If you have depression and are easily triggered, please exercise truckloads of caution if you try sticking through this post, ok? I really went there.
From a post I made 4 years ago at janikabanks.xanga.com. The html is abysmally screwed, but I fixed what I could. Only one person has ever been told what I intend to do with this, so the private title is in the queue and one of the projects I'm working on.
August 12, 2012
My fave thing ever is pirates. I read everything I could get my hands on about pirates when I was a kid. Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini captivated me at a pretty young age, and I absorbed the The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas (j'adore Dumas!) almost through the pores in my skin. My fave ever Pirate movies are Blackbeard's Ghost, Yellowbeard, The Pirate Movie, Cutthroat Island, and the Pirates of the Caribbean series. My other fave 'ship' movie is the Horatio Hornblower series. I didn't grow up anywhere near an ocean or even a lake, but I have this kinda private thing about ships. I'm working on my own thing now, but a few years ago, this is the kind of stuff I liked doing.
Ok, hopefully that doesn't kill the wrap on the rest of the post. I had to go after those words heading clear out to my livingroom and wrestle them back into the corral. *preview* Ah, yes, working just fine now.
This week is already weird, and I desperately need to pull back into a touch base here, so let's just start off with my face feeling prickly and itchy. Nothing puffing up, yay! Just the nerves. The first time it ever happened I was in my late 20s and my doctor tried me on several different meds until we finally just gave up. The phantom itching is maddening, and after a few years of absentmindedly scratching around an eyebrow or beneath my lip or by my nose, a doctor commanded me to STOP before I wind up with cellulitis. Thank goodness it never got to that point!
SHOULD YOU SCRATCH THAT ITCH? MAYBE NOT
So I switched back to beta blocker, histamine level spiked (yay, allergy season!), and now my face is all itchy and prickly for 'no reason', but it's all the same trigeminal spots I've always had to deal with, so apparently neurontin and cartia together impact my nervous system differently than neurontin and my original beta blocker dose together. Incidentally, I can't prove anything because my weight stayed steady this whole month, but I've worked really hard on the 1500 calorie thing, and I seems like whatever I lost got replaced by fluid retention. I swear I'm more jiggly now. Not cool.
Med changes, yo. At least I'm not craving brownies like last month. But srsly, where's the tranq gun for the maddening bursts of itchies sparkling up behind my eyeballs. Ok, enough of that. I'm very seriously thrilled it's not doing this down my throat. Those kinds of days are terrifying.
K, got on here to FOCUS. I need a super power point, hang on. (Coming back to this sentence during proofread and just shaking my head.)
Ok, Autisable went live today. I'm not staff, but I was one of the early contributors. Not paid. This is not for profit, I think. Anyway, Joel started this community of networked writers on Xanga before the big server move, and I've watched him survive and rebuild pretty much from scratch, and that inspired me more than just about anything to hang on, keep working on my own stuff. Again, for those of you who've never lost everything you've built in a server move, including specialized coding and a really excellent cutting edge mobile platform, the stress is unbelievable. I would compare it to an internet earthquake or hurricane or something, just everything wiped out and gone and having to pick up shreds and pieces and literally start over with a new foundation.
MY POINT. See what I mean, I'm super scattered because this itching is so distracting. Anyway, I've created a special Aspienado facebook account to share my Autisable submissions. Autisable is what inspired Aspienado to come out in public and start working on Existential Aspie. My tagline will hopefully be the preface to my book.
If you could go back in time and do one thing, what would it be?
I would go back and give my mom a big hug and tell her everything is going to be ok.
–Existential Aspie
I need to review a few other things going on. Organization!!! Thank goodness for back to school. Ok, went to my phone to find a pic and played on FB for 15 minutes. Here we go. This is my back to school purchase, along with a CD holder not pictured (because I have CDs scattered all over the house and the cases are getting destroyed and I keep losing CDs the way people lose their keys). I've pulled together a reading list for the year (sploit, I'll send you the books as I finish them, so don't buy them), and I've decided I need to get back to watching a show during the day while Scott's gone to keep me off minecraft when I go ditzy, because I've lost swaths of time 2 days in a row switching back to the beta blocker. I need to focus back on time awareness through the day, so I'm creating a new syllabus for myself, hopefully it'll get me through the holiday slide intact. (omg, I forgot about the time I discovered a search for 'holiday slide' landed me back on this post.) But yes, I do need to share actual real brain stimulation going in for all the people (including my psychologist) who wonder if I'm taking the broadcasting out part of my life too seriously. You people really have no idea what I actually do most of the time, so guess what, I'm giving myself book report assignments through the fall.
I think I shared my new backpack on twitter last month, hang on. Yes, here it is. Aspienado is really bad to get into ruts and use things till they're so messed up or messy that I'm a walking disaster, so freshening up the ol' bugout bag was a must. I treated myself since my last backpack was a $3 leftover after Walmart had been savaged and left nearly bare, and it was initially targeted for ten year old boys and really didn't hold that much. This one holds my whole house.
I've also liberated my new umbrella of its tag. I've been using really old and almost broken umbrellas since college (I cannot believe I've had that blue umbrella since the late 80s, THAT tells you a lot about my ruts right there, and the green one has to be nearly 10 years old itself), so when I saw this one in a pharmacy, of all places, on a rough day, I pointed to it and @bonenado totally got it for me. I'll have to take care of it because the entire handle is wooden and has an auto button to pop it out, very James Bond kind of thing. I know, some of you are questioning the whole going more feminine thing when I've been neutral for so long, but butterflies and roses have special significance in my family, and I really did have to have this. Plus there are pocket watches (me and time problems) and keys (key to the Lexx), so yeah. hello goodbye
Grasping that becoming Pinky to the world is how I am emotionally surviving isn't necessary to understand, but Bluejacky coming back out to play now is extremely significant. It means I'm healing.
At least in my heart and soul and mind. My body...? This is a hard summer guys. All I can do is just keep writing until I literally can't any more. It's too hard to tell if I can still hope for progress, because I'm sliding down so hard I'm not sure I can finish what I started. I keep telling myself hang in there 5 more years. I can make it 5 more years. I mean, it worked when my kids were in grade school and middle school, kept shooting for target dates and actually kept making them, and even though I honestly never dreamed I'd make it this long, I know the only road forward is harder than ever now.
blinking in the light (the original reveal)
If you've never read Hinds' Feet on High Places, THAT. @bonenado and I had a really good talk over this last weekend. If I'm in final sprint (and it could be another ten years, I can't see the future), it will take everything I've got.
I'm just glad I'm getting all my head stuff worked out. I feel like I'm getting all my homework done on time. Assignment: Earth- You will occupy a body and learn to use this body to play well with others, share your toys, and learn wisdom. This will count toward your dissertation on Why We Are Not Mean To Each Other. Once you've satisfactorily completed this assignment, you will level up and move on to other things. Some call this the Hard Class, the pass or fail class, but think of it as extra credit and you'll be fine. You'll each be given Time and Space allotments to complete this assignment, and the only thing you'll be graded on is whether you manage to pick up on what becoming an autonomous being is all about. The only way to learn this is through experience, and you won't be able to take your notes with you. Good luck.
I need to be sweet and remind a few people that I'm not critical, ok? I'm just facing that I'm heading there. We don't know when or how soon, watch me make it to 80 now, right? But for those who are still pretty new to the real me, yes, this is actually how I have lived raising my kids, day to day, week to week, month to month, and year to year. I haven't taken a single thing for granted since the car accident.
But the race is on. And I wanna win.
All this writing encourages me, so if this is bothering you, you need to go do something else, ok? I'm *focusing*. Writing is just as athletic as any other sport. You plan, you practice, you assess, you practice some more, and you keep doing it and doing it until you're good enough to play hard enough to win. Sorry so long, but it's just that kind of day. Minecraft isn't helping right now. And I don't wanna talk about this on twitter and facebook. I only link it so it's easier for people to check on me if they want to.
BACK TO SCHOOL. The syllabus construction. So among the reading challenges and rearranging my days so I'll be more aware of time and consequently more productive, I have several projects I want to finalize this year. One of my biggest challenges is this mobile office and the sudden interruptions. I've been working on organization for years, and it's amusingly hitting me that it's been so long that most of what I need to organize is truly useless now, and I can start throwing a lot of it away. When we were going through bankruptcy, we had to compile and keep tons of information, same thing again with my disability case, and between insurance changes and EOBs and all the junk mail on top of it, plus bank account stuff and keeping bills straight and forms filled out in timely manners, and then taxes and renewing car plates, and all of this being regularly poofed like leaf piles through birthdays and holidays and sick days/weeks and all kinds of other stuff, and then tech fail, omg you guys, I have lost my book contract in the shuffle so many times... Yes, both digital and hard copy.
But I have to keep my head on straight enough to remember to write groceries down on a list and then actually follow that list, and I'm failing simple list goals just running to Walmart, so of course I feel overwhelmed. But look at all the stuff I keep getting done. Look what I did this morning. I grabbed content I already had and used it to help promote a site announcement. I feel good about it, I feel like it helps point me back in the right direction, and I feel like the rest of my day is ok now because I spent a few minutes doing something useful. It doesn't take much, just a little bit every day. Five minutes. It really does add up over time.
So, August. My anniversary is tomorrow. I'm glad I wrote that, I got @bonenado a card and hid it, so now I'm going to go find it. I'm usually too scattered to even get a card, but I actually have one this year, and now it's out in time, instead of laying in a drawer, yay! Ha, it might be the last one he ever gets if I keep staying this scattered, though. You wouldn't believe how utterly ditzy I have felt the last 6 months.
*screaming gear change because that made me think of brain fog*
I was in my 20s when I was diagnosed, and I got that diagnosis within a month of seeing a doctor who fast tracked me to rheumatology because I'm such a severe case. They knew next to nothing back then, even though they already had criteria established on how to diagnose. I know from experience that getting back to a normal life might never be an option for me, because nothing we've ever tried has worked very long helping me pretend normal is even an option.
Fibromyalgia Has Central Nervous System Origins
I got disability on the first try.
What Does It Take For Fibromyalgia to Qualify As an Impairment Under the New Ruling
What I'm saying is that I'm one of the first patients in the medical field to be diagnosed so early and live this long with it, and they don't yet have a 'lifelong' definition for this kind of thing. They're talking about cases that last at least 3 months and still insisting there's a way to live a normal life, and I'm not seeing anything legally or medically definitive on someone who is 25 years in on something like this. There is no research on how people age through this. It's still only conjecture, and they're still studying it.
Fibromyalgia linked to decreased brain connectivity
We've ruled out MS, AS, RA, and Lyme is still being considered a nonplayer even with antibodies. This article is only a year old.
Fibromyalgia now considered as a lifelong central nervous system disorder
It's about defining what living a normal life actually means. I'm fighting to stay functional in my own home. I think for me, it's more about living a useful life. What can I still do when it seems like I can't do much at all? I can type words.
I have made it through at least 2 1/2 hours of what I call a really rough morning. I was kind of laughing with another snarkalec one day about how those of us in the most pain have such blow off phrases for how we feel, yet those of us who live like this totally get the code. I have a pain rating system that most people don't have a clue exists. The doctors use a 1-10 scale, and I insist I'm using the Princess Bride scale (not to 50!) in a 1-10 world, and on 'really nasty' days, that line runs right off the scale and keeps going around every wall in the room. If I'm 3 walls over, it's a shitty bad I'm in hell kind of pain day, and there's no way I'm going to talk about it beyond calling it a nasty pain day. There is just no way to convey context in a world where simply having a migraine and an emotional meltdown rates a 10 (and I do apologize, I don't mean to trivialize that at all, it's just I'm so experienced at that being a side order on a main dish of fibro). If I say in a doctor's office I'm at a 10, I'm either violently throwing up, unconscious, or spasmodically weeping with no way to console or comfort me, and believe me, I have scared ER doctors even after pain shots.
Pain scales are extremely relative and subjective, so I've had difficulty trying to convey meaning to what I'm attempting to communicate to a doctor who hears '10' from people calmly sitting in their chairs without even a facial flush going on. That has actually happened right beside me in a triage room. The woman saying it looked bored. My blood pressure was 193/110 and pain was nearly blinding me, and it just sounded so stupid for me to also say '10' right after her when I was obviously feeling so much worse. I once told a triage nurse 12 1/2 and she thought I was joking. You've no idea how badly I hate that 1-10 pain scale. That's why I invented the Princess Bride pain scale. If a doctor or nurse has seen the movie, they have more context, and then we can talk about me being in the 30-40 range on a decent day. Just because I'm able to function and smile doesn't mean my pain level is a 5. Actually crying driving in to appointments rates a solid 8, and from there it's minutiae to me. You know how on the earth timeline of 4 billion years humans have only existed in the last seconds before midnight? That kind of minutiae. So much pain context is crammed into those last 2 digits. I'm like if there can be 50 words for snow, I've got a hundred different phrases for particular pain levels if they're looking for context.
I can handle big loads of pain. Some days you feel like body slamming walls and trees trying to make it all shut up, other days you curl up in the dark and just keep everything really quiet. Those are rough days. Really rough days are me not caring if I break something and it's all I can do not to break windows out of sheer need to smash stuff just for distraction. I can totally see how people just lose it. Nasty days are just past that, where you if touch me, you die, and one look will wither your soul and you'll think I never loved you at all because it will be so awful. Really nasty days are hanging on in hurricane days, the kind of days where it's so bad that even breaking your legs or slicing yourself up barely ripples your attention, when even the words 'self harm' bring out maniacal laughter because it seems so tiny compared to what you're already going through. If I weren't in this amount of pain, I would totally be a self harmer. And I know several self harmers, so I'm serious saying this.
But the really worst days are the ones where it's not even that bad and your brain suddenly goes through a chemical dump, and there's not one thing on the planet you can distract yourself with that could keep you from doing something really stupid, so you reach out to hang on to other people and hope to God someone's available, because you cross that blurry line into unreal numbers territory, and you can't be sure what you're doing is really what is happening because your brain is so tired and so fried from all that overwhelming screaming you went through for days on end that nothing seems real any more when it finally quiets down a little bit.
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I stopped there for awhile to get a lettuce and turkey wrap and some cheese. The prickles and itching are finally calming down. Really thought this post was going a different direction when I started it. Oh, well. I could delete all that or just let it stand. I'm sure I spoke for a lot of other people feeling frustrated with spoonie stuff, too.
I'm going to make it. I can do this. But I need a nap first. I feel like I just swept out my soul, and those crazy stacks of old EOBs will be next.
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Sometimes naps don't work at all. Since I'm breaking so far out of my ruts lately, I decided back to school means I'm getting new stuff in my house, too, so I laid there in the dark scrolling around my phone. I never do that. I so rarely shop at all, this really is breaking out big time for me. I burned out really bad after doing retail for 5 years, so I just never browse unless I really need something, like replacing a crockpot. I decided today I need new sheets. @bonenado bought the last set at least 2-3 years ago and I've never liked them. So now it's my turn to torture him, lol.
And I've been wanting one of these for years. I bet Bunny will think it's awesome.
Also looked up the tracking number yesterday on the sunglasses I ordered last month (I tweeted about them), yes, they're really coming from China. They're super cool if you want to check them out. I'm surprised how little I paid for such nice glasses, plus free shipping, so no idea how they're even making money. Well, I'm assuming they're as quality as they look on the site...
Oh, now I'm yawning. Going to go try this again.
~~~~~~~~~
Nope, just not one of those days. And then the second I get on moc, someone is getting banned for using xray, so it's a day for everybody, I guess.
Got a call to make an appointment for next week, totally forgot I was submitted last May to be a genetic candidate. I'm old enough now with enough family history to get a consult to see if I'm likely to get breast cancer. I go in next week, guess we'll see how that goes. I've been on and off alerts all over my body since my 20s, nothing ever shows up. Really don't know if I'd survive treatment very well, @bonenado already decided a few years ago if I ever test positive he's just going to take me to mayo or something.
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TODAY.
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Got a little glum there yesterday, didn't we?
If you haven't figured out by now why I'm already a Doctor Strange fan, then you don't know me at all. It has nothing to do with Benny C because he's made tons of movies I've never seen and I don't go around watching all that just because he's in it. It also has nothing to do with Sherlock. Just for a second, imagine Stephen Hawking watching Doctor Strange. Yeah, that. Lotta people in this world gonna be latching onto this one. Continuing to use our brains to keep surviving when all else fails is what it's all about, kids, and you know I'm sharing the brain glitching part so some of you know we can still do this.
Aspienado in lifelong nerve fail. Wow, just summed my entire adult life up in 5 words.
Trip to town this morning for my annual date with another man on my anniversary. This is follow up with primary, thankfully early because they'll undoubtedly issue heat index warnings again. My head is way better now than Tuesday, so I'm adapting back to beta blocker just fine. He's not going to be happy about my blood pressure going back up a bit, but I think the thrill of me feeling like getting athletic shoes back on for some real exercise will outweigh the compulsion to hit a target number. I think once I get moving around more again I'll feel better about moving forward.
