Yesterday morning, my friend Christy challenged me to post one black and white photo each day, for the next seven days. She’s using me as her guinea pig.
No people can be in these photos, and I’m not allowed to post a caption or an explanation. I’m only allowed to post the photo. This is the first one which went on Facebook and Instagram yesterday. Enjoy the weird randomness of me. 🙂
“When a person screams in pain, the actual pain is only half the noise they make. The other half is the terror at being forced to accept that they exist.” ―Noah Cicero
For the better part of this year, this is precisely how I have felt. My pain is getting worse (it is damn near uncontrollable) and I’ve been met with nothing but useless doctors who truly do not deserve their titles. Next month I see a new doctor, and I hope and pray that someone will lead me to the root cause and will start treating me like a human-being who is suffering greatly, and losing an enormous chunk of her life in the process. All I want is someone to treat me properly, instead of giving me the runaround.
If you follow me on social media, my life might seem “normal”. It isn’t. I might have that one day where I was able to walk four miles, and then pay for it with a week or two in bed, with nothing but Cat and Kitten to keep me company, as I desperately try to get the heating pad to be my friend and help ease some of the pain, and it will help temporarily until I pass out from sheer exhaustion. More nights than I care to count, I cannot get comfortable or sleep, because my mind is so overactive, it’s painful. I’ve noticed of late that my mind races when I AM asleep, and the pain leaves me unable to move, speak, or silence my brain. Apparently, my brain is running marathons. 😦 There are days I am crawling because of the pain, and then there’s that one good day, or a good chunk of hours, but it usually results in an insanely early bed-time, which results in my waking up in the early morning hours, in tears from how much pain I am in.
I cry a lot lately. The things so many people take for granted, like restful sleep or a ten minute shower, are things I can’t do. I can sleep if I take the PTSD medication and go to bed within an hour or so, because it drops my blood pressure, but the medication will often wear off in the middle of the night. It only has a two hour half-life within the body, so I’m still trying to hit the right dose. I’ve been able to knock my shower time down from an hour to under thirty minutes, and I turn the water off in between each physical task, but it is often exhausting and draining. Instead of taking four or five hours to get ready, I can now be ready in about two hours, but still, I pay for it the following day. I hurt SO bad, that there are days I just can’t do what I need to, and that destroys me.
So much bothers me, and I’m keeping it all inside. When the heart and soul can’t speak, that’s a whole new level of pain one should never know.
“I cannot say, and I will not say
That he is dead. He is just away.
With a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand,
He has wandered into an unknown land
And left us dreaming how very fair
It needs must be, since he lingers there.
And you—oh you, who the wildest yearn
For an old-time step, and the glad return,
Think of him faring on, as dear
In the love of There as the love of Here.
Think of him still as the same. I say,
He is not dead—he is just away.”
―James Whitcomb Riley
In memory of my Uncle, who would have been sixty-five today. Te amo.
I’ve been listening to Gavin for a LONG time. He is such a brilliant songwriter and performer. He puts on a great show. My heart goes out to him, as I just learned his mother passed away from cancer. I lost a parent to cancer, too, and so many other family members. I’m keeping him in my thoughts and prayers.
Earlier in the day I was thinking about someone I know, and how long he had to keep his sexuality a secret, out of fear that his friends, family, and career would all fade away. It disturbed me. It still does. I’m happy that he was able to tell everyone in his life, met someone, got married, and his friendships and career remain in tact.
I don’t sit around much thinking about hiding anything about WHO I am as a person. I believe we all deserve a huge measure of privacy for things that simply aren’t someone else’s business, but I’m also judged as a heterosexual woman who isn’t married.
Between the cat jokes, which I don’t find humorous, to men, on occasion, slamming a door in my face in public. I don’t believe I am a minority, but as I look around, I know that I am, in pretty much all aspects of my life. There is always an assumption made about me. Each one is wrong.
There’s nothing wrong with knowing your worth and adding interest. There’s nothing wrong with being a strong person who, on occasion, needs to meltdown and rebuild herself out of the ashes.
I am still trying to accept me, and I imagine many people struggle with this privately. I find myself needing more quiet than normal, because I’m going through some awful things and it all wounds me deeply. But I’m trying.
I’m real. I have standards, and there’s NOTHING wrong with any of that.
Written by LISA MARINO-Molchanova 