The Exclusive Rollercoaster That is My Brain on Chronic Pain

I love rollercoasters. I used to live near Canada’s Wonderland and had a season pass as long as I lived there. I’m not particularly fond of an emotional rollercoaster though. I’ve had chronic pain and mental health issues for a very long time. They have dragged me down over and over again.

My health is getting worse, so I’m working with my doctor to figure it out. It’s stressful and time consuming. Focusing on my physical health makes my mental health deteriorate as well.

But if I spin around a few times, there’s also a lot to be happy about. I’ve had some successes and positive moments lately that bring my mood back up.

My brain is always on this never-ending rollercoaster. My thoughts are a constant whirlwind and I never know where to focus. So enjoy reading about this wonderful ride I’m on that never seems to have a line up.

This post is written as part of the March 2021 linkup hosted by A Chronic Voice. I highly recommend reading some of the other posts involved. It’s always interesting to get different perspectives from the same writing prompts.

Incorporating

As I’m in the process of ruling out a few things with my health, my doctor has asked me to ramp up my vitamin D intake and take a break from cannabis for four weeks. I’m already missing the cannabis greatly, it’s my main painkiller and sleep aid.

Since I have nothing else that helps me sleep, I have decided to start incorporating a sleep podcast into my bedtime routine. I’ve been listening to Nothing Much Happens through my Bluetooth sleep mask. While I still stay up far later than I should, when I finally decide I need to try to sleep I get this setup going.

I think it’s helping. I don’t recall hearing more than one episode at a time and they aren’t particularly long. I set a 30 minute sleep timer on Spotify so I am apparently falling asleep within 30 minutes. This is a ridiculously huge improvement. I’m going to keep doing it and hopefully my sleep improves overall.

I have also started incorporating pink Himalayan salt into my diet. This is mostly because we’re trying to rule out POTS so it’s a logical and easy step to take. I’m not really sure if it’s helping with the dizziness and such yet, but I don’t plan on stopping anyway. Turns out pink Himalayan salt is ridiculously tasty. I love plain basmati rice but now that I add a ton of salt to it I eat it almost everyday.

I need to start incorporating blood pressure readings into my daily life too but I haven’t even bought the monitor yet so maybe by April?

Breathing

My breathing is great…at rest. Standing up takes some wind out of me. Picking my daughter up takes a bit more. Climbing the stairs in my house with vaulted ceilings (why did I think it was a good idea!?) leaves me breathless. Now add all of those things together every time my daughter needs to be changed and I’m practically panting by the time I get to her change table.

On top of this, my rib pain has been getting more frequent as of late. It’s been every evening for the past couple of weeks now. It makes it difficult to breathe without causing pain so I’m typically stuck wherever I am when it hits. Thankfully, it’s been awhile since I’ve been forced into a ball fighting tears but with this increased frequency, I think it’s just a matter of time.

I’m also really bad for just holding my breath for no reason. I only bring this up because I started paying attention to my breathing while writing this and noticed that I wasn’t actually doing any. Not really sure why that happens but whatever I guess?

Smiling

On my own, I’m not a particularly smiley person. However, I’m not usually alone. I’ve got two cats, a dog, a husband and an eight month old daughter. At any given time, one of them can usually make me smile.

I have a hard time being in a bad mood around my husband. Even when I’m in a lot of pain and don’t find him nearly as funny as usual, I can still crack a tiny smile at his efforts to make me feel better. Plus I love his hugs.

The biggest one making me smile lately is my daughter. She’s been smiling since she was three weeks old and hasn’t stopped since. She even smiles in her sleep. She’s a ridiculously patient infant. In her eight months I can probably count how many times she has cried on both hands.

I’m incredibly lucky that she has such a wonderful temperament. She finds me to be hilarious for some reason, so between the smiles, laughter and dancing it’s hard not to smile back. Plus she’s calling me mama much more frequently now so that’s smile worthy too.

I also love watching my husband with my daughter. He’s so much in love with her it’s hard not to find it adorable and smile at his happiness. I honestly don’t know where my mood would be without my family. I still have my days of depression when I’m unable to control my pain, but they can always bring a small smile to my face.

Stopping

I debated including this prompt. It is hard for me to talk about, but it’s only in the past couple of weeks that I have been admitting to myself that my dermatillomania is real. I have never said it out loud. My husband is even unaware of my behaviours. Although he is aware of the state of my skin.

I have had this problem since I was a small child. I am covered in scars and usually have several open wounds at any given time. Pretty sure I have had a perpetual staphylococcus infection for the past twenty five years or so. It interferes with my day to day life, has contributed to a long hospital stay and makes me hate my skin.

It needs to stop. I have tried so many times and I never succeed. It’s harder to distract my hands lately as well with having a baby to take care of. I can’t just knit or fiddle with something at any given time.

Coincidentally, my health insurance has just started offering virtual cognitive behavioral therapy. I’m probably going to be signing up. I tried therapy for my PTSD and got absolutely nowhere but I’m willing to try again for my other issues.

I have also become much more aware of other obsessive compulsive behaviours that I always ignored or passed off as me just being rather particular. But now, these behaviours are making me angry and giving me anxiety if I do not do them. They too need to stop. I want to be in a better place sooner rather than later for my daughter’s sake.

Relishing

Thankfully, there have been a few positives in my life lately that I have been relishing. I’ve been baking a lot and because my husband has Celiac Disease I have to bake gluten free. The results have been really successful and I’m pretty ecstatic.

I have made the best gluten free bread we have ever tasted. My husband even says it’s better than some wheat based homemade breads he has had. So everytime I bake something I can’t help but grin and relish the fact that I’m giving him some of his pre-diagnosis life back.

I have also been told that I will be getting a story published by The Mighty. It’s a small thing, but I’m really excited about it since I’m such a new blogger. It’s hard not to relish in being called a contributor. Honestly, I relish every day I get more than one visitor to my site. With so many dead dreams that like to creep up on me and remind me I’m not where I thought I would be, writing has been helpful and getting any kind of recognition is something to relish. Sharing this post would be really helpful too, just sayin’.

I also kinda want a hot dog now.

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