Escaping

Lately I have not been feeling the greatest. Between being mentally exhausted and physically exhausted and having to manage to keep my life together is a HUGE struggle. My body is sore in places I never knew could be sore. My right hip is turning more causing my knee to turn towards my other knee. I’m clumsy. I have no balance, and I am probably at the weakest I have ever been. Like literally having no strength, struggling to open simple things. 

There are days where I want to just stay in bed and cry. Although it solves nothing, it sounds lovely. Getting out of bed is a struggle, I usually have an energy crash around 3pm, then it’s on to forcing myself to do things. There are days where I don’t want to be here. Whether or not I mean in this physical world or where I am at in life, is up in the air at this moment. 

I usually have about 2 days in the week/weekend where I want to do something. Like escape reality. Escape the city life, where it is nothing but chaos and sirens constantly. My place of solitude is about 18 miles away, give or take. I can’t access it in the winter, but, during the summer it is my second home. 

A place where I can reflect on my life, what has happened and how far I have come to this day. Other times I think about how hard it is to live in this world. Then there’s times where I go and just become one with nature, and enjoy the fresh air. 

This is my home away from home: 

Reflections, on the ever so still river that brings me more happiness than I could imagine. Such beauty in nature, isn’t there? 

The trees are starting to change colors around here, and frankly, I am not ready to let this place go for the winter to roll in soon. To me the winter starts when fall is about a month in to it’s season. It snows around the end of October and that’s only a little over a month away! Ugh. 

Art; the only thing that can take my mind off of what is going in my little world. This is a digital edit of a “fluid painting” I did a little while back. Even tho it is chaotic, it’s calming at the same time. I am very tired, and have tons of empty canvases to be put to use, but my chronic illness is prohibiting my ability to do much of anything anymore.  

“Art is a step from what it obvious and well-known toward what is arcane and concealed.” – Khalil Gibran

Struggling

Sorry that I have been absent for a couple days. I have not been feeling the greatest this past week. Hell, this past month, really.. 

For about 7 weeks I have been on chemotherapy. Methotrexate, orally. I started out with one pill a week for 2 weeks, 3 pills a week for 2 weeks and then I started at 5 pills a week. Which now is my my second week of that. It has definitely taken its toll on my body.

To be completely honest, I don’t know why I am on chemotherapy. Other than the fact I tested positive for Human Luekocyte Antigen B27 (HLA B27). That can be anything. Psoriatic Arthritis, or Ankylosing Spondylitis, Reactive Arthritis, or other arthritic autoimmune diseases. I do know I fit the symptoms for PA, and AS. 

I am awaiting further testing from my rheumatologist. Have to have x-rays of my spine and lower back. After the x-rays, comes MRIs to fully diagnose my HLA B27 mutation. 

In the meantime I have to take the immunosuppressive drug. I used to have thick hair, that has thinned out quite a bit. Which is severely depressing. What’s more depressing is that I am struggling to find out what is going on in my body. 

Here is a picture of about how much I lose in the shower, every time. 

I know it may not seem like a lot, but to me, it’s a scary thought. I don’t know how long I will be on chemotherapy. I don’t know how long my hair will hold up, even with taking folic acid 4x a day. 

Body Pain…ugghh

I have been having widespread pain for about 4 years now… By pain, I mean debilitating pain. The pain where you can barely move let alone get out of bed sometimes. 

I have been on 3 different pain medications. First one was Tramadol, it only worked for so long, then gave me headaches. Second was Norco, stopped working for pain, they increased the dosage, had severe stomach pain after that. Now I am on Percocet, 3x a day. It’s starting to only work for an hour at most. Then after that, I am screwed. 

Some might say, “those are harsh opiods” or “damn that’s a lot for one day”… I want you all to know that yes, they are very harsh on your body and can be addicting to some. My next step is likely morphine. Sounds completely insane, I know. 

Here is what I take pain medications for:

• Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (connective tissue disorder)
• Fibromyalgia
• Arthritis of many types some still yet to be determined by blood work. 

I am 28!!!! I used to be physically active. I ran a lot, I was in track, marching band, and cheerleading. (How I don’t know. Literally the clumsiest person. Ever.) I thought maybe all the activities I did in school may have been the cause of my issues. 

Boy, was I wrong… My gene’s are mutated at some points in my chromosomes. I did not know I had a genetic disorder, I did not know it would cause so much debilitating pain. I go to physical therapy for EDS, but so far it has only flared my fibro up. 

I have the joints of an 80 year old….ugh. 

My body is literally falling apart. 

This constant pain is like surviving a rollover accident and feeling like you got ran into by a train. (I’ll get to my rollover in a different post)

P.S. there is no cure for EDS, only treatment. 

Letting It All Out: Artistically

Sometimes my emotions become too much to handle and I need to release them. 

In a positive way. 

So I turn to art. I draw and I paint. I have no certain style other than abstract I guess.. I just go with what I feel at the moment. Which usually is total chaos and sadness.

Here are some of my pieces.

Life After The Trauma

Let me start out by saying that burying your child has to be one of the hardest things to have to do. No one should ever have to experience it. Then having to deal with the loss of your other children to the state.. 

I  never mourned the loss properly, let alone at all. Me bottling it all in caused so much damage. I became extremely depressed, started to isolate myself. Wouldn’t go out of the house. I became paranoid and would always think people are judging me. But, were they really? No. Probably not. 

My relationships were very unsteady. I jumped around a lot. Then I realized I wanted to be with my daughters father. I loved him very him and to this day I still do. We got back together at the end of 2013. He has been my rock. My best friend. I have put him through a lot of stuff these past years. Always fighting. Me getting mad over everything. Even if it was little. Mentally and emotionally I was unstable. He stuck by me, just loving me unconditionally. 

January 2017 I had a break down and broke up with him. I was just so unstable that I didn’t even know me anymore. I regretted that. So bad. I was completely lost without him. A sobbing mess for about a week straight. I decided I needed to go to a therapist and work out my problems. Not only for myself, but for him as well. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him.. we had planned it all before I had a break down. I needed him back. 

I started therapy in January! I cried the whole time. Let everything out and it felt fucking relieving. To have all that weight on me for so long, it was such a burdern and ruined a part of me. I was diagnosed with BPD, Borderline Personality Disorder. Damn. I was scared when I found that out. I initially thought I was a whacko dor having that. She diagnosed me with PTSD with paranoia, Major Depressive Disorder, And severe Social Anxiety. I see her weekly now. 

Therapy has opened my eyes up to a lot of things. My BPD is from my childhood trauma. I have likely had this my whole life, which explains my childhood outburts, crys for attention, and abandonment issues growing up. My PTSD came from my son’s death and everything involved with that. 

Having Borderline Personality Disorder does not mean I have personality issues. Infact, my brain doesn’t process emotions properly. I have a black and white way of thinking. I have control issues. And my fear of abandonment is still here to this day. My outburts are usually caused by my “fight or flight” mode. 

I am a person who has been through so much that life literally made me screwed in the head.. 

Here I am trying to survive the unknown.