#my mental health
I’ve been awake since 4am and tossing and turning all night before that…
Sleep and I have always had a hard time getting along. I adore sleep. The vivid dreams, the horrid nightmares, I love it all. For me however, it’s always been a delicate balance of medication, temperature, pillows, proper positioning, lights (I wear a sleep mask) and sounds (I have a fish tank in my room which has a filter running at all times).
It’s always been hard for me to get up in the mornings. I greatly dislike getting up before I’m ready to wake up naturally, and I love sleeping for as long as possible, which used to be a problem but isn’t as much of one anymore. I feel like sometimes I’m addicted to sleep, always chasing that perfect, restful night, which comes so so rarely…
Feeling Sick
Chronic nausea is something I have suffered from for about 11 years.
When I stopped being able to breathe, about 6 years ago, I was living in an apartment with two roommates. Over time my ability to…. well breathe was compromised so often that I ended up in the emergency room. Thinking I had developed some sort of lung issue or asthma of some sort I went in thinking I would find out and be cured- only to discover that the truth was I was having such intense panic at all times that my body had gone sort of into shock and wasn’t allowing me to breathe without other (usual) physical or emotional symptoms. The other thing they guessed was some sort of chronic heartburn causing me to be nauseous all the time, yet exacerbated by the stress of the panic.
After a while I got the breathing under control, a symptom that still comes in week or month long waves when my stress and anxiety levels reach their peak, but the nausea and heartburn is something that has always truly escaped me. When I started feeling this way I never thought it would go on for so long, yet looking back, obviously it has.
Being ill is never easy. It took me so long to understand how my body was reacting to my moods, emotions, and especially what I ate.
I do believe for myself everything is such a delicate balance- I walk a tightrope of medication, therapy, and diet to try to keep myself from falling off, but I fall often, and often hard.
Today I feel so incredibly sick. The nausea and bodily discomfort is so horribly intense that I will without a doubt have to sit propped up against a wall of pillows to sleep. I’ll have to make sure I stay far away from trigger foods for quite some time, and really put more work into reminding myself that I don’t like to feel this way.
Tomorrow I go back to work, to work on my art, my apprenticeship, and my career.
One like = one “good luck” for my work week
Two nights ago, someone on a TV show I was watching was tripping on ‘shrooms. I have never done shrooms, but I did get nostalgic for that high where nothing matters, where you feel outside your own body, where everything is light and airy. I wanted what that character felt. Then last night was a rough night. I ended up reading too much about Omicron and the inevitability that “we are all gonna get it ♀️”. Except for me, that could very possibly be a death sentence. And my brain spiraled out into existential dread mode & I couldn’t stop it. Today I woke up knowing that I didn’t go for the nostalgic high I wanted and I didn’t treat my overwhelming anxiety with unsanctioned (& way too many) pills. I woke up today knowing I made it through both those feelings without drugs - or at least without non-prescription drugs . I woke up this morning knowing I have been sober for twelve years. #Soberversary
It was 10 years ago today that I looked down at the pills laid out in front of me and made a life-altering decision. I had been trying for months to scale back, ween myself, anything I could to get off of the pills. I talked to someone in my family who had gone through something similar for advice. But no matter what I did, I just seemed to keep digging myself into a bigger hole. I couldn’t call my doctor out of fear of being blacklisted for any future medications that I might, and most definitely would, need as my degenerative disease got worse. But I needed to do something. I *had* to do something. I was staring down a very black hole.
On this day 10 years ago a little voice inside of me spoke up and told me that the next choice I made was going to be between my future and my end. My life and my death. And so I chose.
I chose Life.
Today is my 10 years sober.
“Until you heal the wounds of your past, you are going to bleed. You can bandage the bleeding with food, with alcohol, with drugs, with work, with cigarettes, with sex; but eventually it will all ooze through and stain your life. You must find the strength to open the wounds, stick your hand inside, pull out the core of the pain that is holding you in your past - the memories - and make peace with them.”— Iyanla Yanzant
Oh hell no, not some kid from middle school trying to argue w me why our 5th grade teacher was so great, when he was an abusive ass who put his hands on a student, encouraged kids to Moo at the fat girl & call the boy who played w Barbies a Sissy…only then to reveal this dude was friends w teacher & his fam. Teacher was fatphobic, ableist, racist, classist, elitist & homophobic (irony, dude praising him is gay & I hate to tell him but Mr S would damn him for it, Mr S was *rabidly* religious). I’m fired up. He ended his comment w “I’m not trying to argue, just adding my view ” which really means he wants to have the last word. Instead I responded, “Duuude, no. Just…no. I’m not gonna argue w you, bc it sounds like you had a personal relationship w him & his family & don’t wanna hear it, but pls don’t diminish the damage he did to me or my brother from having him as a teacher. That guy messed us up back in the day.” I was engaged w a friend about some of our worst teacher experiences & he just felt the need to come to Mr S defense. Read the room. It’s hard to hear that someone you have a good memory of maybe being not as good as you thought, but tell it to someone who wants to hear it & not the person talking about how it fucked them up. So, I probably lost that FB follower, but eh, he doesn’t have kids so wasn’t buying any of my future books anyways ♀️ (what? What do you have FB for if not to sell books? I enjoy some other aspects of it, but is def why I got a FB. That & pics of niblings. Is why I rarely post on politics & never post on religion. I thought Sucky-Teachers was a safe subject, Lol). Someday I should write up the ableism from this teacher. It’s an interesting study on how being over-invested in someone’s disability can actually be ableism.
Addendum… After I responded w “pls don’t diminish the damage my bro & I suffered from this teacher” the dude responded back w passive aggression “thanks for shaming me for stating my opinion and experience. I certainly didn’t do that to you. I’m surprised.” Also apparently I bullied him in 2nd grade which I guess negates my right to complain about bullies? & dude was bullied in middle school too (I remember, he got it p bad) but idk why he was pointing that out unless he thinks it means he has the right to defend a bully bc of it? (The bully in question being a teacher, a grown man in position of power bullying literal children, mind you) Pièce de résistance was his final line tho, “But we make due with what hand we are dealt and make the best of it.” What kinda minimizing shit is that? Yeah, I made do w my hand, buddy. But am also allowed to talk about upsetting shit from my childhood on my own page without having to tolerate people coming to this shit teacher’s defense. Fuck him. I was happy to reconnect w him but if hes gonna talk over my pain, he can fuck off. Think I’ll delete the post, maybe unfriend him, be done w it.
Oh hell no, not some kid from middle school trying to argue w me why our 5th grade teacher was so great, when he was an abusive ass who put his hands on a student, encouraged kids to Moo at the fat girl & call the boy who played w Barbies a Sissy…only then to reveal this dude was friends w teacher & his fam. Teacher was fatphobic, ableist, racist, classist, elitist & homophobic (irony, dude praising him is gay & I hate to tell him but Mr S would damn him for it, Mr S was *rabidly* religious). I’m fired up. He ended his comment w “I’m not trying to argue, just adding my view ” which really means he wants to have the last word. Instead I responded, “Duuude, no. Just…no. I’m not gonna argue w you, bc it sounds like you had a personal relationship w him & his family & don’t wanna hear it, but pls don’t diminish the damage he did to me or my brother from having him as a teacher. That guy messed us up back in the day.” I was engaged w a friend about some of our worst teacher experiences & he just felt the need to come to Mr S defense. Read the room. It’s hard to hear that someone you have a good memory of maybe being not as good as you thought, but tell it to someone who wants to hear it & not the person talking about how it fucked them up. So, I probably lost that FB follower, but eh, he doesn’t have kids so wasn’t buying any of my future books anyways ♀️ (what? What do you have FB for if not to sell books? I enjoy some other aspects of it, but is def why I got a FB. That & pics of niblings. Is why I rarely post on politics & never post on religion. I thought Sucky-Teachers was a safe subject, Lol). Someday I should write up the ableism from this teacher. It’s an interesting study on how being over-invested in someone’s disability can actually be ableism.
Two nights ago, someone on a TV show I was watching was tripping on ‘shrooms. I have never done shrooms, but I did get nostalgic for that high where nothing matters, where you feel outside your own body, where everything is light and airy. I wanted what that character felt. Then last night was a rough night. I ended up reading too much about Omicron and the inevitability that “we are all gonna get it ♀️”. Except for me, that could very possibly be a death sentence. And my brain spiraled out into existential dread mode & I couldn’t stop it. Today I woke up knowing that I didn’t go for the nostalgic high I wanted and I didn’t treat my overwhelming anxiety with unsanctioned (& way too many) pills. I woke up today knowing I made it through both those feelings without drugs - or at least without non-prescription drugs . I woke up this morning knowing I have been sober for twelve years. #Soberversary
Tbh I’m just shy to talk about my problems
It’s normal to feel this way.
So updates cuz it’s been a bit
We still don’t know why pat isn’t recovering the way he should have, nor do we know yet why he’s having seizures. July 9th marks 1 year since the first surgery.
He has appointments and another MRI coming up next week and throughout July.
I am struggling so much right now, mentally and emotionally.
One of the biggest helps I’ve had through all this has been @sorenmarie87 . Getting lost in a videogame is sometimes just easier than dealing with shit, and it’s been nice having her there when I’m like “game time?”. Introducing her to the fallout world has honestly been bringing me so much joy because I started replaying as well and Fallout is my happy place.
When shit was bad with my ex, I had fallout 1, 2 and brotherhood of steel.
When I was figuring out my mental health and fighting for my son’s, I had 3 and New Vegas.
I’m back in New Vegas and thinking of finally getting into 4 while my oldest keeps bugging me to get another copy of 76 to play with him.
I keep trying to write. Sometimes I start but can’t seem to finish. I feel like I’m drowning in shit and can’t seem to get out of it.
And then I load up a game and start a voice chat with Dawn and for a bit, I feel normal again. I laugh, I curse, I come up with random story ideas I’ll probably never get to write, but I feel normal.
I just want to get back to normal.
