Update from my long hiatus

Firstly, I am SO sorry it has taken me so long to get back to writing here. Life has been very chaotic, especially this past year! This is probably going to be a long post! So much has happened, some good, some bad, and some groundbreaking, it’s been a very overwhelming year, to say the least! But okay! To start! At the very beginning of the year (2023), I sought out a second opinion for my medical issues, I seriously doubted that all my problems resulted from my fibromyalgia diagnosis, and my PC at the time (Dr. L from here on out) refused to send me to any specialists as ‘there was no need’. The first examination the new doctor gave me (Dr. R from here on out) immediately told him that I needed to be seen by specialists due to the enormity of the issues I had. The first specialist that I was sent to was an endocrinologist (Diabetes Doctor) because my blood sugars were VERY out of control and what Dr. L had been giving me wasn’t doing me any good at all. My A1C had been 9.3, and Dr. L didn’t see a reason for me to see a specialist regarding my diabetes. The second specialist was my gastroenterologist (Dr. El from here on out), Dr. R felt that having anything wrong with the liver and my complicated digestion issues needed to be seen from a specialist’s point of view. My third specialist was a cardiologist because some of my conditions–like my very swollen right leg and the strange random passing out, shortness of breath, and issues with my heart beating super hard and super fast needed to be seen by someone who knows a lot about the heart and circulatory systems, (Dr. Lem). My fourth specialist was a Rheumatologist (Dr. Ebra) to check on what might be going on and to see if the diagnosis of Fibromyalgia was accurate or if something else was going on. My fifth specialist was my OBGYN (Dr. Note) because of my crazy periods, the extremely heavy bleeding, the horrible pain, and how anemic I was. My SIXTH specialist was a neurologist (Dr. Abu)–I have STILL not seen them yet, but this MAY I will finally be seen! My seventh specialist was a pulmonologist (Dr. Fle) due to my blood work showing a HIGH amount of CO2 in my blood, so they suspected sleep apnea. Whew! That’s a LOT of doctors to see in a single year! Except for the neuro doc, I saw the others multiple times last year!

So, what did I find out? Well, quite a bit! So I’ll go down a list and say what the findings so far and the treatment are for them.

Endocrinologist Dr. Lindy was the one I see, and after only doing a finger poke A1C test, she determined that I needed to be on actual injectable short-acting insulin and a long-acting insulin as well. We started off at a massive 30 units of long-acting insulin at night and 15 units of short-acting insulin with every meal (aka 3 times a day typically), then 3-5 units of short-acting insulin in between meals as a corrective dose should I still be over 250 two hours after a meal. This has changed dramatically over the past year and now I am on 76 units of long-acting insulin (38 morning, 38 evening) a day, and 22 units short-acting with my meals, then 10-15 units of short-acting as corrective doses. My A1C is now 6.5!! SUPER happy about that!!

Gastroenterologist Dr. El is who I see, after lots of blood work, sonograms, CT scans, endoscopy, and a colonoscopy, he discovered that I have chronic gastritis and chronic esophagitis, severe GERD reflux, slow digestion (almost gastroparesis but not quite–did a Gastric Emptying Study to rule that one out), IBD-C (Irritable Bowel Disease with constipation), Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), and malabsorption (still not sure what’s going on with that). Recently, I had an endoscopy and a colonoscopy because I had SEVERE stomach/upper abdominal pain and couldn’t eat without suffering from excruciating pain that kept sending me to the ER. Aside from chronic gastritis, chronic esophagitis, and severe GERD, they cannot answer to me why I am having so many problems eating. They are scratching their heads, and I’m just gonna be staying in pure agony until something else surfaces. So far, since Feb when the eating problems began, I have lost more than 40 lbs. Not gonna lie, I’m happy with weighing less, but this is not the way it should go!

Cardiologist Dr. Lem is where I was originally sent to by Dr. R due to having unknown chest pain, rapid pulse, fainting spells, and other circulatory issues. He is an awesome doctor! I was given the typical exam of the stress test, EKG, and echocardiogram, and what they found was both shocking and scary. I have blood pressure issues, but not high blood pressure, rather mine is fairly low. I also have a mild leaky heart valve that regurgitates some blood flow back into my heart instead of back out to my body/lungs. I also have an alarming enlarged ascending aorta, which is basically an aneurysm at the top of my heart that moves the blood from my heart into the rest of my body. At the time of its discovery, it was large, but not quite significant enough to fix with surgery. We are going to watch it and see if it changes at all through the years, but if it gets any larger, it has to be operated on. Very scary! So I was given iron supplements for my significant anemia and a blood pressure med to raise my blood pressure.

Rheumatologist Dr. Ebra is where I was sent to see if I have any further issues aside from fibromyalgia. She did a cursory look at my overall health, then did a small physical exam where I said I had a majority of issues. She noted that I had ‘significant’ swelling of my hands, ankles, and other major joints, so she had me do x-rays to see if there were any other signs. The X-rays proved to be somewhat insightful. They showed that my bones were closer together than they should have been, and also revealed signs of arthritis. I was given an MRI of my mid-lower back, hips, and pelvis, where I was told I had significant arthritis in my back, several herniated disks, and some bone loss in my spine. The blood work that was done proved that I had significant inflammatory markers, and through further testing, it was ruled that I have Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and have now been on immunosuppressive medication, and another that is specifically for swelling for quite a while. Still have issues, but now at least I know it’s not just ‘fibromyalgia’. Though I DO have it, it is not the SOLE reason for all my problems!

OBGYN Dr. Note first saw me for my issues with having problematic periods. I did multiple tests and ruled out all the horrible things, and at first was given birth control to see if that would solve my issues. After several months of birth control giving me little to no relief, a final pelvic sonogram revealed that I had quite severe Adenomyosis, which is often called the evil sister of Endometriosis. The decision was made that I would be much better off with the removal of my female reproductive system (except for my ovaries) and then at the very end of May, went through my hysterectomy. Recovery was difficult, but happened quickly! After six weeks, everything was healed and I have been remarkably pain-free!! I still have the three-day pain of ovulation, but that’s nothing compared to the three weeks of agony every single month! I am very grateful for the loss of all that pain and the horrible expense of buying special heavy-flow pads every month!

Neurologist Dr. Abu is one that I have waited so very long to see, but I will finally have my chance this coming May!! I don’t even know what types of tests or things will be done to see what is going on, but their focus is going to be mainly on my chronic headaches and migraines, and maybe on other neurological issues if they deem them significant enough to investigate.

Pulmonologist Dr. Fle is the doctor I was referred to when my blood work started to show a high CO2 level to rule out sleep apnea. I was sent home a test to use that night and turn in the next morning, it was relatively simple and while I didn’t get to do the entire 8-hour test–I sleep around 4-6 hours a night–when I returned the test (after 4ish hours of sleep), I was told a few days later that I needed to come get fit for a CPAP mask and that I had severe sleep apnea! I had several events in that short amount of time and one of those ‘events’ had been me not breathing for almost 2 minutes! So, after a short fight with my insurance company, I got my CPAP machine and have been using it for quite a while now and can definitely feel a difference! Though…I still have high CO2 in my blood work…so this might not have been the reason? We still don’t know…

So…that was my past year in a nutshell! Crazy hectic and ended up with massive burnout from the crazy amount of appointments, tests (some of them very invasive), surgery, and multiple severe illnesses as well!

When I went in for my Pre-op appointment at the end of April for my (original) surgery (hysterectomy) date of May 3, I ended up catching pneumonia from someone there at the hospital! I ended up in the ER with severe difficulty breathing, severe cough, sore throat and just overall feeling absolutely like shit! When they told me I had Community Pneumonia (there are two types of pneumonia, community pneumonia which is a virus contracted through the community at large, and hospital pneumonia which is typically caused by a procedure (aspiration pneumonitis) or through prolonged anesthesia causing fluid to build-up in the lungs due to ‘auto’ breathing through intubation). It was devastating because now I had to reschedule my surgery and focus on just surviving this new development! The three weeks of fighting pneumonia were absolutely the worst! I had just gotten cleared of it being gone on the 25th of May, and my surgery was then scheduled for May 31st! Word of advice though…if you are recovering from pneumonia do NOT get surgery immediately later. Coughing after an abdominal surgery is common, but still having the pneumonia cough on top of the recovery cough is not fun. I had to carry a little plushie pillow (my husband gets me little plushmellow stuffies and I love them so much!) and hug it tightly any time I needed to cough. That was a lifesaver!

I also developed severe respiratory illnesses several times over the year, only one of them was COVID-19 (which was the lesser of the illnesses, ironically). I do have asthma, so I am very susceptible to respiratory viruses and so it’s not out of the ordinary for me to have several in a year. Now that I know I have a confirmed autoimmune disorder (RA) getting sick so often has taken on a new sense of the word, especially since I am now on immunosuppressants, which I started in October, I am getting sick so much easier, and needing to take so many new precautions and whatnot to not get severely ill every time I get sick. I did end up getting pneumonia again in November, and then in December, I caught COVID-19.

Not so long ago, on March 21st, I had my double-scope procedure, a re-do of my first endoscopy back in October which was a ‘failure’ due to my stomach still being full of food, even though I had not eaten for the 16 hours required before getting the scope. When they did it just a few weeks ago, they had me intubated to prevent me from getting any food or liquid aspirated into my lungs, as I was very lucky last time to not suffer from that! So I had my endoscopy and colonoscopy while intubated and immediately upon waking, I knew something was wrong. My throat was way more sore than it should have been and three hours after getting home I was starting to cough up a lot of thick mucus. By the next day, I was having severe issues with all the thick mucus in my chest/throat, even being nearly suffocated as I tried to bring some up through a coughing fit…and by the time I got to the ER later that day, I had a fever and was very ill. After getting a CT scan to check for complications (they saw my intestines were VERY inflamed, but maybe not unexpected for just having a colonoscopy and getting biopsies taken from polyps found in my small intestines) and then an X-ray of my chest, which showed a shadow in my right lung, and I was told I had aspiration pneumonitis. So the very thing that they were trying to avoid by doing the intubation, happened. Though, ironically, when I did a follow-up appointment, the PA for Dr. El was VERY thorough in explaining that I did not get aspiration pneumonitis and that ALL the tests that were done that Friday were clear of anything wrong. Nice try, my dude…but I have a copy of those tests too, as well as the information sent on the results and how to care for myself…AND the antibiotics that were given to clear the bacterial infection that causes aspiration pneumonitis. I don’t know if he was trying to cover their asses in case I was going to sue? Because, my dude, that was never on the table, shit happens, and they did everything to try to prevent that from happening. Not going to blame them, though now I wonder if I should be looking at it differently, given the extreme response from Mr. PA…

Anyway, so here I am today, fresh out of yet another ER visit. This time, I went due to extreme back, pelvis, and stomach pain. I was certain I had another Kidney Stone. If you’ve ever had one, I’m so sorry, they really suck, and if you haven’t, then know that it is accompanied by VERY bad back pain–typically where the kidneys are located and down to the pelvis near the ureter and bladder. This was exactly where I had my severe pain, and I even had difficulty with urinating just like when I had a stone. BUT what I found out was surprising and frustrating. There was nothing wrong with my stomach, no signs at all of any current infection or even the beginnings of an infection, no kidney stone at all anywhere, and all they DID see was that my herniated back was now very bad and was pressing upon my spinal cord in such a way that it was causing the mimicry of kidney stone pain, and causing the nerves in my bladder to have difficulty in letting me urinate and making my abdominal muscles contract in a way that was creating the massive pain! SO, now I have to go see Dr. R to see what my options are, as the ER thinks I am now no longer eligible for the spinal epidurals due to how the disks are herniated. So only time will tell what the next step on that one is…so I’ll have to update when I know more next week!

Also, I am finally getting approved for the hand MRIs that will show why my hands are virtually useless, my thumbs are in so much pain all the time and I can barely use my fingers as they are numb and pretty swollen all the time now. Hopefully, this will show if anything is going on that can be helped and if this is another action of the effects of RA on my hands. OH! I did find out that my bowel problems, my heart issues, and even my fatty liver are likely caused by the RA going on for so very long without being controlled. Dr. Ebra believes I’ve likely had RA my whole life, as the earliest medical records that recorded the elevated markers started when I was 18 from Dr. L!!! So even though he saw the markers, he never thought to send me to a specialist!

Also, I lost my cat, Crystal, in May…I had to finally let her go because she was blind, mostly deaf, and had become senile, often standing in the kitchen completely lost and just staring at nothing. Her entire being had changed, she wasn’t herself anymore, and after getting some bloodwork done, we found she was also suffering from kidney failure. So we decided to let her go peacefully and to end her suffering. It was so very hard! She was almost 17! A few weeks later, we were getting our surviving cats their updated rabies vaccine due to the massive bat infestation in our building (yes…we had bats getting INTO our apartment, and we were terrified of them getting rabies from any interactions, though we were told they were protected, we still had them get more current shots to make sure it stayed that way!). When we were there, a woman stopped us to ask us questions regarding the vet and if it was a good place. We were talking when we heard a sudden tiny crying in the parking lot! A small kitten had jumped down from inside a recently parked vehicle and was so very scared! My husband and the lady we were talking to managed to catch him, and while he was desperately trying to get away, I took him and held him, he immediately stopped his struggles and just cuddled close. My heart just ached! He was badly burned! His little paws were all blistered, the top of his head was burned and his little head whiskers were badly singed! We took him inside to get checked out (the clinic was closing, but the vet saw him immediately, she’s such an awesome vet! Didn’t even charge us when we said we’d be adopting him, and even gave us free flea treatment!), we found out that we couldn’t get him shots because he was suffering from severe heat exhaustion, his little temperature was 106!! So we took him (it was 103 outside at the time) and turned the a/c WAY up to blast on his little hot body for the trip home, he was a little skittish of my husband holding him, but when he saw I was right there, the little guy relaxed and just enjoyed the safety and coolness of the rest of the trip home. We ended up naming him Spyro, and in a short few weeks, he went from weighing just 3.8 lbs to a whopping 7 lbs and was stable enough to get his kitten shots, rabies shot, and get neutered! So we did it all and now, at almost two, he is an insanely big boy! He is nearly three feet long without including his tail! He weighs 22 lbs and is NOT considered overweight! They believe he has bobcat in him or his direct family bloodline, due to his personality, his massive build, and some of his features. Though he just looks like a cute tabby that is dipped in cream to me! He is such an amazing little cat! So affectionate and loving to us, enduring Serena’s dislike of him without following up on her aggressiveness towards him, and just being so unique!

So, that’s basically been my year, I know I’m probably forgetting a lot, but this past year has been very insightful. So ironic that my Word of the Year last year was Discovery! This year my Word of the Year is Unstoppable!

I’m sure I’ll find more news that I didn’t mention to say later, but until then, everyone stay safe and have a blessed day!

In Love and Light,

Tricia

Relapse

Nearly two weeks ago, I had a severe relapse in my recovery. It leads me to want to shed light on a cause for suicide that most people don’t even consider. Anxiety. My anxiety had risen so high that it took only a tiny thing to set off, into motion, a series of events that would see me in the hospital for a week.

For me, anxiety is an hourly struggle, something that I live with that is closer to me than my depression. I am what my mother calls ‘a worry-wart’. Worrying is just something that comes as regular as breath to me. It has since I was a very small child and it has stayed that way throughout my entire life. So you’d think I would be thoroughly versed in all of its nuances and tricks, right? Well, maybe I’m just a very naive person because I completely didn’t see where my anxiety took me.

Let me set the scene for you: For a solid month, things had been stacking up against me. Doctor appointments, medical tests, arguments with my family, and all this on top of my general everyday anxiety about being alive. Then one Thursday a few weeks ago, there were weather alerts all over the place for the next day, we were supposed to have very bad weather and there was a high likelihood of there being tornadoes as well. Well, I have been through several of those (though none directly hitting my home) through family and friends being directly impacted by large tornados. So I absolutely didn’t want to go through that ever again! At any cost! Suddenly my anxiety cup runneth over and I snapped, I couldn’t handle it anymore. I went from having mild ideation of suicide (just the background grumblings of ‘I wish I were dead’ or ‘things would be better off without me’ type of thoughts) to full-blown grabbing that pill bottle on my shelf and dumping as many as I could into my hand, and nearly took them before my husband stopped me.

Over the threat of severe weather, anxiety had driven me to attempt suicide.

Do not underestimate any aspect of your mental health! I didn’t blink twice at my growing anxiety, and then I just snapped. I went from thoughts to actions faster than my brain could fully register what was going on. The motions were automated, made like they had been carefully planned for months even though the thought had just briefly entered my mind. It could have been aggravated by my being in the grips of a bipolar episode, which granted me a lot of high energy to put thoughts into quick actions, but everyone seems to agree that it was simply that my anxiety cup had runneth over and there was nothing to catch the overspill other than actions.

Thankfully my husband stopped me. I didn’t take a single pill before he got to me, though he swears that I hesitated long enough for him to get to me, I had no sensation nor intention of hesitation, it was all one solid and seamless action to me. The authorities were contacted, and I was carted carefully away to our local hospital which cares for psychiatric patients, and there I stayed for a week while I recovered and reset.

It wasn’t suicidal ideation, bipolar depression, major depression, or substance abuse that drove me to try to end my life. It was anxiety. That sneaky little thing that everyone deals with at some point in their lives. The one thing most of us don’t even consider to be a deadly threat to our safety and sanity. And yet it nearly took my life.

Don’t let your anxiety get the better of you. If you suffer from anxiety, seek help. There are lots of therapy options to help you learn coping factors and there are also medications (non-addictive if you’re like me and refuse to take addictive medications, are available as well). There is help for anxiety. You don’t have to suffer alone with a potential silent ticking time bomb.

Now I’m not saying that everyone’s anxiety will someday become so bad they’ll become suicidal over it, I’m simply warning that it could happen. No one ever warned me that anxiety was THAT serious. No one whispered that my anxiety was getting that out of hand. It happened so subtly over a long period of time that I completely didn’t see it coming.

Thankfully for me, the people at the hospital were patient, understanding, and compassionate and it only took me a week to get my feet back under me and be stable once more. For all of those nurses and the staff there, I am very very thankful and ever more grateful for the work they do there.

I hope everyone has a blessed weekend and remember, please, take care of yourselves! You’re worth the time and effort of caring for, and who better to know what you need than you? So take good care of yourselves and I am sending all my love!

May God bless and angels keep you all safe!

In Love and Light,

Tricia

Infection

I just came from the ER a few days ago with the news that I had a nearly septic UTI infection. I went into the ER with chest pain and had no symptoms at all of having a UTI except for a slight issue with my bladder having problems releasing urine at one time, which has been an issue for months now. I had no fever, no severe burning or pain, no sense of urgency. All the normal signs of an infection are missing. I still don’t have them. What I do have is pain. Pain that is always constant and hadn’t changed for months. A pain that my doctor wrote off as my fibromyalgia.

It wasn’t. This infection didn’t appear like this overnight. Having chronic kidney stones, chronic mid-lower severe back pain and irregular periods with bad cramps (which started because I went on birth control to lighten my periods and stop having them eventually) kept me from noticing the warning signs that I did have. Which was bleeding, cramping pains in my bladder, severe back pain from my kidneys. I didn’t advocate for myself and insist that the problems were something other than my typical chronic conditions, and there wasn’t anyone else to interject and say anything different. So this slid under the radar for months until here it is now, a very agonizingly painful raging infection that is causing other parts of my body to go into reaction mode to the infection.

My chest pain, nausea, vomiting, headache, cramping, and bleeding are all from my UTI. It’s terrifying to learn what I thought was period bleeding is actually coming from my bladder. The only thing that can be done right now is antibiotics, but a CT Scan revealed my bladder walls are already thickened, meaning I may have longer-lasting consequences to this horrible oversight. This infection is just tearing me up.

I’m so exhausted. Severe fatigue, always nauseated, severe abdominal cramps, horrible headache…and it just never seems to want to end. I’ve been on medication now for three days, and I still feel awful.

Why am I bothering to say any of this? I’m saying it to be a wake-up call to those out there like me who were neglecting themselves, who decided it’s easier to just agree with the doctor and stay silent… TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF! ADVOCATE FOR YOURSELF! You are your only hope. No one is going to know what you feel or how you feel, nor can anyone tell you what or how you feel. So if something is wrong say something!

I stayed quiet. I just trusted the doctor was right. I trusted that what they were saying was accurate–even though it wasn’t. I believed them when they said that it was normal for my chronic conditions. And now I’m paying the price for not standing up and saying they were wrong. With all my medical history and all the struggles and strife I’ve had, you’d think I would have learned by now to just always advocate for myself…but when you’re depressed, overwhelmed, in a lot of pain, confused, and scared it is easy to just want to go with what someone in a position of ‘authority’ says is true.

In four days I have to go to the doctor and see where I am at in my infection. Hopefully, it will be gone and I won’t require more antibiotics (as they all make me nauseous force me to need to take yet another pill to combat that). Meanwhile, I can only sit and hope that the antibiotics are working as they need to and that this isn’t a resistant infection.

So please. Take care of You. If something feels off, don’t back down until certain what it is. Medical tests suck, some of them are very painful, but it’s better to know and get the proper care than to do what I did and let it fester for far too long.

Wishing you all the best,

In Love and Light,

Tricia

Moving forward

I’m sorry it’s been so long since my last post here. Things have been very hectic and chaotic since moving in. Between trying to get unpacked and adjusted to life in a much smaller apartment, surprise mental health scares, and equally, unwanted surprise physical health scares, things have been crazy in our household. Just from October to now has been extra hard on my husband, in October of last year, he lost his mother suddenly to a complication with diabetes and a few weeks ago he lost his father to dementia. So I’ve been trying to be extra helpful and aware of my husband’s mental and physical health as well as my own, which has been extra taxing–but in a way that I’m okay with, I don’t mind helping out my husband.

Mental health awareness

It’s very important to be aware and to make sure that those who care about you are made aware of changes in your mental health. Even if your SO, loved one, or/and relative doesn’t seem to take what you’ve said seriously, letting them know will open the door for future help if there comes a time when you go into crisis. Hopefully, crisis situations never happen, but when they do, it is always a good idea to have those important to you aware of your mental struggles so that you’re not alone and have support when you need it most. That was proved important for me when I went into crisis later in the year last year and earlier this year. If I hadn’t been telling my husband how I felt and how I was doing, he wouldn’t have been prepared for helping me out with extra support when I suddenly broke down and kept having major anxiety attacks and frequent panic attacks at even the hint of the smell of smoke. I have developed a very serious PTSD reaction to our fire in July and I hate it. It’s destroying everything that I once used for comfort and has taken away my sense of security within my own four walls at all hours of the day.

I have been struggling with those things that are out of my control for a while now, struggling with the knowledge that I don’t know what my neighbors are doing or how responsible they are with their stoves, ovens, outlets, or other devices that could suddenly create a fire situation. I now have to figure out how to overcome this obstacle of any form of smoky smell setting off an intense fear reaction and triggering a severe panic attack. The chest pains, the cold sweats, the complete sense of…well…panic. And there seems to be nothing I can do to stop this from happening, though I have been trying very hard to learn to cope and find new coping mechanisms for this, so far I have unfortunately not been very successful in that venture. I am working hard with my therapist and doctors to try to find a way to better handle this new and unfortunate development, but it seems fruitless at the moment…I’m still paralyzed with fear every time I even think I smell smoke. Whether that smoke is from a candle (which I used to love to burn), someone smoking outside or in their own apartment, smoke from cooking, or from fires outside being burned (both controlled and the wildfires burning near here recently), I have the same intense reaction.

Nightmares. I have woke up with the smell of that old smoke in my nose, covered in sweat and in a full-blown panic attack. The nightmares are probably the hardest part of this whole thing, I can’t control them, predict when they’ll happen, or even use coping mechanisms when they do happen because I’m asleep! So waking up in a panic attack has a high chance of making me highly nausiated and getting sick right after you wake up is not a fun thing to do.

Physical health awareness

It is very important to be your own advocate if you feel that something is wrong and no one is taking you seriously. Recently I had a health scare that sent me back to the doctor several times to get them to understand that what was going on wasn’t simply a result of my chronic medical conditions but something new. If I had just passed it off as the doctors had told me, I would have been okay, but in the long run, I wouldn’t have been in a very good way.

One of the things I suffer from is kidney stones. While they are probably a product of my weight, their existence has remained a mystery as to why it has become a chronic condition. I wouldn’t curse kidney stones on my worst enemy! They seriously suck! But when I started to experience extreme back pain and side pain, the very first thing my doctor said was ‘kidney stone’ and passed it off. I did my day of waiting for it to pass–literally–and when the problem didn’t improve, I went right back again.

I got a CTscan which–of course–showed a couple of small kidney stones, but it also showed something else. Two curious things that hadn’t been known. A spot on my liver and a problem with my female reproductive area. When both of them got more attention, I felt better mentally that I was being taken seriously finally for my pains that I knew weren’t just from my chronic conditions. I also had several rounds of blood work taken, to look for other possible ailments that could be causing my condition to worsen.

My blood work showed that I had issues with my liver and that I had gotten way worse on my type 2 diabetes. So I was given word to make my diet stricter and to take a once-a-week shot to ensure that my diabetes came back under control again. The combination of the shot and diet changes have helped me to start losing weight and for my diabetes to get firmly back under control.

My liver ended up being something serious, and it took me another three months to find out exactly what that was. I have fatty liver disease, which is treatable through diet and weight loss, so I have been very careful with what I’ve been eating and have thankfully been losing a fairly good bit of weight. I still have a ways to go before I can be considered out of the woods with my liver. While fatty liver disease can be reversed with enough effort and care, it can also lead to liver cirrhosis, which is a very dangerous medical condition. I still have nearly 50 lbs to lose before I get checked up again, but hopefully, all the weight I’m losing (I’ve lost over 30 lbs already!) and with the diet changes, I can reverse this fatty liver disease and won’t have to worry about further scarring on my liver, as I already have one scar and I’m not sure if it’ll go away with time or be there forever.

Moving forward

So with everything new and old to deal with, the only thing that can be done is to move forward. And to keep moving forward. There is no standing still and no going backward, so moving forward is all that can be done. I can’t take back the fire, erase the trauma that it has apparently given me, no more than I can reach inside my body and decide that I don’t want to be disabled anymore, that I can just turn off from having kidney stones or change that I have fatty liver disease. All I can do is move forward and take appropriate actions to improve my life, because there’s no point in further doing things that will continue to make it worse. All I can do is move forward. That’s the mentality that I have to take in order to not get pulled under by the darkness of my depression. I know I’ve said it too much already, but I really feel that it’s important for not just others to hear, but to drill through my own head, that moving forward is vital to a healthy life.

Sorry if all this is a jumbled mess, my thoughts are just everywhere today and I’ve been dealing with a very persistent headache for over three days now, so if some doesn’t make sense or seems off, than I apologize for that, I am trying my hardest.

I also am going to do my best to remember to post here more regularly again and not let life get me so wound up that I forget about everything that I value or find important in my life as has been the case for the past several months while I’ve been overwhelmed and drowning in anxiety and the darkness of depression.

Love and Light,

Tricia

Back to Zero

It’s hard for us to see issues that are affecting us until someone on the outside points it out. I have lived a strange life that I always contributed to my depression and other issues. But that was only a small part of the picture. It is key in why I have been absent for so long, but I’m not sure if I want to speak openly about it yet, so I apologize for hinting and not telling, I simply wanted to explain my almost year long absense has been attatched mostly to my mental health and physical health issues.

This past winter was brutal against us, our apartment was not equipted to handle the kind of intense cold that we experienced, everyone everywhere suffered in some way last winter, it was a global bad time, though for different reasons for sure. The spring was hard on me as I became sick with pnemococcal pneumonia, for months I was sick, and was required to get a Covid-19 test way more often than I think should have been. And this summer, this summer has been cruel…

On July 5th, we became homeless. A fire destroyed the building we lived in, the apartment in front of ours burned out entirely, ours suffered smoke and water damage. For a month we lived in a hotel, racking up hundreds of dollars a day…with no choice, as we had no where to go and no one to turn too. Though we have been very grateful to a local church and a few blessed souls who have donated to us, we are still so far in debt that the dreams of buying a house are now just that…dreams.

Which leads me to the other reason I’ve stayed away…massive depression. I haven’t wanted to do anything. Not eat, not shower, nothing. My husband has of course been forcing me to do the essentials and trying to encourage me to do fun things to get my mind off of our current situation, but I’m stuck not being able to process (and still haven’t) the fire and how much we lost…I loved that apartment, I intended to stay there until we moved into a house we bought…to be forced to leave so abruptly, for everything to go from a normal day to one of the worst days of our lives…I can feel the stabbing pain in my chest even now, the harsh cruelty of life.

We lived in that hotel, and now we live here, in our new (and MUCH smaller) place, with even more stairs than our last apartment, which I would not have chosen if we had a choice….but there has literally been nothing else available within our price range and there had been no assistance in refunding the massive amount of money it costs to move… $1k for movers (yeah, we were ripped off, I know, we had no other options and they took advantage of it, but we just let it go), $1280 for deposits and then our prorated rent and our next months’ rent which came to $1027ish. That’s not including the hotel fees, which even with help (church member donated $500 towards our bill) was still over $1500…and with all that in mind, remember, we live on a single income and my SSI. My husband works part-time at Walmart and I am disabled so only getting SSI in varying amounts every month based on some crazy model of theirs that never works right…but again. I digress. Those numbers are excluding food costs. The hotel paid for breakfast, but lunch and dinner were hard to come by. Often times we had to just go out and get something fast-foodwise, not ideal but it kept us fed and alive…the total food cost was close to $300 and that also includes buying some healthy foods from the store as well, since we had a tiny fridge and microwave in the room.

In total? Far. Too. Much. We’re struggling, hard, and while my husband paid his dues, mourned the loss while he cleaned up and packed what we could salvage, and processed everything…I have not. There hasn’t been a day yet since then that I haven’t felt like my soul was being ripped slowly from me, that I haven’t silently cried–feeling helpless and betrayed by life. We’ve gone through so much in just a small fraction of time. Our van completely broke down, requiring us to shell out over $1k to get parts to fix it (hubby thankfully did it with the help of my uncle’s tools, expertise knowledge and garage), illness, stress from the pandemic and now having lost our home and being forced to move into conditions I didn’t want to live in…but we had no alternatives…

I’m sorry if I keep repeating myself, my brain is just…overwhelmed. Eight people have helped us…Okay, so before I continue that thought, let me get one thing out straight away. I am not saying or begging for assistence, I am being honest and open, as I said I would be in these blogs. After a few weeks, Red Cross told me to set up a Go Fund Me and a Facebook fundraiser so that I could put it out to the public and get help from others as well. Eight. That is how many people have helped us. Less than $500. Our neighbor has accured so much more (and having lost his home and all his and his little boy, Evertt’s things deserves more) and that hurts…

I don’t want to sound petty or anything, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t help from feeling betrayed by my town, the place I have lived for over 35 years….and so few have helped…I heart aches, my eyes start to cry and my mind screams about the injustice of it all. We didn’t ask for any special treatment, we took our loss like adults and did what we had to in order to stay afloat…and have suffered for it. Our neighbor has done nothing but beg and whine about his predictament, which isn’t really that bad, he can stay with family, not pay for roof, food, water, transportation…all those a thing we are not afforded. So I am paying the price of being ignored because I’m not screaming everywhere for donations? Really?!

As you can see, this has been the one thing heaviest on my mind…the fire and our neighbor…What makes it worse on me is that he is our landlord’s son…so he gets special rights anyways, he always has…but even then, it wouldn’t make a difference, because life has always shit on me…things that people say should be given to us are refused…we are ignored in our crisis and still alone while we continue to flounder and struggle…

Where is the assistance everyone else seems to get whenever there is a fire or other natural disaster? Where is the community coming together to give aid in not only financial but also spiritual and physically…oh, right, our neighbor only. Because we don’t matter. We don’t count as being affected since our apartment had no fire damage? Yeah, that’s how everyone has acted. To say it’s unfair isn’t even close. I’ve never asked for anything from anyone…I’ve always given everything I could to help others…I’ve had a really shitty life, and kept all those struggles invisible to outsiders because there isn’t anything they would do anyways. But this really proves to me how cruel humanity can be…to be ignored and to be given no true effort of assistance…

Sorry, getting upset, so have to step away.

To put our situation in simpler words. No one gives a fuck about us. There is no helpfulness to assist us in getting back on our feet. People are only ignoring us or kicking us. To the eight people who helped us, I am beyond grateful, words can’t even define, but it isn’t enough, not by a long shot, most of those donations couldn’t even pay for a full day of hotel stay (there are really no options in my city, and we couldn’t leave because my hubby has to walk to work most days, gotta stay close…). Tensions are high here. Stress is horrible. There hasn’t been a day I haven’t cried at the feeling of injustice.

Oh, we didn’t have rental insurance, just for the record. Our losses have to be thrown away and bought again…and we lost thousands of dollars of our belongings…it hurts…Yet the landlord has her private and business insurance, and our neighbor had his own insurance rumored to be paid by his mother…so his losses were actually paid for by the insurance he had…and we’ve gotten basically a 1/8 of the way up our cost needs ladder…

So we’re back at zero.

My depression is back to being suicidal and really really low, my anxiety is always skyhigh, and I feel like I’im in a constant panic mode, every little sound that could be an alarm has me in full panic, every little hint of smoke has me shaking and in tears with terror that I might lose what little we have left!

To be honest with you all…I don’t feel human. I can’t be. Because people don’t treat people the way I’m being treated. No one cares. If I tell someone we need help, they call me a begger…yet others ask for help and people flock…how am I to take that? I don’t have a circle of friends to cling to for support. I have myself, my husband, and my friend in Texas. I do not ask for handouts. I am not known to ask for help period. And when the time hits that I have to ask, I’m treated as though I live beyond my means and am trying to get help paying bills that are ‘expendable’…

It hurts. It hurts a lot. But I’ve managed to not cut, to not starve myself or to dehydrate myself as punishment for not being good enough…I just feel like I want to crawl under my bed and never come out to see the light of day or people ever again.

I’m messed up. Badly. And I’m starting back at Zero to break free of these new chains that are pulling me deeper down into the abyss…I’ve been praying constantly, and that is why I’m still alive, I’m certain of it. Without my faith, there wouldn’t be any other reason to hold on…not with my head this fucked up.

So for now, that’s the basics of my absence and I’ll explain more on that in different blogs, just wanted to let everyone know that I still live. And that I’ll be starting up my blog again. Starting my Search for Peace from the beginning again, starting again.

God Bless and Angels keep you all safe!

In Light and Love,

Tricia

My Absence

While writing my last post, I realized that I should probably explain why I’ve been absent for nearly a year. I didn’t mean for it to lapse this long, but life has gotten so muddled, confusing and the pandemic didn’t make things any easier on our family.

Family Struggles

My youngest daughter has been struggling with seizures, everytime we think that they’re under control, she begins to have uncontrolled seizures once more. She is also a type-1 diabetic and is moderate to severe autistic, so getting her to understand how important letting us help her care for herself is a very real challenge.

My oldest has had her own struggles, she fights with anxiety and depression herself, being a high functioning autistic, she too has difficulty comprehending things that we take for granted everyday. I will not add her troubles out of respect. She is traveling along a tricky road that if she doesn’t learn to grow up quickly, she will find herself in more trouble than she could ever dream of in two years when she goes out on her own…

My relationship with my parents is still a work in progress. I and my mom have a yo-yo relationship, somedays its really good, and others we’re worst enemies at war. I mostly keep to myself these days to ensure that I don’t do or say something stupid that will further harm our relationship. I am being very conscious and aware as I can be over my word choices and how my emotions are in check so that I do not rise to any bait that might be thrown at me by my mother. I have little issues at all with my dad, except maybe that he let my mom get away with treating as a sub-human being…I’ve written before the woes and troubles of that relationship.

There was a hiccup in my marriage as well. Through the stress of the pandemic, and him working on the front lines (walmart workers have to deal with people constantly, I will heavily defend that those in that field, no matter what store are front line workers! They are vital at keeping our country running!) Things became very stressful and we drifted apart. I wanted to spend more time with him, but he became invested deeply in Eve Online (a player controlled space game, its actually incredibly fun especially if you like PvP) that he lost touch with his actual family while spending time with an online close community. That might have been one reason I bolted to South Texas out of nowhere, because I felt trapped, abandoned and just needed air and an out. After talking through the issues and a little arguing–mostly because we’re both stubborn and thick headed sometimes–we worked our way back to our usual and calm relationship.

Again. Communication. Is. Vital!

Personal Struggles

So I’ve touched base with the family part, now its my part. While I’m not necessarily suicidal, I’ve slipped back into some very dangerous habits that I’m not proud of…I stopped taking care of myself, sometimes to the point where I didn’t bathe for a week. A lot of it was because of my bipolar reinforcing the excuses I made for my lack of self-care, but really, at the root of it all, was the lack of worth. I didn’t feel like I was worth anything, so why bother to care for myself if I was already worthless?

My touch on reality slipped. I started to spend a lot–and I do mean a lot of time within my own head, living in a daydream while letting myself autopilot through my empty and completely isolated days. My husband was gone at work for sometimes 10 hours at a time, leaving me with nothing to do but spend time with myself. I spent so much time locked inside that I just lost touch. It took me quite a bit to get back on my feet again, to reconnect and to see that there is a life worth living and interacting with outside the one I created in my mind.

Getting back in control was hard though, the pieces of me are always rotating, depending on the circumstance, wanting to take control is like knowing the ship is sinking and you’re being asked to become captain and go down with the ship. Not something you want to do, right? But it’s important to take up the reigns and step up to the responsibility that life demands.

I always find an excuse to not do something that includes interacting with people, even as silly as playing MMO games, writing on my blog, streaming on my Twitch stream…really is ridiculous. My agoraphobia is getting worse as well as my enochlophobia (I think I got that one right, its an intense fear of crowds or large gatherings of people). It’s difficult for me to do the simple things, like go out and get groceries, go to the doctor, and even going to the dentist…anything that involved leaving the apartment absolutely terrifies me.

Being physically and mentally disabled with both being invisible disorders is very difficult to deal with as well. As my health continues to slowly decline, I am hit hard by people who cannot see my ailments and constantly accuse me of ‘abusing the system’ or ‘wasting precious tax money’ for being on SSI…I didn’t ask to be crippled…I didn’t choose to have such severe mental illnesses, and if I could choose, it most assurdly wouldn’t be this! I’d be a healthy, fit, workaholic that was also a clean perfectionist and not even a spec of dust could be found in my house! Because that was me around 17 years ago…before I became pregnant with my first daughter. Then shit happened and my life spiraled down from there.

PTSD is an invincible enemy to fight. That demon will haunt you no matter what you are doing. Sleeping, eating at a resturant, swimming to exercise, watching a movie…it doesn’t matter, it creeps up on you and slowly submerges you into the horrid waters of memory that you never want to think of again! This triggers anxiety, which is a beast in itself to fight, and failing to get back on track without making a scene leads to depression, because you feel like you let others down, made a fool of yourself, or that you just proved you aren’t worthy of having anything of value, because of the memories that were dragged up…

Mental illness is one of the worst things I fight with. I can handle pain, it eventually passes, no matter how bad. I can just lay in bed, and wait it out. But emotional pain…that gut twisting feeling, that deep chasm of hopelessness, the anger, the sorrow, the guilt…those do not just ‘fade away’ with time. We don’t heal on our own. We all need someone to lift us up…and sometimes that someone is ourselves…sounds counter-productive, but this is usually when we make a decision, to be strong while we are weak, to create a helping hand because there is none. To split ourselves into two, our broken self, and the inner strength every one of us contains, no matter how insignificant we feel, how hopeless life tends to be. Inside us all is that other half, the light and the consideration for our own wellbeing and survival. This other half of us doesn’t care what people think, isn’t concerned about stereotypes, or current fashion.

The World At Large

Aside from my internal and personal struggles, the outside world has affected me as much as it has affected everyone else in its own way. My family has needed to worry about being on the front line as my husband works at Walmart, he has to deal with customers everyday who have absolutely no care about getting other people sick. He has to handle money without gloves, wear insuffiently effective masks and keep the world moving so that everyone gets their food, and other supplies. These are usually long shifts, so that’s 9 hours of risk of exposure.

Being someone that is immunocompromised, I am concerned with catching this virus. Part of me hopes I have an autoimmunity to it just as I do the Flu strains, but I think that’s just a day dream…It concerns me how many people don’t care about the lives around them, as if they don’t realize by not wearing something on your face, you are acting as a drunk driver on a packed road. You are endangering others by your actions, and those actions could end up killing someone. While there is no strict punishment for not wearing a mask, and I am not suggesting there should be, it is important to think of other people when you cover your face…you may be fine, but that doesn’t mean the person standing next to you in any way is the same.

Please. Just wear a face covering. Even if it is loose so you can breath, keep your nose and mouth covered! They sell special extenders that go on your face under the mask that keep it from sucking into your nose and mouth when you breathe, creating that horrible suffocating feeling. There are ways to use a bandana that allow for good airflow…please, research it and wear a mask…

I caught a bad respritory illness in the beginning of february, I thought for certain I had developed Covid-19, but after being tested I discovered it was the very beginning of pnemococial pnemonia. I had likely contracted it while at the store with an older gentleman in front of me in line, he turned his head and coughed behind him, without caring that I was only 7 feet away…

Not taking precautions can lead to serious repercussions. Ignoring the problem will only make it worse, not better! The fight and arguments over not wearing masks are really lame. They are the same fights people shouted about the law of seatbelts not so many years ago. People screaming about how being forced to contain themselves and their children is just a travesty for their personal rights. Seatbelts save lives. Masks save lives. It isn’t hard to make this connection. A piece of layered cotton is not going to suck your brains out, there is no way for the government to ‘cow’ you down by wearing one, and you aren’t losing any personal freedom or rights by wearing one. Think of it like clothes, no matter how much you wanna just walk around naked because of whatever your reasons, you can’t. Law says you must wear clothes. Why not bring that up with the rights of your freedoms? If you’re going to fight for one then you must fight for them all.

Becoming Stable Again

I’ve been on a manic high from my bipolar without realizing it. I have been doing strange things that were out of character and not well thought out. I’m on bipolar medication and everyone believed it was under control, but it was simply well hidden that it was not.

I recently came back from a spontaneous trip to south Texas to visit my friend…there was no real planning, no thought to the dangers of traveling via plane during the pandemic, and no real well thought out plan of coming home…from the middle of July until the middle of August, I just went out and did things I wouldn’t normally do.

I had fun there, I won’t lie! I saw and experienced things that were the most awesome o fmy life! First time flying, first time seeing the ocean, first time actually seeing native mesquite trees and palm trees, as well as the first time getting into the ocean! I also did something beyond my character, I dyed my hair and added orchid pink strips to it.

While all this sounds fun and harmless, the fact is, it was a decision and trip made with no prior planning and just a quick order of a plane ticket, pack and get to the airport. Not a safe or smart thing to do even in the best of times.

But I am becoming stable once more. My medication has been upped once more, and I am no longer allowed to make major decisions without the supervision of another ‘adult’. Which I agree, since I honestly don’t seem to be able to make those decisions responsibily if I am in a manic state…

I have lived my life basically in a lie. I thought I was in control of my bipolar, I thought I had a great amount of self-control and discipline. Yet this recent thing was a massive eye opener and made me look back at everything else I’ve done in the past that could have gone so very wrong but ended up somehow going perfectly. That was all both God watching out for us as well as pure luck! Do not think that because you are on medication to control a mental illness that it makes you 100% cured, there is a way to have manic flares, depression, and psychotic episodes, depending on the type of illness one has.

Having a mental illness is exactly like having a serious physical illness, it has to be monitored for signs of getting worse, properly tended to daily, getting realistic with what ones limits are and how those boundaries should be set. I personally have a line in the sand, my side is safe, as long as I do what is decidedly safe on my side, I know its a correct decision, but just like anything made in sand…the tides wash that line away, which is why it is important to keep a track of oneself. To know where that line is, even if it becomes faded or vanishes all together under the tides of an emotional ocean rising to challenge the boundaries that have been set.

My depression has been slowly improving, and while it still has its ups and downs, I am no longer as suicidal as I was when I hit the bottom. I am not ashamed to admit that I’m sitting in the middle of my chasm, staring up and being so far down, there isn’t even light at the top. But as always, we need to rely on our own strength and our own inner light to help us find our way in the dark. Even in the absolute lowest point, where we feel the darkest and that no one is there to help us stand up, that’s the most important time to realize that we don’t need someone else to pick us up. We are stronger than anyone else to help us because we know what’s wrong and they don’t. Creating your own light, picking yourself up, and accepting the darkness doesn’t mean you’ll magically feel better, but it means that you are stronger than you realized and on a road toward feeling better. Just take it one breath at a time. Even if its as simple as brushing your hair, putting on pants, wearing a long t-shirt, it doesn’t matter. Just do one thing or even a half of one thing every day, and that’s enough!

I’ll try to resume this blog, I am still struggling with my manic high, doing about a thousand things at once, but I will do my best to keep this among my priorities. Currently, there are many important things my bipolar has prevented me from being able to do. It keeps me from eating, showering regularly, and brushing my hair. I have to force myself to slow down and do these vital self-care routine things, and even then, I can’t do much to remember all of it every day.

I have to go for now, but please stay safe, take careful precautions while out in public, and God Bless and Angels watch over you!

In Love and Light

Tricia

Struggles of the mentally ill

My biggest problem with my journey through my mental health has been knowing when to reach out and to whom that should be. I’ve failed many times in the past, and there is nothing harder than hearing those words of “I can’t help you” and have to pick up your own pieces by yourself knowing that people who should have helped, couldn’t (or wouldn’t).

One of my biggest setbacks to getting actual non-therapy professional help is PTSD. It is severe and it keeps me from being able to cross the threshold for any hospital if I’m headed there for a mental condition. I can usually manage if its for a physical problem (i.e. sick, injured, whatever medical condition forces me to an ER or to get tests), but if I’m going because of a mental condition, nope! I can’t even cross the doors…my brain goes into full panic mode and I start going hysterical, crying and fully break down.

Why is that particular thing so important to mention right now? Because on Sunday, I had to call our local police department to escort me to a Crisis Center (I was too distraught and suicidal to trust myself to drive there on my own). Once I was there, and after waiting an eternity for someone to see me, they suggested I go to the hospital for a further eval and possible admission.

And that’s where everything broke down. PTSD started to set in, I went all shades of red, then white, then red, and finally white again. I felt like I was going to pass out. They set me up with a social worker who would take me and help me through until I was given a room, but that didn’t stop the terror. I was going back to a hospital that had treated me extremely poorly in the past and I just knew I would get the same treatment again. Because face it, no one treats mentally ill people properly, for some reason we are sub-citizens that do nothing but feel sorry for ourselves and can’t just suck it up and let it go. And yes, I was told that by a psych nurse last time I was there.

Once we got to the hospital, I was okay walking all the way up to the doors, I was mentally ready–or so I thought–until those doors opened and then I just went straight into PTSD panic mode. I literally started to just back up, regardless if there was traffic, shaking my head violently and went straight back to the vehicle that took me. My safety zone. The driver and social worker both immediately rushed to my side and comforted me, offering to let me take as long as I needed to get through my reluctance to go inside. Eventually the driver came back with a wheelchair and had me sit in it (I was really unstable and nearly falling even with my cane), they had the idea if I closed my eyes and put my hands over my ears, I wouldn’t realize I was crossing the threshold.

That worked. For the most part. Getting checked in was the hardest part. I got to a room very quickly, I was treated fairly decently by the staff, I was situated directly across from the nurse’s station and treated delicately.

Without going into extreme detail as to what treatment I received, I was only treated poorly by a handful, but most were kind and very helpful. I was admitted Sunday afternoon and allowed to be released Monday afternoon. It was very helpful.

Until it wasn’t.

Once I got my things back, I just wanted to go home. So naturally, I didn’t think about looking inside my purse for anything, because I saw a security guard take them and put them (supposedly) immediately into a locker for safe keeping.

It wasn’t until I went to purchase food at a grocery store that I realized several of my important cards were missing…my bank card among them…

I went into rage, panic and immediately just straight anger.

After getting my stuff paid for through my husband (who was on the clock and had to rush to the front and pay for me, which was totally embarrassing) I rushed home and canceled those cards. Then had to pay an outrageous fee to get them replaced! Next came the mad rush to quickly transfer old number to new number before bills came out (I prefer to pay auto withdraw when I can trust the places in question).

Next I called the hospital and of course, they played like it was my fault. I was treated rudely, dismissed and basically told “well it didn’t happen here!” when it most obviously did! They refused to look at security footage, refused to look at the log of who had access to that locked room. And refused to do anything for me because “we don’t cater to crazy people’s paranoia” and demanded that I simply misplaced the card or lost it myself.

So once again, while it started out as a pleasant experience, it wasn’t enough to help my PTSD….I will never go back to a hospital for mental health again…this was their last chance and they STOLE from me! Not only those cards, but the MONEY I had in my wallet!! Granted…it was only $7…but that was extremely hard saved money from over seven months! That was emergency fund money!

It might not sound like a lot for most…but those who live paycheck to paycheck and have a balance of $0.10 after each paycheck can readily understand my distress! This is money I will never get back! If it had been a $1, I could move on…but $7 is too much not to get upset about! Being a diabetic and having no money on a card in the case of emergencies is horrifying, that money was supposed to allow me to buy a candy bar or a sugar drink if my blood sugar were to tumble (as it frequently does–and yes, I try to keep my purse stocked with little sweet things, but we can’t always afford to replacement and during summer, they can’t be there due to heat melting everything everywhere! yuck!).

Its hard to get taken seriously when you have mental conditions. No one wants to believe you, even if you’re not a habitual liar…everyone thinks you’re “crazy” even if you’re only simply anxiety and depression, and God forbid if you’re diagnosed with Bi-Polar or DiD or anything along those lines, because you’re always treated as though you were the worst psychotic schizophrenic that ever existed!

Listen.

Mentally ill people aren’t all serial killers or murderers waiting for an opportunity to strike.

We’re people too. We have feelings, and usually feel them much more acutely than normal people do.

Don’t be afraid of us…most of us are completely harmless. We’re actually more afraid of you normal people than you are of us! Because we have to rely on you to get us through those really tough times.

I am eternally grateful for the people I met in that hospital stay. Both the patients and the staff. I love the nurses and other staff members that made our stay there comfortable and were so incredibly kind and thoughtful. I appreciate their endless efforts to prove to us that there are good people out there. And I am grateful for the cooperation and kindness that other patients showed each other. We supported each other, even if it was just staying silent and sitting next to someone in distress. I applaud the social workers who did their best, the therapists who helped us cope and the doctors who took time out of their busy schedules to speak with each of us individually to ensure we felt safe and comfortable and weren’t being mistreated or ignored in any form.

I am here today because of those individuals! Thank you!

However, I do not appreciate being robbed while waiting for my transfer to the ward which helped me. I know I was robbed while still in the ER portion of the hospital. How? Because my husband and family took my belongings home before I went “downstairs” to the ward where I’d call home for a day.

I hope that person feels regret, sorrow and misery for knowing that they stole from people who were already on shaky and rocky grounds. I hope they go through the same trials we have to and learn the lesson that it is not okay to steal from those unable to defend from such intimate and callous intrusions!

I felt it very important to update everyone that sometimes, we do need to go that extra step and seek deeper mental help. Even me, with my severe PTSD (which they were nice to keep giving me my anxiety meds when it got beyond coping skills and something to help me sleep), went to a hospital and refused to leave until I was taken seriously.

Please, if you’re having thoughts of suicide, struggling with severe depression or know someone who is, don’t hesitate, don’t worry about hurting their feelings…and don’t worry about being mistreated…reach out, call 9-1-1 or whatever your emergency line is if the suicide hotline cannot connect you with helpful enough information. Police and emergency staff are there to help you! They won’t make it worse and they’re incredibly understanding of such delicate situations. Get help! Don’t wait! Suicide is NOT the answer to your problems! There IS light after all that darkness! PLEASE! GET or GIVE help to those in need!

I love you all! I hope everyone has a safe fall/spring depending on your hemisphere!

God bless you and Angels keep you safe!

In Love and Light,

Tricia

[Not]Coping with severe pain

I’ve hit a point in my life, where I’ve had to decide, what is important and what can be put aside for later days. Unfortunately, my blogging was one of those placed on the back burner.

As most who know me know, I deal with a lot of health problems and some mental ones as well. Recently, those health problems have come to a fine tipped point and shut me down from nearly everything else in my world. It’s taken quite a bit for me to be able to start to breath again and deal with life on a wider scale.

My pain hasn’t been addressed by any doctors, no one wants to touch it, just blaming it on Fibromyalgia or stating that I must see a pain specialist from here. Many of you know my past struggles with both of these, it just doesn’t work the way the doctor thinks it should. I cannot go to any pain specialist because I can’t afford them, my insurance only covers ONE pain specialist and they are not a true pain specialist but instead an anesthesiologist, which means they only give injections, and only those which have Nsaids in them…I am lethally allergic to that and Tylenol. So my pain has been left untouched.

I also have very bad teeth. I can’t afford a dentist and my insurance is not taken by ANY dentist as I am over the age of 24. My insurance covers ADULT (beyond age 24) complete extractions, but no dentist will accept the insurance over age 24. So I have to deal with constant infections now and some have become quite severe.

My quality of life is really low right now. I’m managing, and I’m struggling, I won’t lie about that. I’m taking one minute at a time, and sometimes those minutes are so bad I wish that I’d could just disappear, or just die because I didn’t think I could live through the pain. Yet here I am, still alive, proof that pain doesn’t kill us…

I’ve honestly tried every route I can think of to get some form of pain relief. Legal route, that is, as I refuse to try anything illegal…even if it would work, I’m not going to break the law, no matter how I feel. I feel abandoned, ignored, neglected and just hopeless in my medical struggles…people think my asking for something for my pain is an addict looking for a fix…and I’m honestly tired of fighting in my own defense about it. “Take OTC drugs, they work just as well as narcotics.” Is what I’m always told, or they try to prescribe me Norco, Tramadol or other meds that have narcotic/Tylenol mixtures. When I state I’m allergic to both Nsaids and Tylenol, everyone states there is nothing else that can be done.

I’m frustrated. I won’t lie about that. I’m enraged that I’m being tossed aside because of ALLERGIES. I KNOW there has to be something I can be given…there has to be SOMETHING for people like me, I know I’m not the only one with this form of allergy! Yet I feel like I’m being punished for every single person out there with an addiction. I feel like every addicts struggles have been tossed on my shoulders because of my allergies…

I have migraines, and can take NOTHING for them…I have severe pain days where all I can do now is sit and stare at the wall, because if I DARE to CRY I’m going to trigger a migraine…there is nothing for me to do for my toothaches but cry (which triggers a migraine). Cold compresses, heat compresses, they’re wonderful, but they don’t last nearly long enough to handle true problems. Only a bridge to give relief until something else kicks in…

I’m so FRUSTRATED and ANGRY that I can do nothing but suffer now. My conditions are getting worse. My doctor won’t look into any other reasons for my pain, as he’s gotten it in his head its Fibromyalgia and that’s that. I can barely walk, my back and my joints scream in agony to lay down, so I don’t sleep very well. My neck and head can’t handle sitting up for long periods of time, so I have to carefully lean back in my computer chair (it has a neck pillow and memory foam back support) to alleviate some of that pain…I used to be able to do Yoga and a few other easy exercises, but now I can’t even do those without severe pain.

I’m starting to run low on hope. There’s nothing anyone wants to do about it, there’s no where else for me to turn. I’m trapped. Stuck and without any clue what to do next. I can’t afford most CBD oil anymore, my only options have been vaping, and while that works to take the edge off, it isn’t a solution…granted, since I started vaping CBD oil (I carefully selected the company I would use and did TONS of research, so I didn’t just pick any retailer/seller) my asthma improved, my migraines are shorter in duration, my anxiety has improved and my depression has become easier to manage. I just wish it had a greater impact on my pain…while it does take the edge off of “normal” days, when pain days come (usually with weather shifts, and the like) it doesn’t help hardly at all.

I want to be able to do the things other people do. I want to go for walks in the park, I want to be able to take my daughter to the mall and walk around looking at shops! I want to be able to enjoy life! I’m tired of feeling like my body is a prison that I’m trapped in, like I’ve been convicted wrongfully of a crime and sentenced to a life sentence in prison with no hope of parole or proving my innocence.

I don’t mean to make this blog a total rant…but this is what’s been going on in my life these past months and I don’t have anything really positive to say about it unfortunately. No one cares about my well fare, my pain or my quality of life. I’ve tried, I’ve cried, and I’ve done my best to be my own activist…it doesn’t work. No one wants to care. So I am ignored, cast aside and neglected. Left to suffer and live a life that no one should ever be forced to. I wouldn’t even want my WORST ENEMY to live like I do…

Being in pain constantly makes me very moody and hard to live with, I can only deeply appreciate my husband for his understanding and compassion to put up with me, and I feel bad for my daughter who has to deal with the brunt of it when things go south and arguments pop up. No matter how hard I try, or how much medication I’m put on, my mood will not truly improve until my living situation does. No one deserves to be in pain 24/7…its cruel and inhumane…especially when I have insurance that would pay for something to make me have at least bearable days…

I just want to not be in agony all the time. Is that so much to ask? Between my body and my teeth, there is nothing I can do that makes me comfortable. I’m always hungry because I can’t eat very well, I’m always fatigued because of how much pain I’m in, and yet I’m still the one that has to remember appointments, drive to them, make sure everyone gets their medications, wakes up on time and that my kiddo does her homework…its too much burden on me honestly…I want to just focus on surviving the rest of today, but I can’t even take a moment to stop and breathe most days now it seems. Even the simplest tasks make me feel like I want to die…

Sorry for being such a drag this time…I’m not in a good place, and haven’t been for a while. Even my therapist has nothing to say about it since my moods and feelings are completely justified and even he says he’d struggle to not want to die if he had to deal with what I’m going through. I’m determined to keep going…and I’m struggling to keep hope that someday, someone will help me with my pain…

I hope everyone else is having a much better September than I. May God and His Angels watch over and protect you.

In Love and Light,

Tricia

Current Events in my Life

Its been a while since I’ve had a chance to breathe and write, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to give everyone an update to my current events.

My medications were upped due to sliding back down in the dark abyss of depression and anxiety. On top of this, when my medications were upped, I developed a condition whose name I can’t remember, but it causes the muscles from waist up to spasm and twitch painlessly. This–of course–requires another medication to control since I can’t stop taking my Abilify (which is what caused the problem in the first place) since it works so well.

The twitches are annoying, and the medication that stops them causes its own set of side effects that I might have to stop taking it over. The twitches actually caused me to–comically–spill my drink all over me when my hand holding the cup to my lips decided to just dump my drink all over my front! There is no pain with the twitches, and its quite humorous to watch the muscles in my arm just randomly jump around!

The medication to stop the twitches causes extreme blurry vision, fatigue, sleepiness with sleeplessness…so I’ve been going to bed at 11 pm exhausted and wake up sometime between 2 am and 5 am unable to sleep anymore but still just as fatigued and exhausted as when I went to bed…it really sucks.

On the other hand, another HUGE event that took place that has caused me to be too anxious and busy to write is that my youngest daughter has begun to have seizures. It took a while for the doctors to catch it properly in time to properly diagnose her, but now they say that since she has irregular EEG and her brain waves aren’t doing what they’re supposed to, she’s being considered epileptic. My poor baby already has type-1 diabetes and now this? I feel very sorry for her, and even more so that we still don’t know the causes of her seizures–the trigger that is–and she’s going to require much more testing to see if they can find that said trigger.

My oldest daughter has constant tremors in her hands, they are so shaky that doctors want me to get her tested for epilepsy as well, since not all seizures are ‘grand mal’ or cause you to lose consciousness. I’m worried that her EEG will be just as irregular as my youngest’s and both my daughters will have followed in my footsteps and become epileptic. (They are still certain that’s what I am, but they can’t catch the event in time to see the irregular brain function and where its located at.)

Personally, I’m doing better with the upped dosage of my medicines, my depression is getting better managed, my anxiety is still very high, but I don’t have constant panic and anxiety attacks, only roughly two to three times a day. That might sound like a lot, but it was constant there for a little while, my heart would always be racing and my mind would constantly be finding threats that I needed to be anxious over and everything would set off a panic attack. So two to three times a day is a gracious break from the exhausting constant adrenaline that panic and anxiety attacks cause.

Sorry this is kinda short, I’m wanting to go relax and breathe for a bit now. I hope everyone has a safe weekend and I wish you all lots of love and peace!

May God and his angels watch over you!

In Love and Light,

Tricia