catch up : 14.06.2021 …

Fortnightly Catch Up 14.06.2021 …

What a time I am having right now. And this is not a good time by any means. It’s like a full on never ending nightmare …

I am physically and emotionally on the edge of breaking point.

* Don’t forget whenever you see MiA … it means I have been unable to journal anything on that day due to serious illness or just because I was unable to do anything, except keep my head above water, on that particular day.

What’s New …

Due to unforeseen circumstances I have been unable to find the quiet time I used to use for my fortnightly catch up and so the previous few have been very limited.

However, after listening to the ‘we can do hard things’ podcast discussing ‘boundaries’, I have set up some boundaries for myself around me time and having some set time to invest in my blog … let’s hope this pans out as I plan …

I am considering changing the fortnightly catch up to the monthly catch up … your thoughts on this would be appreciated … would a month be too much … would you prefer it to stay as it is … I might set up a poll regarding this …

What’s Important …

Boundaries …

boundary / boundaries:
the limit of what someone considers to be acceptable behaviour
the limit of a subject or principle
a real or imagined line that marks the edge or limit of something

Diary (31.05.2021-13.06.2021) …

Monday …

I think today I need to be honest.

Honest with you, and more importantly, honest with myself.

My feelings are pretty heavy.

My life feels so very unfair.

I am remembering the day I gave birth to my boy_2 (June 1997). This is how my day went. I made my husband’s pack lunch and sent him off to work (I was up before 05:30). I then took my boy_1 to school. Came home and realised I had started in labour. I arrived at the hospital by noon and gave birth around 16:20. By 20:30 I was home with new baby. The next day I made my husband’s pack lunch and sent him off to work (I’d been up all night with a crying new born and a moaning husband). I then took boy_1 to school. I did this every single day after giving birth as well as all my other household duties, food shopping, cleaning, ironing, without a single day off or any extra help.

And I am so so bloody mad about it.

I feel so hard done by, as I watch with astonishment as I am now expected to care for my husband, even though I have severe ME. I even overheard his elderly aunt say she can run around after you because you’ve ran around after her …

😓

Where are my boundaries? Why don’t I have them in place already, I’m 59 years of age for goodness sake.

I cannot remember the last time someone made me a drink or breakfast or lunch … yes my husband makes the evening meal, which is chicken kiev & chips on a very regular and repetitive basis (I am not complaining about the repetitiveness because I am digestively compromised and this is easy for my body, so all is good on that score), but this has only been happening for just over 12 months and only started during lockdown when I think that he finally saw and realised just how sick I really was … I think he finally realised that my life wasn’t the picnic he thought it was … it has been very many years, maybe even ten, since he has made me a drink and the reason is because ‘I’m too fussy’. Well I think you should love me enough to want to make a drink I like, not one you like.

This sounds very reasonable to me … considering everything that has gone between us over the last 25 years.

Writing this is making me cry from the depths of my soul … my life experience is so bloody unfair …

This is going to be something I explore further, maybe in other blog posts or simply in my journal area.

Today I woke at 04:30 very aware of how much I had sweated all night long and how I smell.

I need a bath …

When there are things that need doing but I feel too poorly to do them I tend to bargain with myself in order to help me achieve some of the necessary things. Sometimes I set myself rules or offer myself treats. For instance, you can’t get your morning coffee until you’ve done ‘blah blah blah …’ or you can have your pain medications once you have done ‘blah blah blah …’.

So today, I wasn’t allowed my morning pain medications or my morning latte until I’d had a bath. I was only able,to,do this because my pain levels were moderate and not severe and my headache was a bad headache not a migraine. Otherwise I would not have been able to do this bargaining. But, today I was able and it really was utterly necessary. I have absolutely no idea when the last bath / hair wash was and my smell told me it must have been a while ago.

I feel really defeated today …

I realise that without my husband taking the bulk of the necessary house chores I struggle. In reality I am not well enough to do anything. But, when he food shops, makes us an evening meal, cleans the house and also takes care of the garden I can then stretch myself to bathing. However, even that is too much. Plus, since, and because of, his operation I really cannot do online shopping, ready meal cooking, and the garden once a week and still push to have some self care. I am seriously f**ked … I really am …

I feel overly sad today … the reality of ME is mega rubbish …

Today is my planned ‘care planning session …’ appointment with YFC_J. Click ‘care planning session …’ to read about this specific appointment, and click ‘my healing journey …’ to read about the whole of ‘my healing journey …’ so far.

Tuesday …

MiA …

What the f**k is this … how on earth can someone stay alive through these levels of pain …

I know I am alive because I feel pain …  — this is such a bollocks quote …

Wednesday …

MiA …

I still have a migraine. However, I think I am on the other side of now. But, only time will tell … it could be a four day one based on how I’m feeling.

On top of ME and all my other illnesses, this really does feel like too much for me to cope with.

Thursday …

MiA …

This migraine is getting worse by the day …

Friday …

MiA …

The migraine is still there but feels much easier today. Hopefully today will be the day it’s breaks and I can get over this. I need to be able to at least cope rather than feeling like I am fighting to survive.

…

Saturday …

MiA …

I have yet another full on massive migraine WTAF …

Can I share with you today just one horrific thing about this illness that I really need you to know …

I go to bed most nights feeling far better than when I wake up. Every single day I wake up feeling like I have been hit by a bus, all after a night out drinking, dancing and over eating. And sometimes I feel as though that bus has kept running over me until I am almost dead and then tried to finish me off by running over me one last time and has stayed right on top of me in the hope of completing the job. Leaving me in such a state that I can barely breathe and I am unable to move a muscle. But, unfortunately for me, I didn’t die.

Most days I get my head around this because the minute I open my eyes I take my pain medications, which by the way don’t always work, but do offer me hope; as I lay still and breathe through the pain hoping to fall asleep again or that the breathe will bring a level of peace that will allow my tablets to work quickly. However, some days I wake before I can safely take them because I took the full allocation the previous day and so I have to deal with the horrific onslaught without any kind of hope or assistance, except time moving fast or ice packs if I can actually get downstairs to get them.

As you can well imagine waking like this every single day is beyond hard, especially so on those days when the medications don’t work or I have to wait several hours before I can take them. It’s at these times, I almost always wish that I was dead and if, when I feel that way, someone offered me a way out by means of a lethal injection or some other way out, I would take it. It is only when I have either got my head around the pain, or slept through the worse, or medicated it away, do I then feel pleased, or maybe I should say relived, that I am still alive.

This is such an appalling way to start each day and so undignified too. Can some clever doctor or researcher with plenty of brains and some empathy please find me something to stop my days starting this way … please …

Sunday …

MiA …

After waking up at the worse end of the ME scale yesterday (see above), I understandably found myself reluctant to go to sleep last night.

I had the most awful day yesterday added on to all the previous bad days that I have been experiencing and so I really struggled.

I even cried … yet, knowing and seeing all this, my husband still went over to the neighbours (we were both previously invited but I was too sick to go), leaving me alone. He then came home and didn’t share a thing about his visit, he ate the tea I’d made, with great difficulty and immense suffering, and he then went on to fall asleep on the settee. FFS … f**k my f**king shite life …

I really do need to deal with my boundaries. I’m surrounded by people who take care of their own needs and couldn’t really give a shit about my needs, yet I seem to put everyone’s needs above my own …

I have really got things wrong …

Today I woke early with a moderate headache and body pain.

Phew … thank you …

I lay quiet and still until I could take my pain medications, and as part of my own self care I refused to engage while feeling so unwell.

Today I will do nothing until I have had a bath and washed my hair. I smell because I have sweated so much while being extra unwell and I refuse to be pushed to someone else’s timetable because they can … and I clearly cannot …

Monday …

A new week and new start.

Yesterday my husband did the shopping and the garden, which is miraculous. He seems to have gone from doing nothing to almost back to normal. I cannot tell you how relieved this makes me feel. I can now try to recover some and hopefully be ready to implement a few new things I have in mind.

I’d now like to start doing some regular self care consisting of conscious breathing, relaxation and stretching.

Recently I have developed what I think is either frozen shoulder or tennis elbow in both my arms. The right one has lost its range of movement and hurts when I stretch outside of its range and the left one hurts all the time, mainly in the upper part but if I move it too much the pain radiates down the whole length and into my hand and fingers. Generally, I am extremely flexible even without stretching and so these limitations keep catching me out and are causing immense searing radiating pain.

As well, I have this gadget called the Stress ReleaZer. I’ve had it for years but never used it. The idea behind it is to use it daily to help with improving HRV and stress coping mechanisms. It is also meant to help restore natural breathing and promote wellness. And so, I’ve decided I’d like to start using that daily too.

I have also purchased an acupressure mat, which feels mental considering I won a set (both mat & pillow) through a migraine competition and after trying it just a few times and feeling like it was torture I threw it away when we packed up and moved here three years ago. However, in my defence it came without instructions, whereas now I realise I could have gone gently until my body was used to it. So because the evidence for feels overwhelming as regards its ability to help with pain, relaxation, sleep and overall well being, the things that I am looking to address and improve as part of my self care routine, then I feel I must give the acupressure mat another go. It has been described as having the same effects as having a massage … and so I’m hopeful and will try this too.

Right now, I feel really desperate to find some kind of relief from the all the pain I am experiencing and I seriously need to start to feel better than I do otherwise my mental health is going to join my physical health and go downhill. I can actually feel it starting already.

Tuesday …

I woke today feeling as though I’d had a very weird night last night. My husband says I was talking in my sleep and that we had a conversation too but my answer to everything was I don’t know what to do. I woke up, several times during the night, dripping in sweat and feeling really clammy, yet I felt cold and my skin was icy to the touch. When I finally woke fully in the morning I felt utterly dreadful. Icy cold, yet very clammy, to the touch and the overall body pain was wearisome to say the least.

Today will be filled with self care.

self care is not indulgence, it is self preservation …

Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure. ~ Oprah

Wednesday …

I used all my gadgets yesterday and felt like I had success with the acupressure mat. I used it for ten minutes, alongside the ReleaZer, with a jumper on and felt really relaxed and sleepy afterwards. So I decided to try a nighttime session before bed to promote better sleep.

guess what …

I had insomnia all night.

Today, I feel so poorly and unwell. I will be spending the day in bed resting and sleeping when I can.

Thursday …

MiA … exhaustion to the max … I don’t think I could feel any closer to death …

Friday …

I have had a bath and washed my hair and I am exhausted. I also used a body cream that’s all natural, but I haven’t used in a while, and it’s made me feel really poorly.

I do have a nice surprise though. The acupressure mat I bought came a little dirty and it had a cat hair on it too. I’m guessing it was a return. However, my husband has an animal allergy, especially to cats, and he had a massive reaction. The company has fully refunded me and sent me a replacement too. They also don’t want me to return the other mat. WoW WoW WoW and so I now have one to give away (it’s the green mat from the image on Monday, only the mat is included because they didn’t replace the pillow or the bag, but I’m good with that).

If you message me and are willing to pay the postage you can have this mat … (once it has gone I will strike through these words so you’ll know it’s gone)

Saturday …

MiA …

Yes, I had a bath yesterday so today I have a migraine …

FFS …

Sunday …

MiA …

Another migraine … I went to bed extremely poorly and woke up worse …

 fragmented.ME xXx