Hello, all. It has been a long time since I've posted here. The Fibro Forum is where I have been posting as most of my problems are related to pain, fatique and weakness. Not being able to jump the physical hurtles, being hurtled at me. I appreciate your concern, Olivia, and am sorry you are struggling so, as well. The moderators are indepensable, and without you, basically, none of us would exist. At least not in our individual persona, as me, tyno3 for example. I would have no place to turn, except to my pdoc, and it will take 3 months to see him. I sometimes turn to my brother, but he is mad at the moment, b/c I went ahead and dealt with the parents crisis situation w/o consulting him. There was pretty much no other option to the way it all transpired, and since he lives a thousand miles away and claims to be w/o any resources to contribute, can't even come to see parents, there really wasn't much point, was there? My sister is dealing with the parents demise by demonizing me. She says I turned her Dad into a monster. Dad has a brain tumour and I certainly did not cause it. My stepmother has end stage kidney failure, Maunchausen's Syndrome, and is a big boil on my butt which I tend with double kid gloves. She isn't my biological mother, she was our housekeeper who stole my Dad. But apparently, it was his choice, so I've treated her with a great deal of respect, kindness. Somewhere, I have heard, "chose your enemies carefully, for it is they that define you". Friends come and go, enemies are forever. I don't have that kind of time or energy to waste on her so I treat her fairly and firmly. She does not return the favor. So, to answer the question; what's been going on? Well, the short answer is; far too much.
I am allergic to stress. Not only due to the BiPolar II, but even more so due to Fibromyalgia. There is a study mentioned in one of the forums' entries about Fibromyalgia and the inability of the Central Nervous system to recover from stressful events. I think it goes something like, the Parasympathetic Nervous System is underfunctioning; while the Sympathetic Nervous system doesn't let down from assault or percieved assault. Therfore, Fibromites are constantly in a state of high alert, adrenalin pumping, cortisol generating, fight/flight reaction always on. The off switch is broken. Therefore, one is constantly in a state of high anxiety and eventually, this wears and tears on the body. Also, one takes a long time to feel "normal" again. We cannot reach the deep levels of sleep required for the mind and body to heal. So we carry a bag full of every psychic and physical injury evr contracted, around with us , always. I cannot remember when I last felt, OK. Add to this BiPolar II, where we are perceptively challenged and percieve things much more acutely than "normals", (whoever they be), and we can get pretty messed up. That is where I am, right now. Taking baby steps to try and pull out of about 16 unresolved assaults of life, totally out of control (my life that is).
I don't know how to shorten the storey. Everybody has a storey that will break your heart. Credit Amanda Marshall. No relationship with bio mom. She also is BiPolar, was institutionalized repeatedly as I was a young child, shock treatments, self medicating and always taking too many pills. That may never get sorted out. Dad ran away with the hired help, can't really say I blame him, but, he picked a drunken, compulsive gambler (of course none of this came to light until he had some money for her to dispense with). And dispense with it, she did. Robbing my children and my sibs children of any decent chance at a future. Family violence, infighting and bickering has been the norm for as long as I can recall. So, I went ahead and had children at age 27. No rush to fill the gaping hole in my middle as many do, but rather a calculated, well, I seem to have enough on the ball, I am resourceful, I am aging, I may as well have kids now (27), if at all. I went gene shopping, looking for someone as polar opposite from me as possible, with no history of BiPolar Illness. I had my 1st. Great. Just like his Dad. Whew, dodged a bullet. Then , 18 months later, lo and behold, just as I'd landed my dream job, having to sign a one year contract, I began throwing up. No!, not, well, yes. OK. So I have to turn down this job I'd been working towards my entire life, everything I blieved in, Social Justice, and all that. Became a stay at home Mom. Husband stopped coming home. Stopped bringing paychecks home, so I went to work. My first two months, it cost more to gear up for work, clothes, lunches, childcare, than I was earning. But somewhere deep inside, still a believer, I hung in. One thing turned into another, eventually I was earning real money and since hubby, (gene donor) had other places to be, I said adios. He was fine with it, as was I. Except my life became twice as hard. On the second role of the dice, the not expected one, childwise, I flubbed. Snake eyes. BiPolar, just like me. Then elder was determined to be ADHD. Younger, we couldn't ever get a handle on it, just moody. Surprized, nope.
Well, here I sit, 21 years later, Son #2 whom I love dearly, sleeping in the next room. Sleeps about 16 hours a day. Cannot get a job. Cannot do much of anything. And me here, on the computer, pouring out my soul. We are percieved as weak. It's like we got a sign on our back's saying, "kick me". Almost everybody hurting out there takes the opportunity to do so. Helps them feel a litle better about their own situation, maybe. But not for long.
We have moved twice in the past year. We have gotten the news of Dad's brain tumour, added to his dementia. He had to be institutionalized. I was locked in a toxic mould, run down, water soaked, musty, nasty house with him, just him and me, for two years and three months, before Adult Protection stepped in. I had a week to find better housing. I did. It cost too much. Had to be done. I was fought by not only my Dad but by Brothers, and Sister, who is seriously BiPolar to the point of being psychotic, bless her heart, she shoots arrows into the tent, totally unaware of what she is doing.
Then the RCMP (Like State Police) get called as my Dad becomes increasingly aggressive towards me. I can no longer care for him. He gets placed under 72 hours observation, then institutionalized, then determined to have a golf ball size tumour, in his head. So, I have a house I cannot afford, a son I cannot support, a stepmother I cannot appease, a sister who sees me as the devil, a brother who wants to wear the pants in the family, but hasn't any, and a mother I cannot speak to, without dredging up ghosts which haunt me. Then a move, a landlord who treats me as if I work for him, calling at 9:30 PM last night screaming at me on the phone b/c I didn't get up and go out and move my truck when his pit bull b----, forewoman decided to mow the grass at 8PM, $20.00 to get me from the 14th to the 28th, or 29th, (does it matter?), impending allegations of misappropriating funds from proceeds of sale of parents house (which had to be burned due to a health hazard) which had a mortgage bigger than the house itself. Oh yeah, and phone calls about my stepmother's 13,000 Visa which she burned at the Casino. How are the rest of you making out?
Beware of rural emergency rooms. Ten days ago, I went to emerg, chest pains. Serious chest pains. Was given a shot of who knows what, in the butt, began to feel some relief, blood pressure back down to almost normal, and released with a prescription for NSAIDS, which I cannot take, ulcers, and another prescription for something the attending doctor called "a muscle relaxer". Well, it was not. It was a very high dose of ephedrine. Like Speed. Like Meth. I am seriously hypertensive, and almost died. This didn't help my ability to cope, nope, not a bit. Two weeks before it will be entirely out of my system. Then I have to drive 60 miles (actually, since the twenty bucks I have won't be around then, I guess I won't have to drive, will I?) Supposed to drive 60 miles to see the doc who wants to reassess my condition. My condition? It would take twenty doctors twenty years to reassess my condition. Think I'll join my second son, whom I love dearly, and just sleep through the next two weeks. Hey but, I got a roof over my head, although I expect the crazed landlord or his pitbull forewoman to come crashing through the door any minute, all day, every day, cause there are dandilions growing in the garden. I hapen to like dandilions. Tasty when ya only got twenty bucks. So, how are you all, doing?