Not the Greatest of Decent Days

Well, I've been doing much better mentally. My body's still rather crappy. I can't seem to do anything without getting a cramp or an ache. It's all this rain (though I can't stop the rain, so I just try to enjoy it.) I stayed up past nine in the morning trying to call a psychologist's office and then a psychiatrist's office. The psychologist's office is only open Mondays-Thursdays from 2:00-6:00 p.m. (I believe)... so that didn't work out. The other number I had that was for the psychiatrist was the wrong number (went to a neurosurgery office), but they redirected me. However, when I called and asked about the doctor, the operator said, "He doesn't work her anymore," with a snarky attitude. I asked if she could give me his contact information and she replied in the same tone, "We don't have it; he doesn't work here anymore," and then right as I was going to say, "Thanks anyway," she hung up on me! I just wish I could get her fired... unless there was actually a good reason for it. It was almost as if she hated his guts, whoever this illusive doctor is. None of this helped with my phone anxieties, for sure. If anything, they made them worse.

I ended up staying up until around noontime and started dozing off... in a rather strange position on the couch... My back was hurting and there weren't many positions I could lie down or sit in. I woke up periodically until finally fully getting up around 7:00 p.m. I kind of feel like laying lazily about and doing nothing... Oh, wait, I'm already doing that. Mission accomplished. I already went for a walk in the morning so I'm not going to bother going back into the rain for another walk, even if I generally enjoy walking in the rain. My legs can only take so much anymore.

A friend online posted a quote that hit home with me: "Sometimes, I push you away because I need you to pull me closer."

Insult to Injury

Do you know who I hate? People without compassion. I'm in pain, feeling like crap, and somehow it's my fault? Everything wrong with my body and mind is my fault? Who would CHOOSE this? No one who isn't masochistic, but masochism itself is a disorder, or at least a symptom of one. If you want me to feel even crappier than I already do, you say stupid things like that - saying it's all my fault. I would do just about anything to throw this life away and start over with a good one. But I can't do that, so the least you can do is NOT PISS ME OFF.

They say that people typically have a higher tolerance for the behaviours of family and loved ones, but I am proof of just how untrue that is. When a family member does something stupid, that only makes things worse. Such things coming from a loved on magnifies the negative effects. It makes me imagine stabbing a person repeatedly until they gargle to death on their own blood. I get pissed off when other people go through this, but when I go through it... Yeah - way to go loved ones.

Pain All Around

Gradually, lately, I've been dwelling on things. Probably the past couple of weeks. A fleeting smile, staring at a wall, negative thoughts of one form or another. When I get like this, I get more and more reminiscent. When I get reminiscent, I dwell, and when I dwell, I get depressed. Normally, it's fleeting 'depression' - hardly classifiable as depression. But... several things yesterday slid me into it like being pushed down a ravine. But... the most likely major contributor is this horrible flaring up of fibromyalgia.

Fibromyalgia pain has been linked to depression and vice versa. The pain, the lethargy... it's just a lot on me right now. I also watched an episode of Shameless where the bipolar mom was launched into a bout of depression and that sort of thing always hits very close to home with me. I was on the verge of tears (though I've had difficulty releasing a single tear for a few years, now.) I took a Tramadol, a few aspirin, and a Neurontin, and none of it has made a dent. I'm thinking of taking a second Tramadol, but I'm only supposed to take a maximum of two in a single day, and so I fear that if I take a second one and the effects start to fade away later, I'll simply be left with a bunch of pain and no Tramadol for the rest of the day. Then again, I haven't taken more than one or two Tramadol since I got the prescription when there was enough to take more than one a week. Taking three or four in a single day could probably still leave plenty... unless I need to take that many for a couple or more days.

I just want to sleep and sleep and sleep, really. Taking an extra half of a Seroquel could potentially get that result, but then I would be a half down and people would only bug me if I actually kept sleeping. So I'll just drag on and try to get through it.

Restless Mind

These past several months, I've been noticing that I tend to get all too easily sucked into the past. It seems like just about anything can drag me into a lulling (or upsetting) spell of reminiscent thoughts. I still often get desires to retrogress to my chaotic, horrible state several years ago. I look back on all those bad memories... and envy them. I've never quite figured out why - it just seems somewhat analogous to a crack addict wanting more crack, even with the memories of the harsh side-effects.

I think of the past, sometimes simply as a memory, other times closer to a flashback, and almost scare myself what feelings they conjure. For instance, the memory of when I was at my first girlfriend's party and I started getting some very bad hallucinations, so I hid away in her (rather large) closet. I closed my eyes and burrowed my head in my knees, my arms wrapped around my legs. The whole idea was to not see anything. I could hear people asking where I was and I knew it was only a matter of time before they found me. When they did, and I wouldn't raise my head and look at any of them, they started asking what was wrong with me. I was to petrified to say anything. Whenever I looked at a wall, I would see it bleed, and whenever I looked at a person, I saw them slowly dying in some horror movie-esque way. Obviously, this was all in my head, and I knew that, but that didn't change the fact that I saw those things. Seeing my girlfriend, above all, the way that I did made me want to throw up.

When I remember that, I'm both horrified by the memory... and somewhat envious of those times. There are other, much milder (and even good), memories that make me even more envious. But if I'm not dysfunctional or 'broken' in one way or another, I start feeling like cockroaches are crawling under my skin. I start to feel so awkward that the next time something is 'wrong with me,' it's like a big sigh of relief. Even when I'm doing well, somehow - at least in the back of my mind - I'm not doing well. I hate the exhaustion and feelings of when my life is in chaos, and hate the quiet without the chaos. No matter what, in some way, I seem to be restless. I just can't wait until the day I can truly rest.

Yesterday seemed to be somewhere near a miracle. My legs were decent enough that I actually went to the store and had no following pain. I have had very, very little pain pain even today. I'm just getting curious how long this will last. Last night I was doing something that always makes me feel like crap - doubting. I was doubting that I even have fibromyalgia even though is quite obvious that I do. I even still get those trickling feelings even without pain. When I was getting stable from my bipolar a few years back, I was doubting I had bipolar. That was stupid of me and I soon after decided to drop my meds cold turkey without telling anyone. That didn't end well. I couple years back I doubted again, and I felt like crap for that, too, even though I ended up rationalising that of course I have bipolar. When first researching borderline, my confidence in that wavered, too, and it made me feel like crap, but that each time only ended up reinforcing my theory of having BPD.

At one time or another, it's seemed like I've doubted something about myself - which shook my foundations and sense of self - and those have most often been due to doing well, not doing poorly, however paradoxical that may sound. It's like the better I do, the worse I end up (temporarily) feeling. But I usually more or less shrug it off and put on a smile (or a sarcastic expression, since that never goes away.) It seems like the only negative emotion that I don't bother covering up is anger which I tend to have plenty of (another classic characteristic of BPD.)

Façade

I have a number of things wrong with me. People seem to misunderstand me when I discuss such things, too. Apparently, it's believed that because I 'categorise' myself in one way or another, I define my whole being by the definition of that category. This is so terribly far from the truth. The human brain breaks things down to understand them by using categories and 'labels.' If I say, "I'm bipolar," I'm not saying, "Hi, my name is manic-depressive and my likes include dopamine rushes, increased energy, and feelings of euphoria. My dislikes include depression, lack of energy, and decreased interest in the things I like." When I say I'm bipolar, I'm giving an explanation of some of my behaviors and moods. I'm not always 'acting bipolar,' either. People who know me can say that I can be 'normal' and stable.

When I notice something irregular in myself (and remember that 'regular' and 'irregular' are relative terms to those around us), I search for an answer. I've seen so many people say that, when they first got a diagnosis for this illness or that, they say they went, "I knew there was something wrong, but at least now I can put a name to it." If social stigmata happen to accompany that diagnosis, that is the problem of those who let those stigmata cloud their vision. And I would rather have that diagnosis and have a chance for the right treatment, than to lack the diagnosis and have little to no chance of getting the right treatment.

I hate social events. I feel nothing good can come out of it for me. However, I'm usually at those events for someone else, and so I often try to brave through them. Two things came up that brought my morale from average to horrible: "Have you graduated this year?" and "You don't want to be diagnosed with BPD." I had brought a Tramadol in case of a flare up but... I admittedly had to take it just to get through the rest of my grandpa's birthday party. It's not like I could leave, anyway. Sadly, that Tramadol didn't kick in until the end of the party, and fully kicked in when we got home. Either way, even afterwards those conversations lingered in my head, looming over me like some sort of terrible monster.

I suppose I got a hint of the social stigmata I might get from a diagnosis of BPD, but it's not like I've been free of social stigmata before. As bipolar, I've had a great deal of stigma, and my OCD and anxieties are usually shrugged off and made fun of as if some sorts of silly, stupid behaviors that I could just suddenly stop without any effort. To say it pisses me off would be a horrible, horrible understatement. No, rather... it makes me want to shove my fist into the person's face. But I hide these things as anyone with a mental disorder learns to do over the years. I show certain emotions and, by an annoying habit, hide the emotions that would make my case more. When I'm depressed, I say, "I'm fine," and smile, and when I'm anxious I just try to come up with some bogus excuse to avoid the anxiety-producing thing or just shrivel up and get quiet. But I'm still alive, aren't I? And I still have my share of good days. If I'm searching for a diagnosis to explain otherwise unexplained issues, that's my business. Showing concern is fine, but adamantly trying to keep me from doing so isn't.

But now I will lull into my flurry of opiates in my system, try to forget what had just previously transpired, and maybe go for a walk later tonight.

A Real Walker's High

Since, even if I were to have immediately gotten onto the computer and written this post and posted it, it would've been around 3:00 a.m., I decided to just jot it down on paper to save for later. Unfortunately, I forgot even the day after to write it... so now this is two days late.

I went for a walk. I can't remember the last time I felt so good after a walk. I had a real walker's high, and if I weren't worrying about how I might feel the next day, I don't know how far I would've walked. My head felt amazingly clear, my legs are warm but not burning, and I literally feel little to no pain. It was a nice, light drizzle, cool but not cold, had no wind but wasn't stagnant, and it was quieter out with only a dozen or so cars on the end streets during my whole walk. It was serene - almost bizarrely heavenly. I, without a doubt, had an endorphin rush. I walked 0.8 miles - 4 laps. That more than doubled my average walk.

There is little doubt in my mind that my mood contributed to this. I'm not sure what contributed to the mood, though. Maybe it was chatting with Laura, maybe it was reading a blog post that really hit home, a combination of things, or what, I'm not sure. I've also been handling things unusually well (for me.) For instance, I found out Emilee can't go to the mall because of stringent parents. I fussed a bit, of course, but it wasn't long before I put that behind me and started planning for next week. I keep surprising myself. I'm also worrying a bit about, and watching out for signs of, bipolar mood swings. The moods tend to be like a pendulum swing and, while I seem to be swinging toward the hypomania/mania end, which has happy-times feelings most of the time, it often swings just as hard the other way. But, for now, I will enjoy this mood and this triumph for as long as I can.

So, there are a few things to catch up on...

After taking my Tramadol, I went into a bout of hypomania. Hypomania and mania has a long history of leading to crashes in those with bipolar. Imagine a cocaine high... What follows? The next day I had absolutely no energy, as just the night before I had decided to bleach the downstairs bathroom floor and do thirty sit-ups, after having cooked dinner. For someone without fibromyalgia, this might not sound like too much, but I certainly paid afterward. Also, the hypomania caused an overall upbeat mood, more energy, and higher heart rate, all of which aided in the eventual crash. That next day, I thought I was going through a depressive episode (though I really had more of the physical symptoms than the psychological - my psychological state was more exhausted and confused.) I napped for maybe and hour or two (and I always say that napping is a MAJOR sign that something is off, since I am almost biologically incapable of sleeping in any way without the aid of a good deal of sedatives.) I could hardly get up to do anything and just wanted to lay down and sleep all day.

The next day, everything was fine again, but my pain started flaring. It's been raining the past several days and rain tends to bring out all my aches and pains, at least to a degree. I felt like a machine that really, really could use a gallon or two of oiling. It was like my joints were rusting and grinding against each other. However, I do still find rainy, windy days to be my favorite. I still managed to go for a walk, even if it was only one lap with pain swiftly following... more than before. My body also had been aching due to the activity two days before from that Tramadol high. ((Side note: I feel compelled to say that I'm not saying I was high off of Tramadol anywhere near the 'illicit' level - it was only one prescribed pill, and I can take two; people with bipolar just tend to be a little more sensitive to dopamine rushes and, sadly, do often go to drugs to get the dopamine when it's not biologically available, and I probably had an inevitable, but milder, hypomanic episode coming on that the Tramadol just slid me into express-lane style.)

Today, it's been raining and pouring with persistent wind gales, and my aches and pains haven't been letting up. However, despite this, I still went for a walk. This was a bit of a breakthrough, I think. The rain was more of a dribble and the wind more of a breeze by the time I got out there for my nighttime stroll. The wind and rain caused my hair to be so defiant I had to just let it out of the ponytail, and now it's a frizzball. But I started walking. Instead of thinking about how painful it would be, I focused on the magnificent weather. There's something fantastical about the suburban area at night with a light rain and light winds, with no one outside and the orange glow of the streetlamps streaking across the wet, black ground. It's calm and quiet, and it smells nice. The trees sway, it's nippy but not freezing, and it feels like no one else exists... except for the cars that drive by on the main streets on either side of ours. However, I don't really think of those cars as even having human beings in them. To me, the world is still person-less and I'm alone in tranquility.

I relished in the weather and thought intently as to what I would write about for this post. I was having a one-sided conversation with myself in my head as I walked. I don't know which aspect, if any one thing, caused for this miraculous event (I may be embellishing it a little), but I managed to walk three laps. The past week probably averaged just under two laps a night and I managed to reach the goal I had for the end of the week... on a Thursday! Apparently, I set my expectations even lower than I had to... though I still think it's better than setting them too high and pushing myself to hard. But I reached my end-of-the-week goal with a few days to spare. I knew I was going to go to the mall on Saturday and wanted to be able to walk at least a fair amount without dying. Now, I think that isn't too unrealistic. That was the primary reason I set the goal of three laps. Three laps is equivalent to walking around a whole block one-and-a-half times, assuming our block was square, which it isn't. I Google-mapped it and it's apparently 0.6 miles of walking, or about 3170 feet. Again, this sort of activity may not seem like much to someone without fibromyalgia, but for me it's somewhat of a feat. Maybe by the end of next week I'll be able to get that to a whole mile! Maybe that's wishful thinking. Who knows - maybe I'll fail miserably with that goal, or maybe I'll surprise myself again. We'll see.

What do cooking and opiates have to do with one another..?

Today, I went to the doctor to get an echocardiogram and EKG to address some dizziness I get when I work out... or at least when I worked out around the capacity of the average person. This visit was more to rule out bad things than to discover anything. Well, sure enough... there was nothing wrong with my heart. I was just told to exercise (which I am trying to do), add salt to my diet, drink more water and less caffeine. I can at least try to do the first four.

There was a bit of walking to be done between the car and the part of the building we had to be. My leg had been hurting since I woke up and walking didn't really help. I ended up deciding that that would count as my walking for the day. Well, even after we got home and sitting for a while, my leg persisted with it's pain. It wasn't quite bad enough to warrant Tramadol... yet.

And then, when mom was getting ready to go to poker with her friends, she asked me to cook dinner. I'm kind of the 'brat master' in our house and we were having brats and perogies. I knew that cooking would require quite a bit of standing over a hard kitchen floor, moving and carrying pots and pans with water and/or food. I also knew that this would mean straining my body further. So... I decided to take a Tramadol. To cook. The first pill out of the bottle... was used for cooking. Sure enough, I got the job done decently... and now my body doesn't hurt as much. A win-win, I suppose. Also, it's always nice to be able to pop all of my joints that are otherwise too stiff and hurting to pop. I don't know how many cracks I got between my knuckles, neck, and back. Sweet relief...

I went for a walk today. Didn't go much better, but I certainly wasn't hoping for three laps this time. Two laps seems to be my threshold at the moment. The pain from fibromyalgia when working out is rather unlike the pains of working out without it. I still know the burn of muscles when pushing your body - it hasn't been too long since I was still pushing myself for a fitness class. The burning of nerves is very unlike the burning of muscles (even if it is the nerves that send the pain signals from the muscles.) It's just different. My muscles don't feel bruised, stretched out, or achy, my legs simply hurt.


I'm hoping that three aspirin and two ibuprofen will make even a little dent, even though it never really has in the past. I'm not going to just use up my Tramadol willy-nilly for both my own health and since I only have thirty for three months. I'm hoping that in about a week or so I can do two laps without a problem, and maybe even get to three every once in a while. I'm also hoping to go to the mall, so that means a good deal of walking. I want to be able to last more than a few minutes at a time.


On a higher note, my mood's been decent for quite a while and I got papers to fill out for disability, which means that the past denial letters were in reference to something else - perhaps our first missed appointment. Or maybe this is the part that's actually welfare, since the letter specifically said that I couldn't get Social Security benefits due to never having worked. In which case I apparently applied for two things and not just one. Whatever works, really. Things have been moving along, even if it's been very slow. Progress is progress.

I decided to make a blog. People do that, apparently. This blog, I figure, will be disorder related. Then again, one could argue that it could at least be partly 'in order' related. After all, I did name it 'The Ups 'n' Downs.' I'm using a lot of commas.

Today, I'll be addressing my fibromyalgia. I just went out for a walk. I hadn't gone for a walk for quite some time outside of going to the mall once. I like to walk at night when I don't have to worry about anyone looking at me (I know that's nothing to worry about, but I'm pretty sure I prefaced this with 'this ... will be disorder related,' which implies an irrational mind.) I walk from my front door (in the middle of our block) to one end of the block, cross the street, walk to the other side, cross the street again, and then make a loop back to my front door. That makes each lap about two blocks, so two laps is the same as just walking around the block (but that's too much of a commitment for me.)

I thought that I would break my recent streak of inactivity by doing a couple laps. I hadn't been feeling much pain because I hadn't been active (funny how that works.) I finished one lap and didn't feel bad, just a little strain in my legs. So, I decided to do another lap. About halfway through that next lap I started slowing down from around one mile per hour to about half a mile per hour. My legs began burning up, I was getting pain in my shoulders and thighs, and I was breathing heavily. Perhaps the only reason why I really started walking again was because I knew that I just got a prescription of Tramadol (which Firefox wants me to change to trampoline) that I could fall back on if I were to get a flare up. However, I stopped before it got  bad enough. Or, at least, it isn't bad enough, yet, since I've been getting new pains and worsening hot flashes (some things say that is fibromyalgia related, some things say it's more likely attributed the the largest demographic of people with fibromyalgia - post-menopausal women.)

I wanted to do three laps. I probably would've collapsed in the street. And I'm still feeling the effects of a few hundred steps on a merely lightly graded street during clear weather. I haven't cared for being very active for years - about since my bipolar first really kicked in. But whenever I think about how I can't be active - at least for very long - without being in pain, suddenly I miss being able to be active. But the pain now just gives me one more reason not to be active (but paradoxically yet another reason to be active), which only makes it harder to try to improve myself and my life.

Just a walk. That's all I'm really expected to do for exercise, now, and even that has started to be a difficult goal. Jogging has become somewhat of a nightmarish thought in my mind, and the idea of running is synonymous to imagining my shins shattering and bursting out of my legs. A person always takes a thing for granted until they can no longer do it. Though, I suppose when I look back on my life, I didn't take being active for granted during my latter one or two years of elementary when my first hypomanic episodes started to surface and I had a lust for life. During those same years I started having some minor depression, but it was minor enough that it was somewhat of a dark motivator, leading me to be even more active and draw even more from life. Now, I view life through cynical or scrutinising eyes, linger in reverie of the past and doubts of the future, and lack that childish innocence and innate happiness. This isn't always true, of course. I can be full of life, full of happiness. Age and life just have, for the most part, dampened that like a buzz kill from the universe.

And to make me really feel like the world hates me, I got fibromyalgia. Good times, good times.