My Journey With:

Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS) ~ Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) ~ Focal Impaired Awareness (Complex Partial) Seizures ~ Fibromyalgia ~ Chronic Myofascial Pain (CMP) ~ Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) ~ TMJ Dysfunction ~ Bipolar Disorder Type I Rapid Cycling With Psychotic Features ~ Migraines ~ Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD) ~ Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) ~ Keratosis Pilaris (KP) ~ Complex-Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) ~ Panic Disorder ~ Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) ~ Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) ~ Self-Harm ~ Bilateral Piezogenic Pedal Papules ~ Hashimoto's Thyroiditis ~ Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) ~ Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) ~ Specific Phobias ~ Chronic Daily Headache ~ Eczema

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Poverty, pain, anxiety, and depression

Poverty & income inequality are huge problems in the USA
I haven't written much in awhile.  I've been depressed, with horrible anxiety, and a great increase in pain, especially burning muscles and feet, as well as allodynia pain.  For those who don't know, allodynia pain is when you feel pain from what should be a non-painful stimulus.  In my case my clothes, bed sheets, pillowcases, the couch, pretty much anything that touches my skin is excruciating, even my own hands in my lap.  This is how I describe my allodynia pain: it feels like someone has sandpapered my skin so hard it's bleeding, then pressed rough grit sandpaper into the bloody mess and left it there.  To add to that lovely mess, my abdomen has been hurting a lot from IBS, and both my pajama pants are so worn through they are covered in holes.  So I have to wear jeans or sweatpants, which are rougher against my skin and tighter across my painful belly.  I have three bras, all really stretched out and four years old, with two of them being very scratchy.  Somehow I'm supposed to find the money to buy new pajama pants, soft underwear, soft bras, and soft shirts.  I'm not sure how the hell I'll be able to afford that, especially at this time of year, and especially since my car is broken down yet again.  I still have to renew my car insurance and renew my license plates next month, as well as make a big payment to AARP, my Medicare Rx provider.  We really need to get a new (used) car, my car will be 21 years old in January, and it's falling apart much faster than we can fix it.  Repairs on it would cost at least four to six times the car's value.  DH needs new shoes and new jeans, he only has one pair, and they are tight in the waist.  Niki needs to go to the vet because she won't stop sneezing, and I haven't even begun to figure out what I want to get DH for Christmas or how the hell I'll be able to afford it.  We had to borrow money today to have food.  We have a tiny ham for tomorrow, Thanksgiving, as well as pumpkin pie mix, a pre-made crust, and I think we may even have some box stuffing, but I'm not sure on that.  I'm at my wit's end and have no idea how to pay for this all.

Vivid nightmares are common in people with bipolar & PTSD
I worked, and payed into the system before I got my disability.  Yet I get so little money each month in disability we can just barely afford enough to eat, and sometimes that means only one meal a day if we want to make our food stretch.  I feel really guilty if I eat very much, because I know that means later I may not have anything to eat.  Living in poverty is a very stressful life.

My depression from my Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) sets in every year in November, with my first really bad days happening about two weeks before Thanksgiving every year.  I love Thanksgiving, but it is really hard for me to enjoy it when I'm so depressed.  With depression comes anxiety, which increases my pain levels even more.

Today I've been going back and forth between bed and the couch, trying to get comfortable but failing.  Last night I had the most vivid horrific, violent, sadistic dreams nightmares I've ever had in my life, and I've been having vivid terrifying and violent nightmares since I was seven.  I'm absolutely terrified to sleep tonight, and I don't know what to do.

I don't know what to do about the nightmares and the lack of money.  I'm at a loss.

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Spelling lesson

Bipolar is not spelled "bi-polar."  Bipolar is not spelled "bi polar."  It isn't spelled "BiPolar."  It's spelled BIPOLAR.  I sure wish people online could understand this concept.


Thursday, November 6, 2014

"Unknown Girl In a Maternity Ward" by Anne Sexton

Anne Sexton (November 9, 1928 - October 4, 1974)


"Unknown Girl In a Maternity Ward"

Child, the current of your breath is six days long.
You lie, a small knuckle on my white bed;
lie, fisted like a snail, so small and strong
at my breast. Your lips are animals; you are fed
with love. At first hunger is not wrong.
The nurses nod their caps; you are shepherded
down starch halls with the other unnested throng
in wheeling baskets. You tip like a cup; your head
moving to my touch. You sense the way we belong.
But this is an institution bed.
You will not know me very long.

The doctors are enamel. They want to know
the facts. They guess about the man who left me,
some pendulum soul, going the way men go
and leave you full of child. But our case history
stays blank. All I did was let you grow.
Now we are here for all the ward to see.
They thought I was strange, although
I never spoke a word. I burst empty of you,
letting you see how the air is so.
The doctors chart the riddle they ask of me
and I turn my head away. I do not know.

Yours is the only face I recognize.
Bone at my bone, you drink my answers in.
Six times a day I prize
your need, the animals of your lips, your skin
growing warm and plump. I see your eyes
lifting their tents. They are blue stones, they begin
to outgrow their moss. You blink in surprise
and I wonder what you can see, my funny kin,
as you trouble my silence. I am a shelter of lies.
Should I learn to speak again, or hopeless in
such sanity will I touch some face I recognize?

Down the hall the baskets start back. My arms
fit you like a sleeve, they hold
catkins of your willows, the wild bee farms
of your nerves, each muscle and fold
of your first days. Your old man's face disarms
the nurses. But the doctors return to scold
me. I speak. It is you my silence harms.
I should have known; I should have told
them something to write down. My voice alarms
my throat. 'Name of father-none.' I hold
you and name you bastard in my arms.

And now that's that. There is nothing more
that I can say or lose.
Others have traded life before
and could not speak. I tighten to refuse
your owling eyes, my fragile visitor.
I touch your cheeks, like flowers. You bruise
against me. We unlearn. I am a shore
rocking off you. You break from me. I choose
your only way, my small inheritor
and hand you off, trembling the selves we lose.
Go child, who is my sin and nothing more.

Anne Sexton

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