I apologize for not writing yesterday. I fully intended to do so, I’ve had a few things partially fleshed out, but by 8:00 a.m., I was not in a position to do anything. I couldn’t even bend down!
Something in my lower back popped yesterday morning while I was scrolling through messages on my cell phone. For most people, that wouldn’t mean an awful lot. It might mean popping a few OTC pain meds and resting for a few days, no real damage done, but for someone with lower lumbar spinal issues, this meant shooting pain in more directions than I could fathom at the time. As the day progressed, it became pain in my entire body. I have no idea the what/why/how of any of it, just that I am having immense difficulty struggling through so much pain because there’s no end in sight.
As of this moment, the pain has settled into my head as a migraine with maddening sinus pain and pressure. It’s past the point of my normal pain threshold, so if you hear screaming in the distance, it’s me.
All written posts will be suspended until I figure out what the hell this is and how long it’s going to affect me. I’m no good to anyone if I cannot see past the pain and cannot sit long enough to type anything worth reading.
I hope everyone has a good Sunday. Life is short, make it count.
I went to bed last night with what I consider a “mild migraine”. Most of mine are horrific in their intensity, so hopefully this post will help someone.
I have suffered from migraines for almost 18 years. I have a family history of migraines, but that’s not the case for all sufferers. Technically if someone in your family has experienced just one migraine in their life, that is considered a “history”, and even if they never get another migraine again, they are still considered someone who suffers from migraines.
I have a pretty high threshold for pain, so when a migraine takes me down, it messes with my mood and view of the world a lot more than the previous migraine.
Because inevitably, everyone and anyone decides to turn on every fucking light in the house! You’re dying, but they “can’t see”.
I am extremely photosensitive, so on any normal day I avoid the sun, bright lights, and anything that bothers my vision. I wear sunglasses before I leave the house and I wear them after dark if I am coming home with a migraine, even if it looks off to someone else, it saves me.
A cool, dark room is my preference as I’m going through the “coping”, but this really works best during Spring & Summer when you don’t have to justify it in any capacity. In the Winter, no one wants to be freezing through a migraine. I am also highly sensitive to smell, and it becomes more intense when I’m in “migraine mode”.
When things are really bad and I’m dizzy and nauseous beyond belief on top of all that, I find that not moving around a lot helps, as does ginger (Ginger ale, even though it’s basically liquid candy, ginger candy, ginger tea, etc.). When I’m going through a really bad bout of repetitive migraines, I subsist on soup and ginger ale almost exclusively, with ginger tea and ginger-snaps being the only things I can truly keep down. I didn’t have nausea with my migraines until a few years ago. The fabulous benefit of getting older. For some weird reason, diet root beer (It has to be A&W. Every other brand, except for Pennsylvania Dutch Birch Beer, is absolutely disgusting to me.) and anything with wintergreen also helps with the nausea.
I like the diet version, but there’s nothing wrong with the regular.
A migraine starts in my head, as it does for most of us, but it’s not truly gone until it has affected my stomach. I refer to this as the “head to toe” phenomenon. It starts above and doesn’t truly leave until it has wrecked my stomach. (This is where proper hydration comes in to the picture later on.)
If you suspect you suffer from migraines, find a really good neurologist who specializes almost exclusively in headaches. Let he/she run all the necessary tests to eliminate any other possibilities, but don’t just take over-the-counter analgesics and allow yourself to suffer. My methods are tried and true, and they work. Unfortunately every migraine is a little different.
I try not to treat a migraine medically if I’ve had to take more than three rounds of medication in a 12 hour time period. If it requires that much medication, sometimes a trip the emergency room is necessary. There are several drugs that can stop the migraine completely and others that are used to treat the pain. Be sure to have a copy of your migraine plan from your doctor with you, or you might not be received very well, or be treated properly, in most ER’s. One of the last times I went to the ER for my doctor-ordered shot of morphine (FYI: I’d NEVER gone before, always suffering through it no matter how bad, and I’d NEVER been given morphine for anything. I’d never wanted to risk the “last straw”. To this day, I’ve somehow managed to avoid getting a shot in the ER for my migraines, but believe me when I say, sometimes I wish I would just go.), they refused to follow his instructions. The nurses stood off to the side with the doctor whispering (which to my ears, sounded like a fucking freight train) that I “might be faking it”, as they “suspected I could be a junkie looking for a fix”. I was SO sick, the mere mention of the word “junkie” ensured I would never again seek treatment at that hospital, nor would I ever return to their emergency room for anything. I did not receive any treatment that day, except for a cat scan which, as we all know, proves absolutely NOTHING in regard to migraines. When I later told my doctor what happened, he was ENRAGED. Hell, they’d called him for the authorization and he faxed them my migraine plan. They couldn’t and wouldn’t follow simple instructions from an on-staff neurologist. If I hadn’t been so sick at the time, I would have asked him to come down and give me the shot himself. He had privileges to do so, but I was truly too ill to make the call.
My first step to coping when I feel the pain come on is to try to remain calm (I often fail here.). I won’t lie, migraines can ruin more than just a single day and when I feel the pain, I panic. Anyone who suffers from them knows that you can be out of the game for over four hours, or a week, depending on the severity of the pain, how long it took the pain to stop completely, and the recovery process. If the first migraine tapered off for a few hours and you got hit with a second one soon after, it makes your recovery time hard to pinpoint because it can suck the life out of you fast. The second I feel that “Uh Oh” twinge anywhere in my head, I take what I’m supposed to, which is supposed to stop the migraine in its tracks before my stomach shuts down, which is roughly 30 minutes or so from when you feel that first burst of pain.
When I am on Relpax (I’m not paid to say this, but it’s the only medication that truly works for me.), which is a prescription-only migraine medicine, I find relief generally without having to take more than 1-3 pills in a 24 hour period. These suckers are expensive, even with insurance, and I only get 6 at a time when they’re prescribed because my insurance doesn’t like paying over $22 per pill (and there’s no way in hell I am paying $240 out-of-pocket for it several times a month), but there are other ways to get them to pay for this if you need it. If this medicine works for you, stick with it. If it doesn’t, don’t worry, because there are a lot of other migraine medicines on the market that help to prevent migraines, and so many others that handle the pain when you suffer an attack. There is also a long list of preventives.
My saving grace.
I am not a doctor, but when you suffer from something consistently, you start to feel like one at times. It took about two and half years before I was put on a preventative medicine that lowered my percentage of migraines. Before that, it was one drug after the other that did not work, and the side effects were almost as bad as the constant headaches. Many of them made the headaches worse. I lost my patience with the first neurologist who didn’t believe in managing the pain once it was trying to tear its way through my head. The one time I had to have him paged in the middle of the night because I was a step away from the emergency room, his response was obnoxious. He called something into the pharmacy for me that night, the headache stopped after a few days, but I never went back to see him because I felt he wasn’t properly handling things. If I’ve been a patient of yours for a year or two, and you can’t seem to think outside the box, I do have the right to seek a second opinion. Be your own best friend here. If you and a doctor fundamentally disagree on how you should be treated, find a new doctor. You’re the patient, you don’t deserve to be treated like someone’s science experiment.
Neurologist #2 saved me from drastic measures. To this day, he is someone I respect highly and trust to help me. I have recommended him to other people and will continue to do so. The very first medication he put me on dropped my almost daily migraines down by about 75%. I took it on and off for close to ten years before it stopped working completely. For me, that was still considerable progress. It’s a drug that doesn’t work for everyone and I was the first patient he’d ever given it to for migraines. Because of my initial success with it, he felt comfortable prescribing it to others that were experiencing the same level of pain as I was.
A lot of people who are on the homeopathic route should know this: Certain essential oils might help. I use Lavender. Sometimes I add a little Vanilla to the Lavender because that’s a calming combination for me, but Chamomile is also really helpful. I purchase these oils from TheOrganicWitch.com. Her prices are very reasonable for a 1 ounce bottle, and she often has a Buy 3 or 4, Get 1 Free deal going, so you get the oil you need, and often find a new one that helps with something else. Find out which oils work best for you, but know that not every one of them is safe for direct skin contact. Peppermint needs a carrier oil (in a pinch, olive oil works just fine since most of us have that on hand.). I find that Spearmint doesn’t irritate me or my skin when applied directly, and it’s easier on the senses, especially if you are super sensitive to fragrance, which I am. With Lavender I literally dip a Q-tip into it and apply a little to my temples, the spot on the forehead that is the “Third Eye”, behind my ears, and on my wrists. When using these oils, try to stay away from your pets to avoid direct contact with the oil itself. Over time, some of them are poisonous to cats if inhaled, so be aware of this. Occasional exposure will not kill your dog/cat. Tea Tree Oil is the only exception, they shouldn’t EVER be exposed to it as it is 100% toxic. Cat and kitten automatically move away from anything they find repulsive scent wise, so I don’t worry about them being curious. If you can’t flush the used Q-tip, toss it at the very bottom of your garbage can/bag. Your garbage will smell fantastic, and it will keep your pet(s) away from the remnants of the oil. If you have smaller pets that like to chew on Q-tips, find an alternative disposal method.
The cap bottles on the right are usually $2.50 a piece, but you can find them on sale for less (2 for $4 is the norm). The liters run about $3.98 at Walmart and most mass market retailers might be a few pennies higher.
Hydration during a migraine and throughout the recovery process is crucial. I’ve had people say “You need to drink more fluids. When you get a headache your brain is thirsty.” I honestly don’t think it’s possible for anyone to drink more water than I do, but in the beginning, I did have to work on this theory of the dehydrated brain. Initially I experimented with things like Gatorade and Powerade (not in large amounts, as I was once concerned about the sodium content), but have since moved on to coconut water, which is 100% natural. I tend to keep Zico Dark Chocolate Coconut Water on hand for migraines (and assorted forms of dehydration) and I buy it by the liter, which is cheaper. If it’s not cold, I pour it over a couple of ice cubes and sip as much of it as I can, slowly. I cannot begin to tell you how many times this has saved me from additional pain and suffering. There are many times I drink it as soon as I’ve taken migraine medication, and if I then take a short nap, I wake up feeling like I never had pain in my head. Not all the time, but a high percentage of the time. I recommend Zico’s Coconut Water because all of the other brands I’ve tried tasted vile to me, including Zico’s Natural and other flavored products (They have several. Check out their web-site.). If you’re already used to the taste, go for it, but the one I’ve recommended is, by far, the superior tasting product and when you have a migraine, taste does often count. I have used their coconut water consistently for five years. It has not failed me.
I swear by this stuff. Everyone who has tried it for dehydration or a migraine has become an immediate believer. Of course, some people prefer any brand they can find. This was the first one I ever tried.
I’ve got other migraine tips, and that will be in part two.
Do you have any migraine or pain related tip(s) you’d like to share? If so, leave a message in the comments section.
UGH! Yes, that’s what I have to say. I’m tired, because apparently “crack of dawn” in my house means “We’re all awake Mommy! Don’t you want to feed us?” Mmm…not so much. LOL.
After truly forcing myself to get things done yesterday, today barely feels like a Sunday. It is quiet, thankfully, and there’s supposed to be a thunderstorm later on. At the very least, rain is predicted for the first half of the week, so I’m content with that because it explains a lot of my aches and pains. The rest is from overdoing it. The mileage I clocked on my pedometer over the last few days is insane.
I completed all of my jobs, except for the big one. I will focus on that this week, as much as humanly possible. I hope additional work comes in, especially proofreading and anything else that isn’t mind-numbing and/or soul-sucking. The faster the job, the faster I get paid, and that makes my life slightly easier in the moment, which is a huge help.
Today I am allowing myself to take it easy. I’m in clean PJ’s with wet hair, I already did a load of laundry, and I completed 95% of the prep for Sunday dinner. Everything else can wait until later or tomorrow because “rush” isn’t in my vocabulary at the moment.
For now I think it’s safe to say that I have some things I want to accomplish going into this week, but beyond that, I can only take things on a day-to-day basis. My pain has escalated to the point where my daily activities revolve around how much pain I am in. I have been off of traditional prescription pain medication for over two years now. For every doctor that assumes we are all drug-seeking addicts: SCREW YOU. Living my life each day with little to no access to genuine pain relief is agonizing. I do take Eastern medicine when I am able because herbs work when taken properly, but through trial and error I have come to decide that the new herbs for lower body pain is not something that should be taken each night. I’ve had several episodes where the combination of different compounds made me sick for a good 24 hours after taking it. So seen, even some herbal remedies have their side effects. Acupuncture is next on my list. No, I am not afraid of needles. In fact, I barely register that sort of thing because the pain I am in each day is so severe, little things simply don’t show up on my physical radar.
I am hoping this will not be a summer chock full of migraines. I am strongly considering starting a new migraine journal if things get out of hand again. I do have medication for that which can be taken daily, but it’s horrible to start during the summer because one of the side effects is that you MUST drink at least 120 ounces of water every single day and the second is that you don’t sweat. It’s not a good combination of immediate side effects during rough summer conditions, so I might start it again in September when things start to cool down and I am able to focus on the dosing. I’ll have to download an app for my phone because it is all too easy for me to forget whether or not I took medication each morning. With tiny pills, I often find it easier to forget as opposed to the monster pills that you simply cannot forget. Odd, but true for me.
I hope everyone has had a delightfully restful weekend. I’m off to take a nap. I woke up WAY too early this morning and since I haven’t been sleeping well, I’m not going to beat myself up because I need to rest. In the words of my Uncle: It is what it is.
I’ve decided that today is going to be a work-free day.
I went to bed this morning sick as a dog. I suspect my brief time out yesterday affected me more severely than it ought to. Within a few hours of coming home, I got my fourth migraine of the week. I took a brief nap and I wasn’t entirely okay afterward, but now? UGH!
Sadly, with migraines, you often question whether you did something wrong, ate the wrong thing, etc. All I did was go out in tremendous heat for an hour and a half and come home. It wasn’t a lot of physical exertion, but my body says otherwise. I had a mild headache upon returning, but it wasn’t until I actually felt pain in my head that I took something for it. By 7:30, as my neighbors attempted to power wash something right near my bedroom window, I contemplated outright murder. My ears simply cannot bear the noise, and what are they up to at this precise moment? Yard work. At 9:23 a.m. On a Saturday. When it’s already 85 degrees and a heat advisory has been issued for the entire area, AGAIN. Schools actually closed early yesterday, if they opened at all, because it was over 100 degrees with the humidity and people were experiencing breathing problems. But hey, dumb & dumbest need to make noise on a yard that requires no work at all this week. This is where I would like to point out that I refrained from putting #TheyNeedToBeShot. I’m not a violent person…just don’t make noise when I’m sick or on any day ending in a y.
As a direct result of this migraine/heat/stomach agony, I’m trying to decompress this morning. I’d rather be asleep, but I desperately need to hit the grocery store. Not a fun task, I do not look forward to this, but I am going to try going once it cools down. There’s no point in making myself any sicker by attempting to do it early on in the day. Everyone and their grandmother will be there to capitalize on the digital coupon extravaganza, which has already turned into an epic fail because 9/4’s of the coupons don’t come off at the end of each order, which means customer service is inundated with questions as to why they didn’t work and precisely “Where are my savings? Are you going to give me my money back?” Actually, the store is set up to make sure you actually loaded the coupons on to your savings card in the first place. If you didn’t use the physical coupons that were also provided for the week, chances are you didn’t get the savings on those four items. I clipped all of my mine last night and will print up a few others later on. I’ve saved nearly $1000 this year alone in coupons at one store. That is a small accomplishment, but it feels good every single time I look at my receipt.
I’ve completed all of my work this week (though I am seemingly still loosely on the consulting job), except for the manuscript, which I will devote more daily time to next week in my attempt to complete it. I’m not looking forward to that, I’m simply tired of seeing it and knowing that it’s not complete. I do NOT relish the line of questioning that will come with the delivery, but since I stated in the contract how much time I will spend on answering questions before charging again for my time, I hope that will make the client aware that I mean business. It’s in black and white, how hard is it to follow guidelines?
Before I forget, I want to thank Writerstream for featuring my work this week, and I’d also like to give a huge shout out to the dozen or so new Twitter followers in the last 12 hours alone. (Special thanks to Lillian for encouraging me to join Twitter. Hugs sweet pea!) I never knew I’d grow to love it so much. To the friend that reads my Tweets and isn’t afraid to joke with me and laugh, I appreciate it. (You know who you are, doll!)
If you need me, I’ll be here for the next few hours. Drinking coconut water. Praying that it helps. If it doesn’t, I’m seriously considering an ER visit because this level of pain is out of control.
Have a great weekend everyone! And please, stay out of the heat and wear sunscreen.
Fibromyalgia Pain. Chronic Pain. Migraines. They are just a few of the evils that millions suffer from. Some suffer loudly, but many more suffer in dark rooms, alone, in silence. You’re screaming on the inside, but you don’t make a sound.
There is something about the temperature shifting drastically that changes my “Pain Game” to new levels of insanity. I’ve had a migraine on and off for three days, and after last week, I’d hoped it was just a passing tornado, so to speak. This morning I reached that “insane from pain” stage that is quite scary. You hear yourself saying crazy things, but you truly cannot stop your mouth from moving. You’ve been strong for too long and now you’re venting.
I’m usually up pretty early and by early, I mean still dark. Suffering from migraines last week into this week has meant that I’m finding justified reasons to A) Go back to sleep or B) Take naps. This morning I woke up at 7:24. I’d been up an hour before and truly saw no reason to make a bigger effort, so back to bed I went. Unfortunately, when you have animals and/or young children, you don’t get “the morning off”. I suspect if I bled out of my eyeballs, maybe. The girls were being particularly aggressive this morning, so I fed them at exactly 7:25 and then stomped back up the stairs like an insane person. Once they’re fed, they usually leave me alone. In true form, they had no interest in bothering me whatsoever once they’d been fed. But once I officially woke up, I had a little stalker doing all sorts of wrong to draw my attention. I’ve reached that pain point where saying “No.” or “Get down from there!” isn’t even worth it. If I spritz them with water, they stop doing it. However, they’re fearless and like to lick the water off right in front of me, as if to say “Really Mommy, that’s all you’ve got?” I’m not in the mood to be challenged by anything with four legs and fur, and I don’t negotiate with terrorists that look like children. 😛
Migraines that affect your neck, shoulder(s), face, and spine are fucking scary. There is always someone telling me a wild story about how “so and so had a migraine, and thus thought nothing of it, until they ended up in emergency surgery.” Yeah, that’s what I need to hear. That is totally going to make me feel better, thanks for sharing! I have no idea why so many people use the “this one has it worse” crap on you, as if that is somehow going to magically stop your suffering (and not just with a migraine, but with ALL things in life). FYI: It doesn’t curb your suffering at all, but it does piss you off, which isn’t good because that raises your blood pressure and damn near guarantees that this migraine isn’t going anywhere any time soon.
My biggest problem with this particular migraine is that I also hurt from my spine down to my calves. If it’s not severe pain, it’s a horrific ache or serious soreness. There is a 50% chance of rain and honestly, I’d like to see it rain a bit because that would explain the sudden increase in pain from my daily 8-9 to DEFCON 1. Historically we have never reached such a level of “readiness”, but I’m betting that a vast majority of pain patients HAVE reached that threshold. It is pain that is so bad, you’d rather feel ANYTHING ELSE but that pain. It applies to more than just the physical.
Doctors have often told me “It gets better as you get older.” That’s what they told my mother when I had horrible growing pains and constantly felt like my muscles and bones were going to pop off. Now, doctors ask whether or not you can remember if you had bad growing pains as a child, because that often signifies whether or not you might suffer from a form of chronic pain later on in life. They ask about your long-dead relatives medical histories, as if you know all about your “dead before I was born” Grandparents and Great-Grandparents. Unfortunately, I remember those growing pains the same way I will remember my current pain a month from now, with 100% muscle memory.
I fully intended to get some serious editing done today. I have a client crawling up my butt (I have more to say on this subject, but it’s unprofessional, so I’m going to shut my mouth) asking for a timeline for delivery. We’ve never discussed one before, but as I go through pages and pages of work that requires severe corrections with every sentence, I had to be honest (I chose professional honesty as opposed to niceness because I don’t have niceness in me at the moment.) and tell exactly her how much work is involved. The cleaner the manuscript, the less work there is for me, but as a developmental editor, I fact check and do way more than I’m being paid for, and yet from a writer’s perspective, I cannot tell if it’s just excitement at the prospect of having never been edited before, or anxiety that a professional is dissecting your work. I don’t know, I suspect it could be a lot of both, but I’m also in too much pain and under too much stress to sit and psycho-analyze it. I also hesitate to ask because I’m about .1 seconds from losing it on just about anyone. I’ve never failed a client before; it’ll get done, but work stops when I’m in agony and being nagged.
Right now, today is turning into another “Must Take Care Of Me” day. I truly don’t feel there are enough days like this because I often turn my attention to helping someone with a problem, or doing something else to shift my internal focus off the pain. Focusing solely on my own needs is slightly unnatural to me, but for now, it MUST be a priority.
Here’s hoping that none of my readers are hurting like this today. 😦 This is the kind of pain only Hitler deserves!
Maybe it is lack of quality sleep or the fact that I woke up stressed, but this particular Monday is making me ill. The eerie quietness was giving off a lovely early Sunday morning vibe, which was helping calm my nerves…until the mowing and trimming started, AGAIN. I’ve had a migraine since last night, so the sound is like a never-ending sickness within me. I didn’t realize it until just now, but the smell is also murdering my sinuses. Spring allergies on top of all this physical pain AND a migraine? It’s unbelievably cruel.
The migraine is never truly gone. It will lull me into a false sense of security and then come slamming back, making me feel like my brain is being rattled. Has anyone received successful Botox treatment for their migraines? If so, please share your experiences with me.
Originally, I had some semblance of a plan for today. I had ideas laid out for work and I will definitely begin the process of writing certain things, but I’m realizing right now that some serious self-care is also in order. Today is going to be one of the hottest days that I’ve seen in quite some time, topping out at either under 90 degrees or over, so I think my first order of business before it kicks into high gear is to start hydrating, and to refill the Brita pitcher as a precautionary measure. Heat and I don’t mix well. In my mind’s eyes, it’s a “Wicked Witch melting” moment.
Something about the heat always makes me sick. It affects my entire body (pain, stress, stomach issues) and it exhausts me to the point where I will close my eyes and wake up five hours later. Like many things, the heat does Fibromyalgia no favors. It irks me that a person can’t spend five minutes educating themselves about Fibromyalgia, or any chronic illness, but when you explain that you’re sick, their response is selfish and self-centered, with claims of also having it. And yet, when they describe the pain they experience, you know their journey has yet to even take place because, while it may have been diagnosed, it is the utmost of mild for them. They don’t have to spend a week in bed after two days of serious activity. The only thing they do experience is widespread pain, but it’s not constant. Well, unless you’re on a morphine drip, Fibro is a constant. There are over 100 symptoms and side effects, but if you’ve only got one or two of them, I have a hard time relating because I score over 85 on the list, and that’s extremely disturbing to me. This disease is robbing me of my youth and energy in ugly ways.
So, if I don’t do or say something today that you expected, please forgive me. I’m waging war, both physically and mentally. I don’t have time for frivolous nonsense.
Beltane Blessings everyone! 🙂 I wish I were able to enjoy this holiday as I once did, but seeing as how it is the anniversary of a loved ones’ death, it’s still a bitter pill to swallow. Tomorrow is the 7th anniversary of the death of a beloved cat, so I’ve decided to take it easy this weekend and do my best to decompress. This week has already been stressful to the point of severe darkness.
I am still trying hard to focus on the manuscript I’m working on. You KNOW you have flipped over to the dark side of OCD when you find something wrong with your own work every single time you open the file. I keep making changes and then I have to remind myself that revisions will be made by the author, and it will be edited a final time. So, I need to push forward and let some, if not all, of the nagging in my brain go. I can’t really afford to rip any hair out of my head. Short hair, on me, is not a good look.
If you’re going to the movies this weekend, please let me know how the new Avengers movie is. I am really looking forward to seeing it. Unfortunately, I’ll have to get it on DVD because I simply do not have the time now for a movie or anything even remotely social on an external level. It’s quite sad, really, but I suspect it will be quite a while before I am able to focus on my social life, or even mild entertainment. For now, my DVR is difficult enough.
Last night I watched my team lose Game 1 (I’m going to hunt Henrik Lundqvist down and have a little chat with him about his idea of goaltending. I didn’t have time last night to threaten to beat him with his own stick when he allowed the Caps to win with 1 second left on the clock!! I’d rather sit through overtime than have my team lose at home. UGH!) of the second round of the playoffs, flipped over to The Blacklist, and then went to bed. That means there’s approximately 8-9 hours of “How much do I WATCH?!” on my DVR. If you saw the queue, you’d think I had absolutely no brain cells OR a lot of free time on my hands. I have all of my brain cells, that I’m aware of, and damn near no free time on my hands. If I had free time, I’d use it to murder my neighbor across the street who is currently mowing his lawn for the third time this week. The first two times were while I was trying not to cave my own skull in from migraines. Each time he saw another neighbor mowing within a 1-3 house range, which automatically spurred him to come out and proceed to mow, trim, and be a pain in the ass. I suspect now he is trying to make it even shorter than it was two days ago, before we get rain. Either the man is incredibly bored to be mowing in 50 degree weather OR he needs a hobby. I’m thinking it’s a combination of both. No one needs to mow their lawn that often. This is NOT a golf course or Yankee Stadium, nor is it a football field with real grass on it. Unless you’ve somehow managed to use 10-30 bottles of Miracle-Gro in a matter of days, you don’t need to be out there every few days mowing the same patch of grass over and over again. It’s borderline psychotic. (Plus, every time I sneeze from the smell of cut grass wafting in, which drives me allergies insane, my kitten mimics the sound with a meowish squeak. She feels my pain.) The fact that another neighbor across the street just joined in on this madness makes me feel like I’m listening to a dentist’s drill on a loop.
When you suffer from migraines, you become incredibly sensitive to noise. I rarely mind good music (I said GOOD.) and I can tolerate certain things at an extremely low level, but everything else is just a great big NO and has been for almost 18 years. My migraines have progressively gotten worse, so I’m extremely audio-sensitive and equally photosensitive. For me, the latter is far easier to manage most days, but especially on dark, grey days like today.
Okay peeps, I am going back to work, or at the very least, I am going to try. Enjoy your day and have an awesome weekend. 🙂
Facebook needs to institute a better policy involving “friending”. Even with strict filtering, I have people sending me friend requests simply because they like something I’ve said. Why in the world would you want to be “friends” with someone who is simply the same astrological sign as you, or just happens to also be a writer/editor? I understand when people say they’re an “aspiring writer”. They want to see what they can learn from you. I am a very open person, BUT when it comes to my WIP’s, I am not about to post them anywhere for the entire world to see. I don’t want or need a critique, I don’t need someone to tell me how to be a better writer, etc. I have been doing this for 28 years this month. I know my shit. If I didn’t, I would never have continued to return to it, be it as a source of inspiration for myself or as a source of income.
Moreover, if a person openly declares themselves a “sociopath”, you probably DON’T want to accept the friend request that is sent to you an hour later simply because they “like” an intelligent and/or helpful comment that you’ve made. I keep my “inner sociopath” to myself. I do let her out on special occasions though, when a person is deserving of dealing with it. 😉
One interesting thing that caught my eye over the past couple of days was an article that other writers and aspiring writers were contributing to. I want to say that it was more a group of highly creative individuals, so there were songwriters and artists also involved in the conversation. It began with a question: “How many of us suffer from bipolar disorder or other forms of depression or anxiety?”
Nearly a hundred different people (it might have been more, this has been a rough week for me in terms of keeping in touch with others) responded with various responses that said yes and each of them explained their diagnoses. Only four or five people said they suspected they suffered from some sort of depression, but that it had never been diagnosed. About the same amount, more or less, said they did not suffer from depression.
I was very proud of everyone for openly, honestly discussing bipolar disorder, anxiety, OCD, and a plethora of other forms of “mental illness”. It hurts me to use that term AT ALL. I don’t see every single person as “mental” and I cringe when people refer to others in such a way, as opposed to educating themselves. An illness is an illness. I would never tell someone they were responsible for getting sick in the first place, but MANY do say shit like that. It baffles me. Some people even discussed varying degrees of autism. That takes incredible courage. One of my cousins is autistic, so I’m not ignorant there.
When confronted with my own mental health, I am supremely honest, but I do not advertise it. I am going through something that has made me full-blown OCD, exacerbated my PTSD to levels I didn’t even know existed, and my anxiety is so bad, I can barely sleep most nights without waking up screaming, sometimes from pain, sometimes from my medication wearing off too quickly.
From day one, I have openly, and very honestly discussed suicide. This makes people uncomfortable because they REFUSE to face the fact that they’ve romanced the idea themselves. No one can tell me they suffer from any form of depression and have NEVER considered suicide. It might have been a fleeting thought, it might be something you NEVER act on, but it still exists. This is a trigger for a lot of people. They lash out at me and decide I am no longer worth their time, all because I was HONEST. Catch me on a dark day and I might scare you with my truth, but anyone who genuinely cares about you will give you their time and concern, they will not pretend you’re “mental” or tell you to “take a pill”. Those are two of the most insulting things to tell someone.
I once had a woman piss me off at the grocery store. I was going through a stressful time with my father’s health and, in front of her children (both of whom were under the age of 12, but not younger than 8 or 9), she told them to “Get away from her, she’s “mental”. I might THINK a person is batshit in a public place, but unless they’ve caused harm to someone or they’re about to hurt themselves, I’m not stupid enough to go there.
Truth is, they were standing in front of a huge display of fruit for nearly ten minutes and wouldn’t move out of the way. How do you not tell your young kids to move over so other people can shop too? She was talking to them like they were infants, as opposed to children that have the ability to comprehend. The comment was completely out of line and off base. I turned to look at her, contemplated knocking her teeth out, and then looked at her a second longer with her kids. I felt incredibly sorry for them. I then politely took the fruit I wanted and said “Did you learn that in your many years of therapy? You might not want to pre-judge people based upon your own issues.”, and I walked away. She was left in the dust, unable to speak, because I called her on her shit.
I don’t need that kind of false denial in my life, not from any one. You don’t have to like me or love me, but I guarantee that with an open mind, you will respect me. I would never intentionally hurt someone with my candor, and it’s okay to say “Lisa, I care about you, but this upsets me too much to discuss any further.” It’s called COMMUNICATION.
I have lost people to suicide because they had no one they felt would truly listen and hear them out or “make it stop”. I’ve stopped myself many times from acting on a thought because I believed it was irrational and felt it was wrong to leave any one of 4-5 people in my life behind to discover what I’d done, or have to receive the phone call that just plain brings you to your knees. It would devastate four of them. The last person probably wouldn’t give a shit or so much as come to my funeral. I’m not a priority now, why would I be a priority then?! (Yes, that was morbid and I apologize. Two, you’d understand why I said that if you knew who I was talking about and how they have treated me.)
Being honest about what I suffer from, including migraines and Fibromyalgia/Chronic Pain is part of what keeps me alive. The other part is that I am responsible for little people that love me and would have terrible difficulties without me. And even still… I often find myself thinking “This isn’t enough to live for.” It’s not coming from a selfish place, it’s coming from a place of wanting to be better, to strengthen the relationships in my life, to bring other relationships into my life and allow them to flourish. I cannot live for one thing and one thing alone. That’s my personal take on it, but it might not be yours, and that’s okay. I’m by no means here to judge you.
I want to thank the people that have supported me this past week through a living nightmare. I am surprisingly uplifted by the emotional support, care, concern, dedication, determination, and devotion. Only ONE person said “I’m proud of you.” When you’re going through hell, you do not want to be pitied, treated like a failure, or be belittled and/or disrespected. You simply want to be treated like the person that you are. I had to be reminded that I am strong, smart, and capable in the face of others trying to crush my soul. Bad things happen to all of us at some point in life. I may have been given a higher dose, perhaps God shouldn’t trust me so much, but it is what it is, and I am making peace with it.
I refuse to allow anyone to make me feel small in order to raise their own self-esteem.
If you’re honest and upfront about any illness, I applaud you. If you’re a loyal, supportive person to those that you love, I also applaud you. Compassion & genuine kindness is severely underrated.
“Things” do not make you who you are. It’s what’s inside your heart and soul that is the true value of self. The trappings are pure nonsense. They do not define you. I wish I’d understood some of that for the past ten years, but now that I do, I am determined, now more than ever, to persevere and make important things happen.
This phoenix has been reborn. Stay the hell out of my fire.
Sleep issues, for now, seem to be on their way to looking up. I was in bed so early last night, I’m certain every 80+ year old Grandmother was still awake when my head hit the pillow. When sleeping is difficult, it’s good to go to bed the second you can no longer keep your eyes open. Mission accomplished. It was after 4:00 a.m. when I realized that I never bothered to turn the clocks ahead an hour, but in the grand scheme of things; no harm, no foul.
Somehow the downside of a full night’s rest is that I woke up feeling like a Mack Truck had run over me, backed up, and proceeded to go at it a second time. Everything from my neck down to about mid-thigh feels broken, bruised, damaged, and whatever words are worse than “sore” and “achy”. By Fibro flare standards, this is pretty standard. It was twenty degrees colder yesterday, and yet today, while the temperature is slightly under a balmy 50 degrees, my body is working against me. Even my hair hurts…that’s not okay.
Weekends are never as long as they should be. For at least a year, I’d like one continuous weekend. There are weekends where you get a lot of writing/editing done (read: work) , and others where you get to enjoy things that you might not normally get to do (Minds out of the gutter.).
I’m extremely displeased with where this weekend went, but considering how much I have on my mind and on my plate, figuratively speaking, I just have to do better this week in terms of properly managing time.
In the meantime, I’ve got a ton of work and research ahead of me this week. I look forward to none of it. I’m having a hard time being passionate about what I do because the daily pain is just too much. Normally I am speedy and efficient. Right now, I am slow and I find fault with every other word. No matter how much positivity I can manage, at the beginning and end of each day I am still in excruciating pain and it’s hard not to take issue with that.
Here’s hoping everyone’s week is bright, and full of potential. I’ll be okay with significant progress, love, support, and a lot less pain.
Written by LISA MARINO-Molchanova 