It was a version of the same nightmare I've had since the fourth grade yet it was brutal in its own way. I can barely function here at home by myself and I'm by myself at least half the time. I sit very still so that no one will know that I'm home. I don't even wait for an actual knock on the door before I fret these days. In the idiom of Pearl Jam's "Rearviewmirror," the shades are never raised. Neither parent made an appearance in this dream which might be the worst part. They sent a representative whom I met outside my front door. She had a terrible Asian accent that my damaged brain simply will not comprehend very well and she listed a series of demands from them that were horribly impractical for someone in my state.
The threat attached to the demands was the same it has always been in my nightmares about the parents with an extra twist. When I informed this representative that I would not answer the door and would call the cops at the first sign of either parent, she presented me with a document. It was simply an official demand that they leave me the hell alone. The threat of it being "in writing" was the same threat that I try to deal with by writing about this trauma here so often. I would be exposed as someone too easily hurt because everyone knows what wonderful people they are. In short, I'd be wearing a "Scarlet TS" for Terrible Son. I've been dealing with those consequences for the better part of a decade. I got rid of the poisonous relationships that left me wanting to die and, in the process, they took the rest of the family with them.
No matter what the settings may be, the dreams are always the same. I get to face their disapproval and condemnation with the added feeling that they never asked for much where a healthy person is concerned. Therefore, all the mostly healthy members of my family and their adult friends "know" that I could just try harder. After all, the current situation is unacceptable and unreasonable and I couldn't agree more. There's also no one damned thing that I can do about it. I live each day amid a collection of rocks and hard places while making the best of it.
The good news is that I don't have to beat down fantasies of killing myself anymore. As I suspected and, more than anything, hoped, removing myself from a bad situation was the closest I could find to a cure. As miserable as I feel mentally and physically, it's just a shadow of what they did to me on a regular basis. I will hurt, probably yell out in agony, sit absolutely still so that my grey kitty won't choose to abandon me. Instead, this little 10-12 pound cat will try to beat her dinner out of me. I'm only 41 and I'm frail enough to feel it.
Maybe that cup of coffee will help.
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Different Types of Pain
I'm not going to bother being superstitious here and avoid mentioning a small break in my tooth pain. It will be back soon enough most likely as soon as I crack or break another tooth. Before my dental disasters, I was able to divide pain into two categories. Summer pain was sharp, concentrated in the back of my head and involved a jump from maybe a six on the pain scale to a ten plus if a storm came within half a continent of me. Thankfully, tea or beer and medicine was enough to help me deal with it and it would pass within a couple of hours of the storm's end. Call it short but sour.
Winter pain was arthritis and this other burning, aching pain that made no sense. Also, I had this lactic acid burn in my arms where I felt like I had flapped them to travel hundreds of miles. It was less intense than summer pain but I just didn't get a break from it. Over time, I went on medication to deal with the arthritis which is only a problem now when my hands are borderline suffering from frostbite if you could get that in the house. My burning ache that I feared was some sort of bone cancer originally turned out to be fibromyalgia and it has responded pretty well to medicine. The lactic acid burn in my arms was what I half jokingly call RAS which means Restless Leg Syndrome in the arms or Restless Arm Syndrome which I prefer. The medicine for that works best if I feel my arms swaddled in nice long sleeve flannel style shirts
As much as it seems otherwise, I don't just sit around complaining about my symptoms. Through trial and error or finding similarities, I find treatments for my symptoms. The teeth are different because they can keep me at a ten plus on the scale for days at a time. I would not be able to wish this on my metaphorical worst enemy and I've made up with all of my worst enemies from school days. I would forgive you for believing that any day without the worst of the tooth pain is heavenly by comparison. After all, that's the way it should be.
Overnight into this morning, my arms felt like someone was giving me electric shocks except not just short bursts of it. The electric pain is constant though it's dulled by this nice shirt that makes me sweat like (insert something funny) and probably smells less than funny. It just goes to show you that there are all sorts of pain, the pain you're in is always the worst pain
Some sleep would probably help me gain more ground.
Winter pain was arthritis and this other burning, aching pain that made no sense. Also, I had this lactic acid burn in my arms where I felt like I had flapped them to travel hundreds of miles. It was less intense than summer pain but I just didn't get a break from it. Over time, I went on medication to deal with the arthritis which is only a problem now when my hands are borderline suffering from frostbite if you could get that in the house. My burning ache that I feared was some sort of bone cancer originally turned out to be fibromyalgia and it has responded pretty well to medicine. The lactic acid burn in my arms was what I half jokingly call RAS which means Restless Leg Syndrome in the arms or Restless Arm Syndrome which I prefer. The medicine for that works best if I feel my arms swaddled in nice long sleeve flannel style shirts
As much as it seems otherwise, I don't just sit around complaining about my symptoms. Through trial and error or finding similarities, I find treatments for my symptoms. The teeth are different because they can keep me at a ten plus on the scale for days at a time. I would not be able to wish this on my metaphorical worst enemy and I've made up with all of my worst enemies from school days. I would forgive you for believing that any day without the worst of the tooth pain is heavenly by comparison. After all, that's the way it should be.
Overnight into this morning, my arms felt like someone was giving me electric shocks except not just short bursts of it. The electric pain is constant though it's dulled by this nice shirt that makes me sweat like (insert something funny) and probably smells less than funny. It just goes to show you that there are all sorts of pain, the pain you're in is always the worst pain
Some sleep would probably help me gain more ground.
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
Fall of the (Ability to Make Bad Puns)
I wanteed to start this post off with a bad pun about Fall in the title but my ironic sense of humor would jinx me if I made a pun about falling. Physical humor isn't my strongest suit right now and I'd rather not have to check off that box about falls with injuries at the pain doc. (Have you over the past year suffered one or more falls with injury? 2 or more falls without injury?) That's not the right quote but I always got the odd impression that they cared more about falls without injury than those with. It's either some highly advanced diagnostic tool or a typo that no one has caught yet.
If I were to make a typical bad joke, I'd have to say that Autumn fell on me with the usual ton of bricks. You would think that all the tooth pain would numb me to the more typical fibromyalgia/Chiari pain but it doesn't work that way. It's a different sort of pain (Thank God!) so practice coping with one does not assist against the other. I learned this in the latest installment of "John decides he's doing something terrible." Narcotic pain medication does not affect tooth pain at all. There is a biological/chemical reason for this that the experts understand and I know from experience. In fact, alcohol doesn't do much of a job against it either. Therefore, my only defense against tooth pain that has spiralled out of control is to sleep.
At one point, I confused one (or possibly several) of my doctors when I explained how pain helped me sleep. It's a rather indirect relationship but pain forced me to learn to relax my body and mind. Narcotics require a willing mind to get the job done even with the things they handle well. You can't fight to stay alert and get proper pain relief at the same time. Fighting to stay alert is something I learned too long ago to set aside easily but, when I manage to set it aside, I drop off to sleep way too easily. I go from insomniac to a layman's narcoleptic with the flip of a switch. It doesn't matter what I'm doing. I've fallen asleep eating way too many times and I'm glad I quit smoking going on 20 years ago. Has anyone else fallen asleep completely upright without falling over? I'm not even talking about sleepwalking. Ironically, the main instance of this that I can remember involved standing at a light switch that I had just flipped.
Learning to manage pain helped me learn to sleep so I've never had to check the box about pain depriving me of sleep. Well, this month's paperwork will be a first. I decided that I was drinking way too much and losing my pain tolerance. (Try growing up hearing that you're wimpy for not having any pain tolerance and then having to report chronic pain to a physician. The constant self examination wears me down.) I had asked for some beer for my birthday since I like the taste of it so much and my beloved bought me a 4-pack of really good and potent German beer. Since I was having a nice little vacation from the intense tooth pain, I decided that I didn't require whiskey for pain at all. Some beer would do nicely.
Well, a weather front of one variety or another came rushing through and that beer went fast. I was in screaming/howling agony overnight as Melissa sat up with me for quite a while trying to keep me calm or, at least, not frothing from the mouth. At one point, I could tell she was just as upset as I was when she joined me in wishing a liquor store could just open up. Well, we survived the night and I got my bottle. It lasted a couple of days at most because I was interested in being semi-conscious at most.
As with any total loss of pain control that I've had, there were a few days of what you might call aftershocks. At the same time, I was suffering from the usual muscle cramps, spasms, twitching, headaches, neck pain and that really big guy who was pummeling me with the kitchen sink. That's when I remembered the whole Fall thing. Changes in temperature are bad for me. The aftershocks may be over but I've learned a new rule. Running out of money and whiskey at the same time while in extreme pain is a bad thing. I should be able to get whiskey on my prescription drug plan and, yes, I'm happy with generic mixed with tap water. Well, I guess satisfied is more appropriate than happy.
Must remember to act early. Pain is easier to stop the lower it is on the pain scale. Also, must remember to rest this afternoon.
If I were to make a typical bad joke, I'd have to say that Autumn fell on me with the usual ton of bricks. You would think that all the tooth pain would numb me to the more typical fibromyalgia/Chiari pain but it doesn't work that way. It's a different sort of pain (Thank God!) so practice coping with one does not assist against the other. I learned this in the latest installment of "John decides he's doing something terrible." Narcotic pain medication does not affect tooth pain at all. There is a biological/chemical reason for this that the experts understand and I know from experience. In fact, alcohol doesn't do much of a job against it either. Therefore, my only defense against tooth pain that has spiralled out of control is to sleep.
At one point, I confused one (or possibly several) of my doctors when I explained how pain helped me sleep. It's a rather indirect relationship but pain forced me to learn to relax my body and mind. Narcotics require a willing mind to get the job done even with the things they handle well. You can't fight to stay alert and get proper pain relief at the same time. Fighting to stay alert is something I learned too long ago to set aside easily but, when I manage to set it aside, I drop off to sleep way too easily. I go from insomniac to a layman's narcoleptic with the flip of a switch. It doesn't matter what I'm doing. I've fallen asleep eating way too many times and I'm glad I quit smoking going on 20 years ago. Has anyone else fallen asleep completely upright without falling over? I'm not even talking about sleepwalking. Ironically, the main instance of this that I can remember involved standing at a light switch that I had just flipped.
Learning to manage pain helped me learn to sleep so I've never had to check the box about pain depriving me of sleep. Well, this month's paperwork will be a first. I decided that I was drinking way too much and losing my pain tolerance. (Try growing up hearing that you're wimpy for not having any pain tolerance and then having to report chronic pain to a physician. The constant self examination wears me down.) I had asked for some beer for my birthday since I like the taste of it so much and my beloved bought me a 4-pack of really good and potent German beer. Since I was having a nice little vacation from the intense tooth pain, I decided that I didn't require whiskey for pain at all. Some beer would do nicely.
Well, a weather front of one variety or another came rushing through and that beer went fast. I was in screaming/howling agony overnight as Melissa sat up with me for quite a while trying to keep me calm or, at least, not frothing from the mouth. At one point, I could tell she was just as upset as I was when she joined me in wishing a liquor store could just open up. Well, we survived the night and I got my bottle. It lasted a couple of days at most because I was interested in being semi-conscious at most.
As with any total loss of pain control that I've had, there were a few days of what you might call aftershocks. At the same time, I was suffering from the usual muscle cramps, spasms, twitching, headaches, neck pain and that really big guy who was pummeling me with the kitchen sink. That's when I remembered the whole Fall thing. Changes in temperature are bad for me. The aftershocks may be over but I've learned a new rule. Running out of money and whiskey at the same time while in extreme pain is a bad thing. I should be able to get whiskey on my prescription drug plan and, yes, I'm happy with generic mixed with tap water. Well, I guess satisfied is more appropriate than happy.
Must remember to act early. Pain is easier to stop the lower it is on the pain scale. Also, must remember to rest this afternoon.
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