Archives for posts with tag: take your medicine

Pain and Practices

July 22, 2024 //
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My morning is off to a rough start. I slept poorly (my Traveling Partner slept poorly, too). I woke with my headache, worse than usual, and although I slipped away quietly, early, for my walk without waking my partner, the Anxious Adventurer was up soon after. He rattled about sufficiently noisily to wake my partner, who commenced pinging me with information about his pain, his responses to new medications and details he’d like communicated to his doctors. It’s a new day.

… It was good weekend, generally, but there’s a lot of bitching coming up in this bit of writing (maybe skip it)…

After finishing the conversation with my partner, I could finally get out on the trail. Nearby construction had already gotten going. My tinnitus is loud in my ears and the morning seems a very noisy one. I feel irritable and frustrated.

… I breathe, exhale, and relax. I pull my focus back to the rising sun, the silhouetted trees, and the scents of summer meadow flowers.

… My Traveling Partner pings me again…

I sit down to handle the additional communication. Looks like it is going to be a steady effort through the day if I’m going to get what I need for myself from the limited time a day has to offer. It’s the most complicated detail about caregiving for me, personally; continuing to manage my self-care and support my own needs. I don’t get much help from my partner on that presently; he’s pretty consumed by his needs and also needs my help. He’s injured and his surgery is still weeks away. It’s a hell of a puzzle. I feel inadequate and wholly made of fallible human stuff.

… This solitary morning time is so precious to me. It has become an essential component of my self-care, and is often literally the only time (outside a bathroom break) that I can call my own over the course of a busy work day. Today, it’s looking like I’m not going to get much out of it…

…Ping…

I resume my walk, feeling distracted, as if waiting for the next ping. The sun is up. Daybreak has passed. The sun rise is over. I missed my chance to watch the full moon set. Fuck. I take notice of my negative thoughts and aggravation, and let it go. Again. I breathe. Exhale. Walk on. I pull my focus back to my steps, my breath, the sensations of this body, my awareness of the world around me. Clusters of yellow and white flowers sway above the meadow grass. A turkey vulture rides the air currents overhead. The oaks along the trail stand tall overhead as I walk through the grove at the edge of the meadow.

I take my focus off my pain and irritation, and focus on the trees, the horizon, the colors of the morning sky. I keep walking, making mental notes, observations, for later writing when I get to my halfway point – I can just see the bend in the trail up ahead.

…Ping…

Pain is a difficult challenge. It’s very much part of the human experience and it also very much sucks to experience it. Pain “shrinks our world”, and unmanaged pain is a pretty horrible experience to have to endure. Do OTC pain relievers help? Sometimes. What about Rx pain relievers, do those ease pain? Sometimes. Even so, it’s more a reduction in pain or loss of awareness, than any kind of real solution. In fact, just about every potential remedy for pain is only somewhat helpful. Pain tells us something is wrong with this fragile vessel, and it’s pretty fucking difficult to silence that warning without fixing the underlying cause (which may not always be possible at all). Physical therapy, chiropractic treatments, meditation, acupuncture, CBT… 100% of all of these have helped someone at some point, and I promise you that none of them is 100% effective, ever, for anyone living with chronic pain. I personally use most of the available options, based on the circumstances of a given day, trying to find the best balance, trying to strictly limit my use of prescription strength pain killers, because…consequences. There are reliably tradeoffs. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I walk on.

…It doesn’t make things easier that American healthcare is so completely broken where treating pain is concerned…

I do my best to manage my pain skillfully. Sometimes I just have to “look past it” and do my best to prevent pain from calling my shots. I’m not even saying I’m always successful. My results vary. I live with pain. A lot of people do. Sometimes all I have available to manage my pain is pure seething rage, resentment, and force of will. It’s hard. I keep at it. My results vary.

… My Traveling Partner pings me again, I stop again to read his message…

My partner’s whole world is his pain today. I find myself struggling to prevent his pain from also becoming my whole world. (I’ve got my own to deal with too.) Another breath. Another step. How do I get the emotional distance I need to maintain my resilience for this marathon…? I tried to communicate a boundary regarding this time that is so critical to my wellness… I definitely don’t feel heard*. My irritation competes for my attention with my love and sympathy for my partner. He’s suffering and there’s so little I can really do. It sucks.

…”Put your own oxygen mask on first.”… Super good advice, but if the traveler next to you is clawing your mask out of your hands while you try to put it on (metaphorically speaking)… What then? I mean, in a legit air emergency whereupon oxygen masks are required, that would be a very different question. Here, now? I rather frustratedly allow my self-care to be completely undermined in order to care for my partner. It’s not healthy or sustainable, I just can’t see myself not being there for him. Caregiving is hard.

I sigh as I write. My Traveling Partner pointed out that I could have chosen to ignore all his messages until I finished my walk. It never even occurred to me; he’s home injured. It doesn’t sound wise to ignore a message if there’s potential he could have fallen…

Today feels like the sort of day that will require every practice, every moment, and may test everything I have learned about managing my pain, my mental health, and my ability to care for another human being with love and compassion. I don’t feel ready for this sort of test, and I know my results vary.

… Maybe I should take the day off work to deal with this shit…?

… I can at least begin again. Sometimes that’s enough. (Your results may vary.)

*Later, after I got back to the house, my Traveling Partner made it very clear he did hear me, does get it, recognized the boundary I set, supports my need to set that boundary, understands the necessity of my taking care of myself and the value of that quiet morning time for my emotional and physical wellness… all the things. He’s also having his own experience, and doing his best. Sometimes this shit is just hard. I feel heard, supported, and loved. It’s a journey, and we’re on it together.

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Categories breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, health, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Sometimes It’s Hard

November 23, 2020 //
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I hurt today. Soaking helped some. Medication helped some. Morning yoga helped some. I still hurt. I’m cross, and finding it hard to deal with people gently. Pain is not visible – still complicates my interactions. Everything from a partner’s heartfelt well-intentioned fitness reminders that seem to overlook how much pain I am in to a colleague’s pleasant inquiry whether I am “having a bad day” (nope, just pain) that lacks any context regarding the one thing truly amiss (pain). I am as frustrated with the lack of ability to really drive the message home in a way that sticks with loved ones (it’s almost always just pain) as I am with my lack of ability to do anything substantial to reduce my day-to-day pain in a reliable way. Neither bit of frustration is the slightest help for actually improving anything whatsoever.

I breathe. Exhale. Relax. Let go of the frustration. Let go of being annoyed by the fairly steady lack of any real helpfulness involved in asking me what can be done to help. Let go of being annoyed with being reminded to do things that are good for my physical wellness, but so very difficult to embrace because I just fucking hurt. Let go of the whining about any of it (while I whine about all of it, right here). Just… let it go. Feel the love instead of the futility. It’s a tall fucking ask, I grant you that. One more thing to do, it sometimes seems…and sometimes I just feel so… tired. I take a breath, and let that go, too. Even that. Let it go.

There are tears in my eyes. Less the pain than the frustration with the pain. Sometimes it’s hard. Challenging. “The struggle is real.” I try to stop struggling and just surrender to this moment, here, now. It’s not a bad moment. It’s got some nice points to it. The work day almost over. Nice. Warm cup of noodles next to me waiting for my attention – a satisfying small bite of lunch, once it’s ready. Nice. The rain has paused and it looks like a good day to walk – I even have a purposeful destination in mind that should be within my fitness “reach”. Nice. All of that is good stuff. None of that is specifically about the pain I am in. I sit with that perspective instead, for a while.

…These noodles are ready, and it’s already time to begin again. I put the work in front of me on pause, and take care of this fragile vessel. For now, that’s enough.

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Categories anger, anhedonia, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Despair, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices

Executive Level Management Principles

February 23, 2015 //
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Yeah…this is not about ‘management’ as in ‘leadership’, and it’s not about improving one’s resume for a better paying job with keys to the executive washroom. Nope. It’s another sort of ‘executive’ ‘management’ altogether. The ‘executive functions‘ of the brain manage cognitive processes, such as (and likely not limited to) working memory, reasoning, task flexibility, problem solving, planning, impulse control, and in specific areas like the ‘orbitofrontal cortex’, things like evaluating subjective emotional experiences (and so much more). All very interesting, no doubt, but for me it’s a little more personal, and relevant…my TBI is a frontal lobe injury. The lingering impairments are mostly executive function sorts of things, and as with so many other people, and other TBIs, very interestingly individual – the brain is fancy, and the outcome of any given injury is equally individual. A whole new world of potential to heal and move on opened up when I started learning more about how these injuries work (don’t work?), and why, and how it changes my experience… and in so many moments, the experience of those who make their lives (or work) with me.

It is what it is, at least the piece where I look in the mirror every morning and I am… me. It’s not all bad. It’s better, actually, than it once was. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve grown. I’ve become more skillful at caring for this broken vessel, and at sorting out some of the chaos and damage that lingers.  It is, sometimes, a shit experience and I struggle. Very human.

How about this one for a great practical joke on one human primate by the universe… one of my ‘favorites’… my PTSD causes serious sleep disturbances, nightmares, sometimes insomnia, and diminishes the hours of restful deep sleep I can get; I’m easily awakened by the littlest noises, or novelty, in my nighttime surroundings… (waaaait for it…) and my executive function impairments are much more pronounced – to the point of being quite obvious – if I don’t get good rest, reliably, pretty nearly every night. So… yeah. A night or two of poor sleep, for whatever reason, and I start… declining. My temper is often the first obvious sign that ‘things are not right’ – I become irritable, and easily angered, and feel less positive, generally, when my sleep is of poor quality. Next up, I start struggling with emotional balance, and lose ’emotional regulation’ characteristics in my day-to-day experience most adults don’t even realize they have going on in the background; I feel them most particularly when they slip away unexpectedly.  The more tired I become, the more fatigued over time, the more prone to real tantrums, crying jags, and irrational mood swings I become – and (waaaait for it…) less able to sleep; my brain won’t shut down. When I do find sleep, I sometimes dream that I’m awake in such detail I wake exhausted to the point of tears. Yep. Pretty god damned funny. (Not)

Most of the time, these days, I still manage decently well overall…enough to pass as a grown up most of the time. There’s no real way to share what the subjective experience is like (you sort of have to be there). Every one of the many calming practices I’ve learned matters a great deal. Every choice counts. Every effort is meaningful. Every success – however fleeting, however limited the benefit, however difficult it is to recognize in the moment – every success builds the foundation for successes to come. My hope is that over time, that foundation grows substantial enough to bear the burden of the entirety of the chaos and damage…strong enough to hoist me above the pain, long enough to really see the view from a radically different perspective somehow ‘above it’… I would very much like to keep working at life and love to find that I have transcended what has hurt me most and become that woman – or more – that I might have been without the chaos and damage.

Please don’t tell me that’s wishful thinking. Tonight I couldn’t bear to lose the crutch of some shred of positivity to lean on. I’m tired. I know I am. My brain is buzzing like it’s noon on a sunny summer day; I’m not sleepy…but if I can practice good practices (meditation, and yoga are both very calming), and avoid becoming negative, or caught up in some random moment of weirdness, or a sneak attack by my own brain, I might sleep – or at least rest. Rest is okay. Rest is enough.

Enough is okay with me. Hell, I’m not even having to ‘do it alone’, really; my traveling partner checks in now and again. I welcome the closeness, the touches, the tenderness. The reassurance that love is, helps me find my way in the darkest darkness.

Wrapping this one up on a positive note; perspective matters, too.

Wrapping this one up on a positive note; perspective matters, too.

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Categories Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Sleepless Nights, Words