nothing different

[[Ho...]]

dear friends,

 

yesterday i woke up to our same nightmare but it seemed like I could tolerate the sounds of all other normal life stirring and starting the day.  I battled waves of depression all day but I was able to cope with life a little better and I was able to join my husband and his parents chit chatting and feel a part and I worked to help my mother-in-law all day cleaning her home and cooking and it was like I was almost myself again.  The depression and the reminder of the agony kept pulling at me and I so badly wanted to believe that this partial lift I was experiencing would be the start of relief.  But the symptoms just kept trying to rear their ugly heads until they got their way in the evening and I suffered all night long unable to sleep much and awoke to the same old mental, emotional and physical agonies again, and the grief has been so deep today and it is in my muscles and I can't function again.  The anxiety is in my bowels and genitals and stomach for no reason at all.  I have tried to function but my mind is blank and depersonalized again.  All talking, the TV and all the activity around me is too much for me to bear and grieves me over and over. 

 

My mother-in-law said she wanted to go to Walmart on Monday and anxiety and grief hit me as I can't plan or must go in agony or miss out in agony.  I left the house and walked down to an empty house that used to be where a grandmother lived.  I just sat there alone and cried miserably and so alone while my husband and his parents continued to work and visit together.  I am supposed to be a part of this all.  I can sit there for hours and nobody will come because nobody can help me and it is no use sitting there with me and saying nothing or just talking about my pain.  There is just no help.  I started walking back but I didn't want to go back and hear and see the working and talking or go in the house where so many memories are in my mom-in-laws home.  I can't stand the football games on the TV and everybody's interest and entertainment watching them and all the cheering crowds on the TV.  I am left out of it all and can't feel any of it.  It is all meaningless to me. 

 

I am so discouraged because yesterday I functioned and today I am so sickened again in so many ways and I just feel there is no hope for being normal ever again.  My husband read a little to me from this forum and it just didn't help me to hope today because today is a cruel day.  My husband wanted me to sit down and eat lunch with everyone and I tried to force feed some and everything that everyone says just upsets me inside.  They are all working outside again and I can hear it all and I want to die of this grief I feel.  It is so cruel. 

 

I got in the car and left and drove aimlessly on country roads so I wouldn't have to see a normal human being and I just cried and missed a turn on the way back and felt the anxiety of soiling myself just because I missed a turn. I didn't want to stay with my family and hear them working and talking.  I didn't want to hear the phone and the delight at answering it.  I didn't want to watch my 80 year old folks in law have more energy in their little fingers than I have in my body.  I just don't think waiting through another day of this does any good and so I wanted to leave and just go to some hospital and say I can't function and just do something with me and I don't care what you do with me.  So I drove on the country roads to scared to go anywhere but I didn't want to return to my life of suffering while everyone is working and visiting and talking about the holidays coming up and on and on. I just can't cope with existing at all.  So here I am again suffering.  Why couldn't the partial lift I had yesterday just stay?  The lifts are so very rare and I have to suffering many days, weeks and even months before another comes.  It never changes and I don't know how I can go on.

 

My husband read to me a post today where a friend said that no matter all the evidence for healing, she just couldn't believe that she would heal and I think and feel strongly this way because it has been so very long and any lifts seem to just tease and not start being closer together or anything like that.

 

I am so very sick today and there is nothing new about that.  I am so discouraged and just can't talk myself out of it.  To be this helpless to try to make myself feel better or heal and to just feel so very ill in every way. 

 

Well, I could write down all that I have learned in the devotional, "Streams in the Desert" about persevering in suffering.  I often think that the poison wasn't invented when these devotionals about suffering were written.  But they do apply but I fear I cannot hang on to any understanding or all the positive sayings to get through this.  Hope4us

 

[[Sc...]]

Hello Hope4Us,

 

Sometimes I read people's posts...and then hit "reply"...but don't know what to write.  I just know I NEED to reply.  This is the case right now.  I read your signature and see that you've been off Benzos for quite some time.  Are you free of all meds now?

 

I can only imagine how you feel in your position...I think if I wasn't anywhere near to feeling healed at 18 months out I'd feel very discouraged as well.  But I do know that this happens to others.  I've read it on this forum, on other pages, and in books.  Healing can take a long time.  My pharmacist warned me of that 1/2 way through my taper.  He was very empathetic and had seen it all before.  He said "you do understand it can take 2-3 years to fully heal after your last dose?".  I heard him...wanted to cry more...but understood.  Accept?  Maybe not, but understood.  I think it's accepting it that is so difficult for many of us.  I can sit here and say "just accept your side effects and it will make things easier"...but I know that when I'm in a full wave and the s/x are hitting my left, right and centre, I say to my husband "HOW can I accept this...I hate this!".  But the more I try to just say "this is NOT me...I am not going to allow these feelings to take me down", it sometimes helps lift things.

 

A friend of mine was speaking to me the other day.  She is in the health profession but from a more natural end.  She has really routed for me and picks me up when I'm down.  She was saying "it's almost like you have to look at the side effects as a monster...and this monster wants to bring you down so hard...so it makes you feel sick, or crazy, or sad and depressed...and just when you think you've accepted that feeling, it throws something else at you.  So now you're in the constant battle with the monster, and you have to fight every day to say I WILL NOT LET YOU BRING ME DOWN".  I liked her way of putting it.  I know it doesn't make the feelings go away magically, but it allows for me at least to see that I am GOING to heal and beat this. 

 

There are too many wonderful things waiting for us.  And I know very well the feeling of sitting indoors while the family is outside in the sun...laughing and having fun.  I've been there many times through this and it is so heartbreaking to go through it.

 

Many of us are either in the same (or similar) boat...but many have come out of it and are fully enjoying life.  I do believe you will get there but that for whatever reason (b/c there is no rhyme or reason to this healing), you were dealt a more difficult path for awhile.  Maybe it just shows your strength...which you clearly have.  Hug yourself and allow yourself as much time as needed.

 

All the best to you,

Schatje

[[...]]

As our bodies struggle to get normal again, we wait out an unknown period of time in pure misery. I felt like I was glued to the pitty pot. I felt many of the things you describe. I dropped out in many ways. Avoided people, situations, involvements. I got little to nothing accomplished in a day. I did try to do one or two things a day that carried some joy for me. But I remember driving down the road noticing people in their yards enjoying everyday pleasures and both resenting their ease and worrying I'd never have that experience again. I would tell myself that some day I would look back and remember that I was miserable but have difficulty remembering the details.