Physical Pain @ MindSay

...you don't want to live at all sometimes.  I face many challenges...emotional ones.  Each day I'm plagued with a new negative thought, and other times I'm blessed with a positive thought.   The negative ones weigh more heavily these days.   I suffer from great pain with my menstrual cycle and last night throughout this morning my focus was on the physical pain.  The physical pain helps me cope with my emotional pain, because I tend to focus less on the emotional issues.  I guess it balances each other out.  Now I know why I have such physical pain--maybe God placed that in my life to help me handle things better.  Who knows.  The pain is so unbearable sometimes that there are times where I vomit or even pass out from it.   When I used to work in an office, I had to take off 1-2 days per month---and that was NOT acceptable in the corporate world.  But, then there were months where my pain was luckily at night time, where I could go to work and cope somewhat.   Later on in years, it got worse and I find myself not being able to work a full time job.  I'm lost.  I write.  

I'm writing right now because I am suffering from an anxiety attack.  I have to focus on something else.  Writing.  Usually I pick up my guitar and just start playing.  I write music and have been playing guitar for over 20 yrs now.  But, even that has lost it's flare for life.  My music is the same sounding stuff I played last year. Usually it changes and gets better with each year.  Now it has come to a lull.    I also cut my ativan in half, which is making me feel more alive- yet that aliveness can be confused with anxiety or flow into that 'anxiety zone'.  I want to be off all medications.   I can't even take pain killers because I developed an ulcer from Motrin and other muscle relaxing medications.  I had to be put on ulcer medication as well as a ton of prescription antacids.  That stuff can do more harm than good sometimes.   I hate medicine, but sometimes we have to take it in order to function.  What's the lesser of the two evils then?   It's rough.   I know, it can be much worse!   I totally know that.

My phone's still silent.  This morning, after my coffee, I went to my other blog and trekked over to its sitemeter and found that "she" was tapping in at midnight reading some of my archives.  The latest post was, "I'm taking a break from blogging" message.  I wonder what she thinks.  For the past few years, I've never taken a break from blogging. My writing has always been consistent and steady.  My readers emailed me asking if I was okay.  I have a large readership over there.  The blog is very controversial.  It deals with homosexuality and religion, so I have a lot of extremists waiting for me to fall.  I have many popular bloggers who are fundamentalists that all bash me and call me a lying deceiving dyke who preaches a false gospel.   And they call themselves "Christian" too.   Sometimes it makes me feel so down when I read what some "religious" people think of me.  What do I care?   They're judgmental hypocrites with no tolerance for different people of various backgrounds due to their upbringing.  But, I sit there and take it in.   Sometimes the debates are so overwhelming, that it literally takes an emotional toll on me.  I'm not sure why I let it bother me, but it does.  One religious woman said I should take my book off the shelves and stay with her and her husband and become a straight Christian and she'll set me up with a husband.   OR---I could just quit calling myself a Christian and go on being a lesbian.  

People can be cruel.

I can be cruel too though.

It's a relief having a blog where no one reads it.  Well, some people, but not a ton within a few hours.  Over on the other blog, I'm psychoanalyzed and dissected to the point of not even being honest with myself.  I can't be "me".  I don't even curse on there without relating it to a story of someone else using the words and putting a dash in between the prominent letters. 

"She" was a reader of mine.  That's how we met.  She looked at me from the other side of the country, falling in love with my words, my emotions, my strong opinions and viewpoints.  She commented a few times, then emailed me.  I responded to a few of her emails.  She was short, brief, yet concise with words that flirted just a 'tad'.  It could have been taken either way.  She's very intelligent and knows where to draw the line and if confronted, have it be just a statement--"oh I didn't mean it like that" type of thing.  You get my drift.  She has a way with words.  I wonder who she's talking to or stalking right now.   She has to have someone to take her mind off me, as she did with her ex.  She longed for me at a distance while her ex thought that they were "good".  I also know that she is a sex addict----which was wonderful in our relationship, however, there are some things that put up that ol' red flag.  But, I didn't mind as long as she shared her fantasies and 'other things' with me.  But I know she is tempted very easily and most of all, tempted by men.  She says she doesn't want to be with men, but I know that she is sexually charged by them immensely.   The bulk of our fantasies (which she initiated) had to do with men being involved, however she said she never wanted to be with one.  So, would you call that, "bi-curious"?   Kind of funny when you think about it.   She had to go on weird business trips and worked late so many times without explanations-----that I found out that one of her 'late nights' included a hotel. But she came home.  I know, because I called the reservation desk and found that she booked a room and came home at midnight.

Hrmm.   She denied it and said that the company set it up for her in case she wanted to stay.  Umm, it was 30 minutes away from her house and the weather was great.   Why would a company---a small one like that pay for a $300 room "just in case"?  

Anyway, she has lied to me so many times and I've caught her so many times that I don't know what to believe anymore.  She is such a good liar!  AND----she is SOOOOOOOOOOOO believable!   People say, "Her???  Nooooooooooo!"    They'd believe I would be the liar way before her.  Really.  That's kind of frustrating because even her family thinks her integrity is all there.  So now, whatever she says to anyone else- I must look like such a bad person.  I know she's not telling 'her side' of the story---I mean, 'her bad side'...and there is one. 

I miss her though.  I'm so sick of crying.   I wish I could just let her go and be.  I wish I could stop obsessively thinking about her so I can move on with my life.  But, I miss my best friend too.  I miss the old "her".  I miss how we used to be. I wish things were different...but I don't know if that would have been a good choice or not.   I hate the feeling of possibly being bad mouthed to neutral acquaintances of ours. 

So, it's hard to live especially when the bad times throw the desire to not live anymore.  Last night I said this to my best friend--that it was hard to live when you don't want to.  And then I told her I didn't want to eat steak because I'm trying to watch my cholesterol.  The health conscious suicidal freakshow. 

Ha.

Funny. 

Maybe things will get better?   I read somewhere online that if you are only happy when you get the things you want, then you'll always be unhappy.  Once you succeed in getting what you want, then you're going to want something else and it'll never be satisfied.  But, if you can manage to "be happy" while in the midst of waiting for your desires, needs, or whatever, you'll always maintain a healthy mindset.  

GAWD I wish I could do that!   

To sum up ... PAIN SUCKS!  There is no one who looks forward to pain, no one who gets excited about hurting, yet the vast majority of us survive our pain and move on to our LIFE.  If the pain is an ongoing thing, we endure it and grow from it.  If it threatens our life, we rise to the challenge, which in my mind is defeating it.  We really are amazing creatures! 

 

A Few Trite Observations

 

Pain ...

• in time, this, too, shall pass (sooner or later), or at least become less "tender"
• is a catalyst for change;  it's like a fork in the road where decisions, choices are vital 
• is a normal part of the human experience (I can't emphasize this enough!)  It is not abnormal to hurt!  Just don't get too "comfortable" in the pain and accept it as a permanent dwelling place.  I heard someone say once, "If you're going through hell, don't stop!  Keep walking till you see the light of day... and then RUN!"
• running from pain, hiding it, denying it ... are counter productive in the long run.  Find the root source of the pain, whether physical or emotional, and face it ... with help from friends and faith!

Finally, to those of us who have friends and / or loved ones who are in pain ... Sometimes there simply are no right words.  At these times, let caring speak through you - a touch, a card, a distraction, a friendly voice.  Acknowledge pain's presence, but make sure you distinguish between the pain and your friend / loved one.   Pain is not the person, and the person is not pain.  Get it?

 

If you wish to go deeper into this subject, try C.S Lewis' The Problem of Pain

 

Moving on ...

 

~ B