Monday, January 11, 2010

Lately

My brain has stopped. I keep trying to write, and then deleting it all. We've been busy lately. There was a big emergency storage-emptying, which led to an extremely cluttered house with pathways of frustration and toe-stubbing. This state of disarray sent my mind into a stressed out tizzy, which has of course, left my head wide open to any little stimulus that wants to come along and stab me in the eyeball. Then there was Christmas, which was fulfilling to my soul, but exhausting on my body. It wiped me out, as was expected, and I hardly moved for a week, which seemed a little dramatic. As soon as I started feeling human again, we had an emergency house-cleaning that lasted three days and left me feeling drained, irritable, strung out, sore, a little crazed and relieved. The last because FINALLY my house isn't disgusting and embarrassing. My head feels clearer. It bothers me a little how much it bothered me.


Thanks to a random link on my Google Alerts, I've realized that I've been disassociating, or dissociating (I'm confused), and have been since I was very young. It's a weird coping mechanism that I've always been aware of but only now have a name for. When my head gets bad, or, you know, I'm having an uncomfortable bowel movement or something, I totally zone out. I'm gone; can't hear, don't see, I'm just thinking and I'm somewhere so far removed from whatever triggered me that I often lose time. In my research on this subject I've learned that some people who exhibit this behavior have alter personalities who step in during the primary's absence. I do not. No one else takes over, I am in total control of it and I still only have the one personality, I'm just not as present. I wonder how common this is in migraineurs, or any chronic pain patient.


The neurologist at my local poor people hospital has now canceled on me three times in a row, with a month wait in between rescheduled appointments. It's irritating, but since I don't really believe anyone is going to help me anyway, I kind of feel like they saved me another wasted trip to another crappy doctor. I'm just trying to focus on what is good. I'm lucky to have an advocate to rage out on the futility of the american medical system for me. I'll be over here disassociating.

(That was supposed to be funny. I'm worried it'll come off sad. I refuse to type an emoticon at the end of the sentence to affirm my attempt at humor, though. I've decided that I use them too much. Instead, I will now be typing out long explanatory paragraphs to ensure that my intention is understood.) :)

I think I am too tired to be writing anything coherently. My birthday is in two days. I was hoping to get away with ignoring it, but apparently there is going to be a dinner. I don't want to seem ungrateful, but... poor me, people around me love me enough to want to celebrate my birthday even though the celebration is going to make me wish I hadn't been born, cause of the head pain, you know, but it's just a few hours and I have to just suck it up because it'd hurt everyone's feelings if I didn't go. This is why my head hurts all the time. Not really.

Disclaimer: Half of this entry was written while very, very tired. I would just delete it normally, but I've been doing that too much lately. Besides, I think it's funny.

3 comments:

WinnyNinny PooPoo said...

I started to comment, but dissociated myself (which in my day was called zoning out)so I can't remember!!! I have a lot of these moments these days but I think its because I'm old - thats OLD not ODD.

Not joking, back when I was diagnosed with migraine (they used stone tablets for your prescription) there was a theory that migraines were a type of seizure of the blood vessels (thus all those anti epileptics). Small voids in time would be like petit mal problems. Hmmmm.

Happy B day in a couple of days! Hope you don't dissociate out of all the fun!

Sue said...

Happy Birthday!!!!

As for zoning out - I do it too. It's a survival thing for me. If I didn't do it, I would never be able to turn out the lights, cover my head in ice bags and lie still (to avoid barfage) when my head is really bad. Instead, I would be lying there thinking about all of the things I should be doing instead of lying around.

I figure - hey - whatever works, right?

steph said...

Thanks ladies, I'm glad to know I'm not the only one that this happens to!