Grief

Been struggling the past few days. I have been thinking of my friend in South Africa who is struggling right now with grief from the loss of his best friend and soul mate. His blog details the pain he is going through and it made me think of my own grief I have with the life I used to have. Of being able to walk without pain, life without taking any meds other than for psych, and being able to work without worry. Now I have no job, walking is no longer possible for long distances and yet I still think I can do it if only if I try harder. I tried for more than a year working two jobs that were physically and mentally exhausting. I went from working 60 hrs a week to nothing in 16 months. Now I don’t know if I can ever work again because soon as I get stressed or the pain levels get too high, I have a psychotic break and develop delusions that I believe are real. Like cutting my leg, I know it will not cure anything yet I can’t help but feel there is a foreign body in it causing the swelling and if only that swelling was cut open, I will be healed. But no doctor believes me. They just tell me to take my little pink pill to quiet the voices down and suddenly the delusions become just that and I realize just how fricken crazy I am. I know one day I will give in to the internal hell I face every day and try and open my leg up to see what is inside this lump on my leg. It is the cause of my grief, of my suffering this raised bump that some days you can’t see and others you can.  My friend has a different kind of grief but I know he suffers the same way I do with this bloody nerve condition we share. It has robbed us of our sanity, our livelihood, and our dignity. It bothers us more than we let on to people because we have to put a brave front on all the time and minimize just how bad the pain really is.

The other night I was contemplating ending my life in a few days time. I know I can really do it. I have the equipment and all that is needed is just a time and place. I know that I can really do it but do I want to leave my friends and family, who I know will be better off without me than with me living? I am tired of struggling every day, of breathing in and out and knowing nothing will change. My contentment period has expired and I want to expire too. I don’t understand why I should go on living when all I do is suffer. People have told me I am a good writer but so far it has not paid the bills and let me live a life that I can call my own. I just have trouble with the fact that I am so miserable. I am a negative person. I cannot be a positive when I do not see the light of day. Yet I just continue to stick around because my friend in SA needs me, my nieces and nephew need me, my therapist needs me.  I feel like such a hypocrite when I am trying to prevent suicides when the only one I am truly trying to prevent is my own. I read about suicide day and night and realize that I don’t know how I survived all the attempts I made over the years.  Reading about suicide makes me realize that statistically I should be dead. Yet I am not. Grief has frozen my heart to love again, and this nerve condition takes every ounce of strength not to throw in the towel after each day. I would love to work again and walk around the block without hurting. But that is no longer possible. I walk with an AFO (Ankle Foot Orthotic) and it is my help aid and my hindrance. People see that I am disabled. It has taken me a year to come to this conclusion and it sucks. Realizing you are disabled is no happy feat. It makes you wonder when you ever will be normal again and after 11 yrs of dealing with the pain and agony of nerve pain, I called UNCLE. I had enough. My friend, bless him, still keeps the fight to support his family and his friend’s son. He gets around in a wheelchair. He has more pain than I ever would dream of but the difference is that his is controlled better than mine. The US frowns upon narcotic use and so I am limited in my pain relief. I only take it when I have pain that is an 8 or higher and days when it is on the cusp of being an 8, I try to stick it out. I don’t do this because I like to be in pain. I do this because the stigma around pain medication makes me. My family doesn’t understand the difference between addiction and dependence. Actually few people do unless properly educated or if they also suffer from chronic pain. I can tell you I don’t misuse my meds. I don’t take it to feel high or to change the way I feel psychologically. I don’t take more than what I am supposed to unless I am close to being in a suicidal rage because my pain is up there and I can’t take it any longer. This means I am not addicted to it. I can go a few days without taking it, but barely longer than that. I can’t say I am dependent on it because on days I don’t take it I don’t notice being sick or worse than what I normally feel. I am chronically exhausted by pain and mental anguish that I hardly notice if I am dependent on the drug. My mind doesn’t think, oh I have not taken any pain meds today so why don’t I take it for the hell of it. I just don’t think that way. Some people do and that is a tragedy. And those are the people I am mad at because they ruin me getting the help I need from pain management doctors. If these doctors truly were able to help me with this and take care of my pain, I probably would NOT have had to file restrictions at work and then be out of work because those restrictions were not accepted by my employment.  That is why I am out of work, because I can’t walk around the lab anymore. It is like a huge city block and walking around and around for eight hours just about killed me. Hell after four hours I was ready to collapse in pain and sometimes I did. I’d have to leave in the middle of my shift because the pain got so bad or I had to rely on my coworkers to bring me work because I couldn’t get up off the chair and get it myself.  It was at times humiliating to be in that kind of pain and not have anything to take for it and then go home and suffer all night long. The hours I lost losing sleep were many.  I would get some relief after a few hours sleep but then it would be time for me to go to work my next shift. I sometimes would call out if I felt I didn’t get enough sleep. You can’t be dealing with a person’s lab values and have no sleep that could cost them their life because I am too sleepy to pay attention. What is worse I could not take any pain meds while working so I had to suffer through my shift without any relief. It sucked big time but I had to be alert in my duties. I had to stay sharp.  As much as I sometimes hated my job, I do miss it. I miss some of the people I have developed close relationships with over the years I worked there. I miss the routine of work. This is my grief and it hurts like hell