Messages

yay for you!  don't you love it when things turn out better than you expected?  i know i do, and i love it for you that this is going that well. 

hey, siren,

sorry it's been so long.  have been tending to myself for a bit.  wanted to answer your question.

i've been away from my 2 main narcs - my ex and my daughter - for a bit over 2 yrs.  while i don't necessarily miss them physically, miss their presence or their abuse, i've kept them alive and well and by my side by obsessing over what i'd like to say to them, trying to either tell them how i really feel, what i saw them do, what it did to me, all that, or what i might be able to say as a way to fix things so that we could still be a family, etc.

i'm still working on the obsessing part, but it's beginning to slack off, or when either of them pop up in my mind, i'm able to shut that down more quickly now.  it takes practice, tho.  i've realized it's been one way to keep that roller coaster ride going inside my head, and i decided i didn't want to do that anymore.  ugh!  so much busyness in my head that needs to be let go of.    taming this beast is definitely a process. 

one step at a time.  if you'd given up, you wouldn't be posting here.   i think i just saw something lovely happen to you.  you go, girl!!!   

such an interesting statement, hurtbeat - i don't know how to adult.

yeah, if we didn't have healthy adult role models, how could we learn that skill?  i guess that as adults, we have the freedom to do whatever we want, tempered by the consequences of the choices we make.  pos. or neg. consequences.  if we make healthy choices, we'll have healthy consequences, stuff like that. 

so, the more pos. choices we make, the more pos. consequences we'll realize.  that's the ideal, isn't it.  the trick is to learn what are and how to make those healthy choices, and to accept that we won't be perfect at it.  but, the more we can attain some sort of balance with how we live, i think, the more we'll live happily.  something like that anyway!

i just heard about someone whose had some terrible bouts of anxiety, including panic attacks, and she told me that one of the best things she learned is to accept her anxiety rather than fighting it.  she knows what it feels like, and just allows it, gives herself options (she sits in the end seat of a theater in case anxiety washes over her and she needs to leave.  no blame, no shame.  it's just something that happens sometimes.  (she'd gone through all the negativity around being anxious, including isolating, not telling anyone, lots of shame, all that neg. crapola).  with the acceptance, she goes with the flow, and has found that it happens less and doesn't last as long.  she also knows that a panic attack lasts about 20 min., knows what it is, how it feels, and breathes through it.  when she told me this, i thought it was rather an innovative way of looking at something that used to stop her from doing all kinds of things she'd done in the past.

good luck with getting to see someone to talk to.  that waiting game can be such a drag.  here's hoping you'll see someone soon.  in the meantime, keep taking care of you as best you can.  big hug.

thanks, candid!  love the little party - that's great.  am grinning right now - it feels good!

good luck with the meeting, meursault.  hope it goes really well.  big hug.

ooooh, jd and blueberry, my memory lost you for a minute, but i didn't.  thank you both for your warmth and caring. 

i'm cutting down on my meds today - i don't need the pain med (it didn't make that much difference anyway) and the brain med made me uncoordinated - i was walking and talking like a robot!  jerky movements and slow going. also, i was tensing up during the day - i'd suddenly realize my back was arched or i was holding my head/neck at an odd angle.  this med, at certain doses, is used for epilepsy, and it was feeling like my muscles were seizing up a few times during the day.  quite the opposite result than what i'd expected.  i thought i should be feeling like a wet noodle rather than tense.  talked w/ my hub about it, cuz i don't wanna make med decisions on my own, want to make sure to keep him in the loop on that so i always have a second opinion.

so, today i will take no pain med, 1 brain med, and keep the prozac for now to see what that does.  i think it takes a bit longer for results.   in the meantime, i want to stay in touch here again as much as possible (till my eye goes wonky) and keep up with my writing.  i had a good day of rest yesterday and feel better today.  i'm pretty sure part of that is cuz of the light at the end of the tunnel after fri.   that lifted my spirit considerably.

onward with recovery.  it feels like some things are simply clicking into place and i'm feeling more comfortable being me.  i don't feel the urgency to work work work to improve myself right now, to fix myself right now, and those obsessive thoughts are lessening somewhat.   just feel more relaxed about issues and don't really want to focus on the neg. so much right now as much as getting my eating back to a more sane place and getting back to my writing.  looking forward more than backward, i think, which feels different, but good.  i feel safer somehow.  more here.  hard to explain, but i like it.  yay!

oh candid, i so feel for you, i really do.  i can relate to that feeling of loss, having had a home, family, pets, career, doing what i loved, being good at what i did, and now my possessions would fit in my car, can't work, have retired so i could get my soc. security money every month and that's it.  whittled away, every bit of it.

i also write, can relate to that dream of yours - and it sounds beautiful.  it's so so so very frustrating to have those dreams snatched away from us.  i continue to write but doubt that it's going anywhere.  still, it's something i love and i haven't given that up yet, altho i can only concentrate on it for about a half hour at a time now before i'm exhausted. 

you know, methinks that it didn't all end with your accident for a reason, that there's a reason why you're still here.  maybe you don't know why yet, maybe you won't, but you are here, you are reaching out to others on this forum, and you're giving to others as well.  that giving that you're doing, candid, the support, the validation, the compassion that you've given me and others - that's something very special that you're doing.   you are making a positive difference in this world and in peoples' lives personally.  we've benifitted from you still being here, and i thank the stars for that. 

i found out that sometimes we touch peoples' lives in a profound way just be being ourselves and that we might never know about it.  it happened to me and i found out about it by accident.  i was shocked as all get out when i heard - i was just doing what i do but it made a big impact on another person's life when i wasn't even trying.    you are alive and here, you are actively impacting others' lives in a most positive way.  you may have lost a lot, but you haven't given up, haven't thrown in the towel, and i'm grateful you're still here.  i don't doubt others feel the same way.

standing right beside you, candid.   we've all made those mistakes in our choices, in our relationships, in the paths we've taken.  i've made too many to count.  please, don't ever let that strip you of the wonderfully kind, caring, intelligent person you still are.  that inner critic can go take a flying leap!  you are still valid and valuable, no matter what.  never forget that.     

candid, thank you for starting your journal, for allowing us in a bit. 

i can relate to the entrainment thing, and your situation on several levels.  i had to spend a bit of time living at my mil's and it was horrible.  it was so bad that i even once called my mom, crying.  as usual, she didn't know what to do with my emotion, so remained silent.  feeling very alone after that call.  i just wanted to get out of there. 

i've been pretty good at being a chameleon personality, but i'm totally with you on the idea that there are some people i can't, won't, and don't want to be on the same wavelength.  i don't like where they are, how they think, their perspective on the world.  not that they're bad people, just so different from me on too many levels.

when i think back on some of my relationships, i can't tell if there has been any actual entrainment in the past or if it was just me faking myself through it.  if i think about it, there is really only one person with whom i can feel that, and it's my daughter, and it's only been in the last year or so.  like we're vibing on the same cylinders.  i have flashes of it with my hub, but not normally and not for very long.  it's actually a weird feeling for me, but it is a feeling, and i'm grateful just to be able to feel it.

so, poor subjects as we might be here to attain retrainment with each other, i do consider people here as virtual foc, and can feel closer to them in some ways than people in real life.   keep hangin' tough, candid - hangin' right beside you.  we'll virtually get through this together!     

you're all so great.  i'll be back here in bits and pieces as i'm able. i've noticed that looking at this screen too long begins to bother my eye.

yeah, candid, finally something tangible is being seen as wrong with me after so long of 'everything's normal, nothing's wrong' kind of messages i've gotten for so long, cuz standard blood tests have shown just that.  that is something that i cheer about.   it's like we KNOW something is wrong, but the docs put so much stock into these standardized tests, and don't explore farther.  it feels so good to finally not be dismissed nor denied.

the fibromyalgia was a surprise.  i don't have burning, shooting pains like i see i the ads for their meds.  most of me feels fine unless a pressure point is pressed.  then, whoa!!!  hurts like dammit!  low back pain is the norm, with me all the time, but otherwise - i'm still thinking it's trapped trauma, but what do i know, right?!

radical, i really have known you all are with me, have brought you to the fore for my peace of mind several times, and it's comforting.  thanks for reiterating my value - i feel the same about every single one of you, just as you are, too.  valid and valuable.  very.   these health problems have been around for decades, but haven't been recognized  so haven't been looked at properly.  of course, i'm an emdr therapist for nearly 30 yrs. and i never heard of c-ptsd or alexithymia so never knew what either i or my clients might have been dealing with.  funny how that works.  but, better late than never.

you're right, dsu, it's a bit of a wait, but it's like the light at the end of the tunnel.  i'm happy to be on here again, even if it's in dribs and drabs for awhile.  i'm still getting used to these meds, coming down from the stress of fri. so i don't know how much i can be here.  but, it'll get better with time.  i missed this place and all of you.  you are part of my family of choice now. 

thanks for listening, for being with me.  lovin' all these hugs, and right back at all of you.  wife2 and 3 roses, you're included in this.  if there's someone i forgot, please forgive me.  loopy still.  love you all, you wonderful, wonderful people.   muah!!!

ok, doc report.  i saw the doc of internal medicine fri.  i ranted and raved, fighting for my life.  it was messy and turbulent (i apologized to her before i left - i was pretty harsh lol!  armored in righteousness and frustration because i've been talking to docs about what's going on with me for over 30 yrs. and no one has helped - except the one guy that finally listened when i told him that i hadn't slept for 20 yrs., he sent me to a sleep clinic which is where it was discovered that i have restless leg syndrome (familiar with that?  most people move their legs about 10x/hr.  mine were moving 19x/hr. which meant that they kept waking me up during the night unbeknownst to me, preventing me from being able to go to the profound deep sleep that we need to feel rested and our brains need to feel nourished) and i got meds to help calm my legs so i could finally sleep.  wow!  what a feeling it was, really, that first night!  i couldn't believe how good it felt to sleep!

being me, i naturally researched rls and that was my first clue that something might be wrong with my actual brain.  it seems that a part of the brain sends out signals to the legs normally, and they are mostly still while we sleep.  with rls, these signals are faulty, and the legs twitch or are uncomfortable to a degree that we feel compelled to move them.  either way, we're not conscious of it during the night, but too much moving makes for broken sleep that we're not aware of.

so, i went into her office with about 30 pages of what's going on with me, including info on c-ptsd, alexithymia, how i can't manage stress - my legs stop functioning properly after a stressful stretch or situation, i can barely walk, just can't make them move the way i want to.  i've been thinking another type of brain disconnect - and pictures of scans of both normal and traumatized brains - what a difference!  where areas of a normal brain are peach-sized, those same areas of a traumatized brain are pea-sized.  also, info on adrenal fatigue and all my lab results, 2 diff. tests, one last july, one last nov., one this year showing how my adrenals aren't functioning correctly (she wants to dismiss this one, most conventional docs don't believe in adrenal fatigue, so i've gotta take the test over so she can see for herself cuz, as she said, it depends on what state i was in at the time i took the test.  ok, whatever.)

anyway, in the end, i got what i wanted.  she told me that since all my tests came back normal (no diabetes, no thyroid problems, no high blood pressure, etc.) that she's thinking there's something wrong neurologically with me.  so, the middle of sept. i'm scheduled to get more comprehensive lab tests done, get a brain scan (yay!!!  i really wanted that!), talk to a shrink (she diagnosed me with an anxiety disorder - which is what c-ptsd is often diagnosed as even in the states), talk to a rheumatologist (she diagnosed me with fibromyalgia) and talk to a dermatologist about the fungal infection, and whatever else little things keep popping up on my skin.

so, the waiting begins.  in the meantime, next month it's back to the ophthamologist to see what needs to be done about my eyes.  all these waiting games suck.  my left eye especially is bothering me, vision is out of whack in it.   when i told christa about all this, she asked if i wanted to see an american doc.  i told her that i had nowhere to stay, and i have no idea how long it would be to get a general doc who takes medicare, get all these tests done cuz i don't know if anyone up there would accept these mexican lab tests, get referrals to specialists, what the wait time would be just to get in to see one, that i'd thought about it and i'm thinking it would take at least a year to get this sorted out and possibly treated up there.  we're talking internal medicine, shrink, rheumatologist, dermatologist, ophthamalogist, brain scans, lab tests - who the * knows if that would even be do-able, what the co-pays are, what the meds might cost, etc.  one part of me thinks the treatment would be better, one part of me knows that i wouldn't be able to afford it (i pay about $500/yr. for this ins. here, and everything is paid for - general docs, specialists, meds, hospital, surgery, the whole nine yard)s.  i just don't think it's feasible.

my hub had retina detachment surgery, they inject a gas bubble into the eyeball which is sposed to push the retina back in place and the body absorbs this bubble and voila!  but, he says that his vision is just as blurry now as it was before the surgery, even tho he's also had 2 shots that were sposed to dissolve what has remained of the bubble (it didn't get absorbed) and he has one more shot to go.  if i end up in that same boat, i won't be able to get a dr. lic. in the states anymore.  i think i'm in denial about what that really means - not being able to drive?  holy *!!!

anyways, that's what i'm looking at now, but at least these things are gonna be looked at properly, and for that i'm so thankful.  in the meantime, she gave me prozac (to calm my mind, said it's running too fast all the time, doesn't shut down), some simulated morphine for the pain, and some med. that works on the brain to try to smooth out what's going on inside.  left and right hemispheres aren't in a smooth communication pattern.  i read that alexithymia produces an inordinate number of connective nerves between right and left, so the communication is more like static  or white noise rather than being clear and understandable.

ok, more than you've ever wanted to know about what's going on with my body and brain.  there we have it.  at least by the time this is all over with, i should have some answers.  that's all i've ever wanted.

we'll see what happens.  glad that's over, now have to play the waiting game.  i'm kinda loopy from these meds right now, gotta give them a few days to settle in. 

thank you and love and hugs to all you wonderful, lovely people here for all your good wishes and support.  you've been a godsend.  i couldn't have gotten this far without you. 

getting my ducks in a row for tomorrow's dr. appt.  it's my last shot - i just don't have the energy anymore to do more than get through one day, then another.  i've gathered all my info on everything that's bothering me, all the different ways i'm sick, both body and brain.  we'll see what he does with it.  if he cares, if he's a healer at heart, he'll want to look into everything in more detail.  if he's just there to collect his paycheck, i'll come home and never see him again.  day to day, give me strength. 

and, last night i had it out with my hub about his outbursts toward me when i ask him a question and he doesn't want to answer it cuz he's tired or frustrated or something.  told him he's now the most stressful person in my life, and i'm not having it anymore.  he attacks me, as if i'm trying to cage him or hurt him or take advantage of him emotionally -  too much time on the streets that he hasn't left behind, or it happened with his ex, or w/ his mom and dad.  i don't know, but i've had it.  he'll be o so wonderful, gather me in, we'll have in depth conversations about all this, i'm feeling like we're continuing to get much closer, then wham!  out of the blue, i ask 'why' he's going to do something and the other night i got 'why?  do i have to report every little thing i'm doing to you?'  or, there's something about his face/eyes that tells me something's not quite right, and i'll ask what's wrong and wham! 'why does something have to be wrong? don't tell me how i feel!'

so, i told him last night that he's pulling me closer, then he does something like that and pushes me away.  i have an idea what's going on with him - fear of intimacy, that kind of thing, plus being vulnerable on the streets gets you hurt - and that now i'm distanced, don't feel safe asking questions anymore cuz i don't want this in my life.  he went to a meeting, but never talked about it when he got home and for a change, i didn't ask. 

when we talked about the 'report to me' statement, he apologized, said it was a stupid word, wrong choice of words.  i told him it wasn't stupid, it was exactly what he was feeling cuz he has a perception of me that he hasn't let go of in 15 yrs.   i don't know if this can be fixed anymore, and i'm tired of trying.

i don't trust him, and i feel bad about that.  gotta protect myself.  he'll still do all these errands and stuff for me, but, like i told him, questions are what help people get closer, so to cut out the questions keeps the distance.  i don't like it, don't know what else to do.  opinions are always welcome.   

i wish i could do more on this forum, but right now i'm pretty much depleted.  have to do paperwork today for the appt. tomorrow, take a shower, and i'm still highlighting the high points in what i've written out for the doc.  i'm pushing myself to get this done, to go thru with this tomorrow - it'll be an all day trip, and my hub and i don't do well traveling together cuz he's always telling me what to do and not do and i get pissed and we always end up in a big fight - more stress! 

but, it's gotta be done, it's my last chance, my last shot to see if someone will help me, and i don't doubt it'll knock me out for a few weeks after.  i just wanted to touch base here.  i'm all out and all in at the same time.

still sick.  don't know when i'll be back.  love you all!

thank you all for your kind words and caring.  i'm sick now from all this stress, my legs aren't working again quite right, and i can't do too much today but watch tennis, maybe play some games.  yesterday was not good.  little better today, but i still need to take a break.  love to you all.

by the by, my hub is mexican, doesn't have papers, so can't cross the border.  and, in mex, the retirement age has recently been raised to 70, and there is no pension/soc. sec. here from the gov't.  people here are basically on their own all their lives.  part of the idea of having big families is so that there will be someone to take care of you when you get too old to care for yourself.  no gov't relief or housing for seniors, either.  this is a culture of poverty that has smacked me in the face for how uncaring and difficult it is to live.

today i feel sad, especially for me.  i don't like what i'm facing.