March 19, 2010

Hopeless

Things are not going well. I'm full of anger, frustration and stress. I'm depressed. I'm irritated. Everything is pissing me off. I just want to say 'fuck it' to everything.
You have this illness that amplifies pain. Then you need to pay more attention to the signs and signals your body sends, so that you know how to not overdo it. But because you are trying to listen to your body more, and be more in tune with yourself, the pain amplifies louder and louder. It's this horrible cycle that just gets worse and worse.
I can't tell if any of the medicines are doing anything. I just keep having more pain. But is it me being tuned into the pain more? Or is it really more pain?
I'm so exhausted. My job is extremely stressful right now. I can't relax. My legs hurt so badly. I'm so uncomfortable. I can't stand to lay in bed, and the ambien cr isn't putting me to sleep anymore.... probably because I hurt so much and my mind is going 900 miles an hour.
I'm so mad. I really just want everything to slow down to a crawl. I want to be able to manage things. I'm not able to do that right now, and things just get worse and worse. I hate living this way. I get nothing pleasurable out of life right now. Want to play video games? No, it hurts too much to sit in the chair at the computer. Want to walk my dog around the block? No, you can go about a third of the way, but then you get too tired, stiff and in pain to go any farther. Want to make love to your husband? No, that is incredibly painful. And forget doing anything else, like going shopping or taking a walk by the beach.
For fucks sake. Yesterday, I saw a guy on his hands and knees scrubbing the tiles on the base of a post, and I was jealous. Jealous of that??!?! Well, it's amazing the things that piss you off, when you literally cannot do them. I couldn't get down on my hands and knees, and if I did, I'd never be able to get up again. And forget trying to scrub something...
How am I supposed to live like this? How can I know my limits, but not focus so much on how my body feels to amplify the pain more?
How can I be happy taking a million pills a day? Pills that I don't think help? I am so dissatisfied. And I have become this whiny little bitch about it. If keep it in, it builds and builds and gets worse. If I let it out, I still feel horrible, but now everyone around me does too.
Someday I wanted to have a baby, but how can I ever get off of all these pills? And if I do, how can be well enough to carry the baby? How much will that hurt, or will it be a breeze, considering what I already go through daily?
I don't know if this post even makes any sense, but I just wanted to get it out.
I want to relax. I want to enjoy, have fun, and live life. I don't feel like I get to do those things, and I don't know how to make it happen. It's just spiraling out of control. Every time I think I'm at bottom, the floor falls out from underneath me. I'm tired of being told that I'll probably always feel this way, and to learn to live with it. I'm tired of having this "invisible disease" that makes it seem like it's all in my head. I mean, after all, I shouldn't be feeling pain. Nothing is wrong. So I guess it is all in my crazy fucked up head. At this point, I kinda just want to go into a catatonic state and sit in a mental hospital for the rest of my life. I don't want to die, but I am not living. This isn't living in an acceptable way.
Then in almost a sub-conscious rebellion, I sabatoge myself. I do things, or don't do things and I don't know why, other than it's the only few things I really have any control over. These things make no sense to me, like biting my nails or eating something unhealthy, or not eating something that is healthy. It's like I can't help it. I have to do those things because nothing else in my life seems up to me to decide. The thing is, in the past when I have tried to be strong, and make major life changes, they still didn't make me happy. Am I even capable of being happy? How do you "learn" to be happy and enjoy things? How do you let go of the seriousness? How do you get a happy medium? Something tells me I should stop analyzing and asking all of these questions, as a first step. Everyone else analyzes me though. I kind of just want to tell everyone to fuck off. I kind of want to just stop caring. I don't know if I'm capable of that. I want to get organized, but I'm so far behind... it's like everything is just so far out of reach, that it all seems impossible. I just feel like a complete failure. A failure down to the core processes of my body, a body tells me I'm in pain when I'm not. No wonder I'm depressed.
I have no valid plan. I don't know what to do. I don't want to be dependent on others, and I haven't been, so it's hard for me to convey that to others.... and then it's hard for those others to take me seriously when I'm not so convincing about what I can and can't do. I tried to push through. Tried pretending it didn't hurt. That doesn't work. It does hurt. A lot. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do now. I really don't want to keep plugging along the way things are now.
If I ask myself the question, what would make me happy? I don't know the answer. I haven't known for years. But fibro has make my quality of life go way down the tubes. I'm tired of testing and trying and not feeling better. I'm really tired of trying. Part of me just wants to wean off all the medicines I'm on and see what that does. Part of me just wants to force myself to do things no matter how painful they are. You know, those guided meditation things tell you to focus on your pain as a white ball of healing light... but my pain doesn't heal. My pain isn't for any real reason. My nerves are broken. My brain is broken. I just get all of the wrong signals that make me feel bad. I lost my faith many, many years ago. And now I've lost hope too. I feel like I'm being punished and there's nothing I can do to right whatever it is that I did wrong. I have to live like this for the rest of my life, and that makes me very, very sad.

3 comments:

  1. Boy do I understand where you're coming from right now! I enter the "fuck it" zone constantly and then I figure I better try to manage this somehow..
    Take care sweetie!

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  2. Amen! I feel like I'm constantly having to pull myself out of a deep dark hole of "fuck it!"

    But it does sound like you're doing better in the next post...so that would make me several steps behind you. Oh well.

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  3. I have fibro. I was diagnosed 20 years ago. It has affected my work ability (my feet hurt so badly that I HAD to take off work). It has affected my marriage (I am now divorced from a man who would not understand and instead disapproved of me). Just writing that brings tears to my eyes because I know that I deserve better. I do not take walks because my hips hurt so badly I don't have any confidence in making it back home. I work from home now and when I spend hours at my computer my neck and shoulders are on fire. At least I don't have to go to a job everyday where I face people who do not get it. That makes me feel worse.
    My symptoms have become much worse over the last 2 years. I am going to a rheumatologist in a couple of weeks to find medication to help with my pain. I did not take fibro seriously until a few months ago.
    I recently adopted a blind chihuahua and I no longer feel guilty about not taking walks because she cannot do it either.
    I am meditating. I sit in a chair in a very comfortable position and do not expect myself to sit in the standard meditation posture (which I cannot do).
    I have accepted my limitations and because I have no daily reminders of them (husband, job etc) I no longer feel anger about my condition. I do not like it but I do not beat myself up.
    I adopted all three of my children because I was unable to maintain a pregnancy. I love them all so much and would not love them more if they were genetically related to me. I accepted it. They are grown now and I do remember having a difficult time performing many motherly expectations but I now know that all they MUST have is a loving, accepting home and if you can teach them to be accepting of others limitations (and possibly their own) then you will have done an amazing job. You do not have to be able to play football or soccer with them for them to have a happy childhood. Just provide plenty of opportunities for them to experience life, even if you cannot be by their side. Let them enjoy their lives guilt free.
    I think that we have to accept ourselves as we are and find ways to avoid situations that shine a spotlight on our limitations. I am not saying to avoid life just difficult activities in which we are limited, due to our condition. I still get out and socialize often, I just choose carefully the situations that I know I can do reasonably comfortably. I do not give ever put myself in a position of knowing I will fail. I may pay a price but I know that too will pass with a reasonably restful day.
    I know that your anger and mood has probably passed or maybe you are in one right now so I hope that my example will be helpful to you.
    We need to help each other and stick together.

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