killed myaelf because of really awesome friends and lovers in my past. Some I hurt too much by being Bipolar Q. That version of me is a hilarious asshole, but still an asshole. I had to summarize decades of horrible crap into an hour and even then, I think he was impressed. He said I had good self awareness, and that I don’t have to do things the hard way. He is adjusting my meds, doing the blood work needed, and gave me more Seroquel and a new drug, Gabapentin.  I have tried Gabapentin before, I now it helps. It is good for both pain and calming of anxiety. SCORE!  Seems I am on a winning streak with doctors. I am still leery, But the way this new doctor listened to me and cares about my being stable and productive. He knows the dangers being on drugs for mental illness can cause. The side effects and the madness.  He is going to teach me to use the meds I have to help me through the bad times. Because when the Bipolar gets bad, I struggle still through it. The Depression makes me suicidal, and the Mania makes me do crazy shit. Reckless, stupid shit. “When it’s bad, take extra Lithium and Seroquel. And don’t forget the Gabapentin. It’s okay to do this because I give you permission. Just do this when you are having a rough time. Otherwise take your meds as you normally do. And if you like how the gabapentin works with your other meds, take it at night for your sleep issues.”

He’s so…practical about it. I need that, because I respond well to practical. Give me a road map and I will work with it. I might find a new path on my own, but I will let you know if I do. He gets that I know my body and mind better than he does. But he sees my pension for making things hard. I thought I wasn’t being that bad, but I have been corrected. So I have new meds, new adjustments. Hopefully I don’t become a zombie, but I don’t think I will. I do everything I can to balance my medications and my creativity. I wont let anything kill me and make me a drugged slave. Drugs for me are to make my life easier and stable, not repressing myself to stave off madness.

I want to be a good example people can turn to when they face the choice to take any medication to give themselves a better quality of life. I need meds to function. I am literally a danger to myself and others if I am not medicated. When my brain broke last, it broke in a way it can’t come back from. Like an overheating computer. It’s hard to recall things when you are constantly having blue screens and corrupted data. I have bad genes, but it’s just another fucking stupid thing I gotta work with.

I’ve been climbing walls my whole life. I know who and what I am, good and bad. I know I don’t have an easy lot in life, but I also don’t need to punish myself for having a chemical imbalance. I look forward to a day when I can say I am in remission completely. It might not happen, but I can still strive for it.

 I don’t want to get my hopes up about anything right now, so I tip-toe into the deep end and see if I can swim.

Pain Journal: Calloused Heart

I'm sitting here listening to one of my favorite spoken word poets, Shane Koyzan. Every time I hear his poem To This Day, I cry.

Except today.

I'm numb to the very core of my being. It's how I can cope with the whirlwind of emotional and physical crap I am dealing with right now. I was dumb yesterday, having had a wonderful visit with a friend then trying to nap to get some spoons back. I ended up with less spoons than I started with, which was a bummer. So I totally forgot until I had to go take my dose for the evening, that I needed to get my refill on my drugs.

It happens to everyone once in a while. But when it happens to me, I get super fucked up.

My hands are trembling so bad, I feel like I am coming off of crack. This is the price I pay, among other symptoms. My life is full of warning labels and chemicals. Sometimes, they make me feel empty. I feel like that now. I had some mania this morning. I woke up earlier than normal and had a had time getting to sleep. I spent most of the day doing chores to burn off the mania, which was causing flares throughout my body because everything is connected. It really is true that if your mind isn't stable, your body wont be either. Especially if like me, you are super sensitive.

I hate that I need chemicals to function. I hate that I sometimes live in fear of the day my drugs run out. I hate that I can't just fucking be a functional human being. I had to go through a lot of mental bullshit to get to a point where I am now. I used to fear drugs of any kind. Even Tylenol was scary to me, until I started hurting in ways that make you loose all sense of dignity and pride. I do what I have to now to stay stable. My personal war keeps me fighting for my health and sanity.

But when I am numb like this, I force myself to say something, anything, and be heard. Because I need to be. I need to know I am not alone. That this shit happens to other Chronic Illness Warriors too. The loneliness gets to be too heavy. Sometimes the horrible shifting between beast and beauty leaves me with nothing left to give. I lie in the wasteland of my suppressed tears and wish something would give enough that I could feel a release of the pain. Just a little. I will take any little bit of peace right now.

Today I feel a callous on my heart. And I don't have the tools to deal with it. So I will ride it out to the bitter end, where I will probably be on my yoga mat weeping. Maybe tomorrow.

Tonight, I endure.

Pain Journal: Mental Illness and Chronic Pain

Being Bipolar and suffering from Chronic Pain is like living life on Hard Mode. In video games, I actually tend to avoid Hard Mode, because I get super frustrated. I play my video games much more carefully than I play the game of life.

It's been this way since I was a child. As far back as I can remember, I have time and time again encountered Hard Mode. It reminds me of a piece I wrote for creative writing class in college. We were supposed to write about our earliest memory. A lot of the students in my class wrote lovely things, like the taste of their first ice cream cone, playing with their families, innocent things like that.
Mine was different.

My first memory is of blood in my mouth from my mother punching me in the face.

If I am honest with myself, I have been in pain ever since that day. I just didn't think my body would betray me like my mind clearly did. I had convinced myself I was unstoppable.

I have to take a small but substantial amount of drugs. Every day. No exception. And because of the side effects, I can't do things like drink booze anymore. And I enjoyed drinking. Sure, I wasn't really a big drinker, but I liked having the option. I really, really hate when my options are narrowed and it wasn't done by my choosing. One thing people don't realize about me is how much of a control freak I really am. It became more evident once I went on the lithium and seraquoil. I started to realize how much I need to control the world around me. Even more so now that I have to manage pain. Being a control freak doesn't mean you are good at it though. I do not feel I am good at keeping my cool, or organizing things. I can't remember things I did maybe an hour ago, but I remember what my first taste of blood in my mouth feels like. I remember horrible things. Lots of them. If I tried to write a novel about my life, I don't think I can make myself into a convincing character.

No one would believe the shit I've been though.

The drugs however, have a side effect that isn't written on the label. It's one that is specific to me, because of my mental and physical ailments. Lithium numbs me. Because it soothes my mind and makes it so I am more able to be the control freak I didn't know was in me, I feel my pain from Fibro and Reynauds more clearly. Which means everything hurts more, and I can't react therapeutically to the pain.

Like for example, last night I had a hard talk about my mother and her suicide with my husband. I had a realization that maybe my mother was just done with trying to fight. I've had many theories over the years as to what drove her over the edge. It seems to be fresh in my mind lately because of my stint in the mental hospital. I really felt like dying at one point during my breakdown. I even wrote a note. To the average onlooker, it was a suicide note. To me, it was a good bye note because I thought the pain my body would kill me.

My theory about my mom this time was that she was just finished. She hurt too much. She just wanted to not hurt anymore. I knew she suffered from a chronic affliction, because the autopsy on her body showed growth on her spine. I always thought the quack doctor she went to was filling her head with shit to give her more pills and cut her up. She had scars all over her body from this butcher. I was convinced he was making her "feel" sick.
But she was sick. Badly.

I don't make excuses when I say these things about her. I wont tell you in some romantic way that my mother was suffering so it's okay what she did. I'm not a fool. She was an abusive, conniving bitch and nothing could change that. I know because I have experienced both pain and madness in equal measure, and it pushed me over the edge a few times.

I'm still haunted by my experience in Feb. The smell of hospitals, the constant needles. The bad drug reactions that made me trapped in my body, or completely flip my lid. Watching the clock while I writhed in agony. The stripping me down to a basic, broken thing when they locked me in the drunk tank. Watching my Reynauds flare up and loosing complete sensation in my toes and fingertips. The scalding hot showers that I couldn't control to give me a temperature that wont flare me up. The paper gowns. Cold floors and colder nurses. So many coloring books as my only solace while the other crazy folks scream and thrash themselves against the walls. Writing mean letters to people I thought did me wrong in calk in the small veranda.

I faced my mother's ghost in there in a way I have never done before. There was no pretty ritual to make it easier to swallow, no this wasn't the pretty way of facing demons. I went nuts and there she was, riding my skin. Right beside all my alters. Us and her.

I realized then if I didn't do something, I would never come back as Kweeny. I wasn't going to go down like that. Not for anyone, especially that bitch who birthed me.

So now I do this balancing act, every day, to be sane, whole, and in as little pain as I can possibly find. I take my pills, not because I like them, and not because I am brainwashed to do so by asshole doctors. I -know- I need them. They give me control back. I just loose some sensations in the process. Because nothing comes without a price.

And my ability to cry, wail and scream at the moon is now limited. My libido is gone, making me asexual, which is the weirdest shit to me. But maybe I need other things more right now. Like true intimacy, comfort and support. Maybe having my emotions dialed down is exactly what I need. My limits make other things stronger.

And maybe, this is the way things should be.

KICKING ASS, EVEN IF IT'S MY OWN ASS THAT NEEDS KICKING

This post is for all the negative thoughts/people that try to hijack my mind.

You know who you are assholes.

Yes, I am retaining water and it's ballooning me up like a sausage. But I am still awesome. Still beautiful. Still a worthwhile friend and lover. I know it's really hard to see our worth today gang. The Gory Kingdom is a bit of a mess, but it's getting cleaned up slowly. The Primary Shards are getting off their collective asses to help, even while the minor Shards act like douche canoes and try to distract from progress.

Good thing I have amazingly strong drive. Shout out to my inner warrior-bitch-Queen for helping us all stay on track.

Do go on Ty, flattery will get you everywhere.

When you are bipolar, all your emotions are on hyper-drive. You are constantly in mental anguish because you feel so strongly. You can even jump to conclusions quickly if you aren't careful.

It's why I am also on Seraquiol and Lithium. They are drugs that help regulate moods. On my own, I cannot regulate them anymore. Plus, I am on pain management medications, because along with my mental anguish, I live in physical pain too.

My life is exciting!

I'm still going out with my husband today. We are gonna go shopping for costuming bits for our LARPS coming up next week and the week after. I am STOKED to be LARPING again. I need a vacation from my head by having someone else's problems.

And to my inner voices/problems that wish to fuck with my day, I have a little image for you: