Only a Fool Thinks the Past is Dead …
Isn’t it the truth - thinking that because you’re not seeing it, you’re not hearing it, you’re not experiencing it NOW that it isn’t there any longer? Life can make you a fool.
I had thought earlier, just how did I become this Zen goddess, this Yoda like creature of calm? It’s been a journey these last several years and mostly, the last two that have yielded this new sense of “calm”.
If you’ve been following my LJ (and God knows, you probably have not) you would know that I’ve struggled the last several years (starting in around 2006) with various health issues. It started with some “female” issues and then I started to develop terrible pain and a feeling of “swelling” in my legs. I became even more fatigued than I had ever been. As time went on, I started to have odd symptoms - my limbs turning colors (red/purple/white), pain in my hands, numbness in my fingers, problems with vision, bleeding into my intestines (defecating pints of blood), thyroid problems, worsening back problems, etc.
Later, I found out that I had a fibroid tumor in my uterus the size of a large grapefruit. But this is all old hat.
After an embolization, surgery and many, many different doctors giving many, many different theories, I went to the Mayo Clinic. They confirmed many things wrong but didn’t do any thing to help. Again, old hat.
I’ve been on pain medication now for at least two years which has helped. I’m still in a lot of pain daily but at least I’m not crawling into work and crying the first 2 hours of every day from the pain in my hands, legs and face. I’m back on seizure meds and now I’m taking an anti-depressant for my chronic pain. I really think it’s my (very cool) neurologists way of saying “I think you need this to help you emotionally”. I’m convinced I’m doing SO MUCH BETTER.
To be fair to myself, yes I am doing much better. It’s been a journey, as I said and it’s been more bearable with pain meds, my seizure meds, a lot of soul and spiritual searching, a lot of coming to terms calmly and of course, a lot of thankfulness. I’ve learned these two years that I’m strong. I’ve learned to cope in healthier ways, not the healthiest because I am kind of an emotional eater. *chuckle* But as I tell my dr, I’m celibate so at least I can have chocolate, right? She doesn’t agree.
I’m doing better, I’m not social necessarily and I am still very much the “hermit” I’ve been for many years. I don’t make phone calls, I don’t take many phone calls and I sure don’t return a lot of phone calls if I get them. Before it was hard because I gave so much of myself away to others and now, I’m just so tired. Yes, the meds help and yes, the calming down helps but I can’t make myself talk to people. Even people I love. I just hope and pray that they accept that I can’t do it, that they’re ok with texts and seeing me now and then. I hope they don’t think I’m being a bitch or that I don’t care, it’s just that it’s been and is still hard for me to be with people.
I’m somewhat of a fool to believe that just almost two years of soul searching, meditating, practicing breathing and trying to push any thing unpleasant out of my head is the cure all. I’ve had so many years of depression and so many things happen that it’s funny to think that suddenly, the past is just that … the past. But I do feel like I can keep pushing, keep maintaining, keeping doing the bare minimum in hopes that a day will come when I have the energy, when I’ll be someone I think I used to be.
Who was that, any way? I think the person I recall being before was a fun person, social enough, chatty enough but so down, so self-conscious. I think she hated being made fun of for her hyper-active personality. I’m still hyper, still quirky but I haven’t the energy to be creative, to be social much, to be … whoever I feel I’d like/am supposed to be.
This is turning into an incoherent rant, isn’t it?
I thought earlier, I was so lucky having so much together but then the deeper I look inside, the more I realize I’m just surviving. I’m lucky for that, I suppose. It was worse before and it’s “better” now. I want so much to accomplish what I dream of … writing more. Living more. Right now, just making it out of bed in less pain, getting to work and having a roof over my head is just fine. It has to be because if I focus on what I don’t have, I feel like I’ll loose my mind.
But I’m “better” now.
No, I don’t think I’m bi-polar. My neurologist asks me every visit how my BPD is coming along. I tell her I don’t think it’s a valid diagnosis. I think if any thing, I do have the ADHD I was disagnosed with and I do suffer from depression but I think they’re separate and distinct issues, not one disorder. When I told her the circumstances under which I was diagnosed, she seemed to agree.
*rambles more*
I should shut down for the night. I’d meant to lift myself and praise myself for my accomplishments. I’m not necessarily “down” about who I am. I can say that after many, many years of beating myself up and struggling with what other thought of me, I LIKE me. I LOVE ME. Forget what any one else says or thinks, I am better than that. I know that, truly in my heart. But it’s the rest that’s hard to reconcile.
You can love someone but not always like them.
I’ll have to settle for part Yoda, part “Girl Interrupted”. I’d like to say I had a “crazy” year or two but more accurately, it’s more like someone struggling with an eating disorder, gambling addiction, sex addiction, drug addiction … you aren’t “recovered” necessarily, you’re always “in recovery”. You don’t just turn your back on something that’s become part of your life, you just learn how to live with it better each day.
Here’s to living well with the pain, to accepting myself as being “perfectly imperfect”. *drinks vitamin water*
love - k
Mirrored from "The Misadventures of Kimby".