It has been a number of years since I have last posted. I have moved again, once again to the other end of the country, once again to a place where I live with no one but myself and my animals. But lately I have been thinking of this platform, and the fact that in a very real way, I still need it.
I started this blog in a very bad headspace. I began it at the start of my journey of disability, ,as a way to get things out into the world and off my chest. As I got what I thought was better, I stopped posting as much. Turns out the only thing I got better at was squashing down my thoughts and feelings.
Now I have room to grow once again. I have room to think, express myself, and contemplate without external stress. I am taking this as an opportunity to work through the thoughts and behaviours of a lifetime, with a view to improving myself going forward, bit by slow bit. And that, for me, involves understanding where those thoughts and behaviours came from and why I used them to survive.
So I shall return to active writing, once more documenting my (very slow) walk to wellness in the hopes of comforting other people that they are not alone in their struggles.
I find myself on the floor, in the fetal position, alarmingly often these days. Much has happened in the last several years, and honestly, I haven’t felt able to really communicate it, either here or to friends, let alone to family. It’s as if I am paralysed by something, the words stopping before they can fully form and trickle down my fingers to the keyboard.
But now I am at an ending. I am packing up my home, the one I have lived in for the last 5 years, and moving to the other end of the country. I am packing up my treasures.
I am packing up the lie of a joined life I have lived for over half a decade. I am realising, in packing, how separate, how alone, I have been, living with the human I thought the world of.
I am packing up the ashes of the pets I have lost. Their mementos. A halter here, a collar there. That chair that my old cat vomited on so many times I just gave up and put a sheepskin down.
And now I am at a beginning. I am moving into my own home, one I will share with no other human, for the first time in my life. I am moving into a rural environment, where I see naught but paddocks out my windows, for the first time in my life. I am moving to a new city because I want to move there, for the first time in my life.
All beginnings begin with an ending. I am mourning the ending so that I may fully embrace the beginning.
Well the years start coming and they don’t stop coming, as Smashmouth said so many years ago, and it is painfully true. The hits also keep coming, but we roll with them, because the alternative is to break, and ain’t nobody got time for that.
This year has been its usual mix of ups and downs – I got through this year of university with my service dog at my side, my wrist has healed, and I can do things. I still have to do a lot of things off-handed, but I can still do them, and that’s what counts! I’ve realised some things about myself and my amazing human being that have settled much anxiety on my part, and are pushing me towards a new and exciting
Well the years start coming and they don’t stop coming, as Smashmouth said so many years ago, and it is painfully true. The hits also keep coming, but we roll with them, because the alternative is to break, and ain’t nobody got time for that.
This year has been its usual mix of ups and downs – I got through this year of university with my service dog at my side, my wrist has healed, and I can do things. I still have to do a lot of things off-handed, but I can still do them, and that’s what counts! I’ve realised some things about myself and my amazing human being that have settled much anxiety on my part, and are pushing me towards a new and exciting future.
Amazingly, and I’m going to do a full write up of this, I have found some medications that have considerably helped with improving my energy levels, physical resilience, and recovery times. With that, careful exercise, and a collapsible mobility scooter (seriously if you don’t have one you should absolutely get one), I have had more energy to put into things I love doing.
This next year is going to be a slog, one more year of intense university to go, but then I am free to decide on the future I want.
Some weeks ago, as I was lying on my couch and undertaking my age old stress management of eternal scrolling and listening to murder / accidents / plane crash investigations, when my left arm twitched. It crept up on me. What I can only describe as a burning anxiety set in to my shoulder and upper arm. It went away for a few brief seconds when I moved my arm or tensed the muscle, but otherwise it just sat there, fat and heavy, destroying all my attempts at relaxation.
At first it was only there when I was incredibly relaxed. I’d begin my relaxation routine, and it was only when I was well and truly relaxed, body pliable and muscles limp, that it would come.
Then it came as I was relaxing. Then it came whenever I just lay down and stopped for a few minutes.
It was at that point that I really started to notice it and pay attention and catalogue it. It felt like a bad case of anxiety energy – that one you get where you have burning need to do something, anything but you can’t make yourself do a damn thing, so it sits in your chest and tightens until you want to explode. My shoulder and upper arm muscles spasmed more frequently, and the only relief I got was from moving my arm. It didn’t matter what position it was in, once it stopped moving, the burning sensation came back. I tried to google “anxiety in my arm” which, understandably, didn’t produce many results. I kept digging and came across Restless Arm Syndrome. I’d only ever heard of Restless Leg Syndrome, which is a common enough comorbidity to Fibromyalgia.
Restless Arm Syndrome is typically where Restless Leg Syndrome progresses to. When it’s really bad, it can involve more areas of your body than just your legs. But I’ve never had this feeling in my legs before, and no other body part has ever been involved, so it couldn’t be that, and I really struggled to find any information on primary Restless Arm Syndrome.
Regardless I went to see my GP who advised that, fortunately, the treatment for Restless <Insert Limb Here> Syndrome was pregabalin. The pregabalin that I’d just finished weaning down from 300mg twice a day to 150mg twice a day. As soon as I’d increased my dose back up to 300mg twice a day, however, the arm stopped burning and twitching.
I think it may be creeping back in lately – there are a lot of unavoidable stressors in my life at the moment, which could be contributing to it – but it is still considerably better than it was. I’d love to be on less pregabalin, it makes me feel emotionally flat, but I really like not having anxiety arm!
2020 has been a shitter of a year, and I don’t think anyone has come out of it unscathed. I know I certainly haven’t.
Earlier in the year I damaged my wrist to such an extent that I need surgery to fix it. Unfortunately for me, the first surgeon I went to is faffing about and, as far as I know, still hasn’t even seen the MRI I provided him with. So I’m off to see a second surgeon in the new year, hopefully with a view to getting this thing fixed some time in the next 6 odd months. The result of this is that I haven’t been able to use my dominant wrist – and therefore dominant hand and arm – properly since the start of June. I can’t type much, I can’t hand write, I can’t hold things heavier than my cellphone … in fact, I can’t even hold my cellphone when my wrist is turned at certain angles. I can’t even chop vegetables!
What this means is I basically have a dud dominant hand, and in my line of study, you can’t have a dud dominant hand. And since the surgeon has been faffing about humming and hawing over whether or not to do the surgery (for the record, it does need surgery to reconstruct the ruptured ligaments and tendon sheaths), I’m not able to continue my course of study. At least not until my wrist is fixed.
So I’m taking the year off. And I may not work at all.
I cannot recall a time where I have not had something looming over me, whether that be university obligations or work obligations. There has always been something on the near horizon, or something I should be doing instead of relaxing. It’s a hazard of life, unfortunately. We are only valuable when we are productive, and for many, work is a matter of survival. I’m in the entirely privileged situation where I can afford to not work for a year, to not earn for a year. I mean I’d love to keep that money for other things (like vet bills, or, if I’m really lucky, maybe even part of a house deposit), but I will survive if I don’t.
So I’m going to. I’m going to take this year off, and I’m going to enjoy myself without the need to find a job and work. I’ll keep my eyes and ears out for a part time one that I might enjoy, because it would be nice to work for pleasure instead of need, but it’s not going to be my goal. No, my goal this year is to relax and unwind, sort my life and my health out, and maybe even reconnect with that creative part of me that loves to write.
But most of all, I am going to appreciate this opportunity to do nothing. I’m going to enjoy getting bored. I’m going to relish the feeling of having no obligations to work or to university. I’m going to live.
Walk to Wellness 