What I Wouldn't Give....

                                                                                                                               July 05, 2013 11:53pm

I am restless tonight. I had a day full of shopping, lots of walking so I should be tired out but for some reason my brain won't shut off and my heart feels heavy. I've been trying to listen to music to calm my soul but it's not helping like it usually does. So next best thing....journaling. I don't know why journaling is my last resort but it is. I put it off at all cost even though every time I've done it before it's calmed my heart and i've been able to move on. I don't know exactly what is on my mind tonight but I do recognize that i'm sorta on the brink of being emotional.

I do wish that I could learn how to truly enjoy and participate in my life. I feel like I go through the motions of life each day but I don't feel like I truly live. I have also had to focus on my weight issues the past few days cause i've been going clothes shopping with my mom for our trip to Ohio. Trying on all of those clothes and having them not fit has been hell on earth. Each time a shirt or a pair of pants didn't fit it just felt like someone tore my last shred of self esteem away from me. Thankfully my mom was very encouraging during both shopping trips and if she hadn't have been there I would have come home empty handed because I would have given up after the first store. I can't stand looking at myself in the mirror. My weight is making me so miserable. I know it's why i'm so angry with myself. I've let myself get to this size and I've done it willingly. I lie to myself every single day and tell myself that my weight isn't that out of control. 

Right now in counseling we are focusing on my anger. We have discovered that my anger is all directed at myself but that I take it out on those closest to me. Now i'm in the process of trying to figure exactly what is causing me to be so angry with myself. I'm gathering tonight that it's my weight gain and the fact that i've just stopped taking care of myself. I punish myself with food, I know that much but I don't know what i'm punishing myself for. It's like playing connect the dots and sometimes I feel like some of the dots are missing or at the very least hiding very well. 

This particular journey of exploring my anger is one I have been putting off for over 20 years and I know it's not going to be a pleasant one. I do not want to do this but I know that if I want to have any chance at true happiness that this is something I just have to push myself through. My weight gain is just a symptom and a consequence of all this anger that i'm holding on to. My anger is my security blanket and at almost 33 years of age I no longer look cute walking around with a security blanket, especially such an ugly one. 

I am gonna leave this entry with this song that keeps running through my head and it's called What I Wouldn't Give and every word in it is resonating with me so strongly as I write these feelings....

Feeling like i can't forgive but i want to

It's like i don't know how to live i'm afraid to
I used to think take them as they come without hesitations 
Now it's like my head is filled with lies and persuasions

As the sun begins to fall i hear her calling out to me she's saying hurry it's one more
day gone

What i wouldn't give just to forget
So i can remember how to live again
I wanna live again

I am feeling dissonant and distracted
The toxic chemicals are spilling in my head and they're bleeding deadly reactions

And as the moon begins to rise he shows me all the colors that i'm hiding i'm hiding myself

What i wouldn't give just to forget
What i wouldn't give to get some rest
So i can remember how to live again
I wanna live again

Am i desperately losing this fight
When i should really be choosing my flight
Take me now

What i wouldn't give just to forget
What i wouldn't give to get some rest
So i can remember how to live again
I wanna live again

What i wouldn't give just to forget
What i wouldn't give to get some rest
What i wouldn't give just to forget
So i can remember how to live

Just needed to vent

I am having one of those days where i'm just....bleh. I've been having horrible allergies (the worst I've ever had) and now i'm going through a bad flare up of my fibro. My mom texts to check on me this morning and I tell her that my allergies are better but now my fibro is acting up and I hate that my conversations with her are always about me not feeling great for one reason or another. I just want to feel normal. *sigh* Although sometimes I think feeling normal would freak me out cause I wouldn't know how to be if I wasn't dealing with fibro, or depression, or anxiety, or allergies, or pain of some sort. So it just leaves me feeling...bleh. I want to stick my head in the sand and never come out. If I don't even want to be around myself then how can I expect that anyone else would want to be around me. I really really hate when my fibro flares up. I become so uncomfortable in my own body that my depression just plummets as far down as it can go and my anxiety skyrockets and i'm just plain miserable. When i'm not having a flare up then life is tolerable but these flare ups make me want to just give up. Ugh! I hope this flare up doesn't last too long, it's only been a day and already i'm at the point of wanting to give up.

The way I feel during these flare ups...emotionally and physically...is something I wouldn't even wish on my worst enemy :(

My life with Fibromyalgia

This post is one that I so desperately want everyone to read. My struggle with Fibromyalgia has cost me so much over the last 4 years. I have lost numerous jobs, I have missed several engagements with friends and family and in turn I have actually lost friends because they felt I was flaky, I have struggled in my current relationship because of the depression and anxiety this illness has cast upon me, I have lost the energy to do much of anything (especially keeping up with household chores) which has left my boyfriend having to do everything....work, go to school and keep up the house. I could go on and on about the things this illness has cost me but I feel like this post would never end if I did that. 

I am a part of several Fibromyalgia support groups on Facebook and today one of them posted the following which is a "letter from Fibromyalgia." I had to blog it because it explains exactly what I go through on a daily basis much better then I ever could. 

A LETTER FROM FIBROMYALGIA

Dear Miserable Human Being,

Hi, my name is Fibromyalgia, and I’m an invisible chronic illness. I am now ‘velcroed’ to you for life. Others around you can’t see me or hear me, but YOUR body feels me. I can attack you anywhere and anyway I please. I can cause severe pain, or if I am in a good mood, I can just cause you to ache all over.

Remember when you and Energy ran around together and had fun? I took Energy from you and gave you Exhaustion. Just try to have fun now! I also took Good Sleep from you and in its place gave you Fibro Fog (a.k.a.) Brain Fog. I can make you tremble internally or make you feel cold or hot when everyone else feels normal. Oh yeah, I can make you feel anxious or depressed, too. If you have something planned, or are looking forward to a great day, I can take that away too. You didn’t ask for me. I chose you for various reasons: that virus you had that you never quite recovered from, or that car accident, or childbirth, the death of a loved one, or maybe it was those years of abuse and trauma. Well, anyway, I’m here to stay! I hear you’re going to see a doctor who can get rid of me. I’m ‘ROFL’ (rolling on the floor laughing)! Just try! You will have to go to many, many doctors until you find one who can help you effectively. In fact, you’ll see many doctors who tell you ‘it’s all in your head’ (or some version of that). If you do find a doctor willing to treat this ‘non-disease’, you will be put on pain pills, sleeping pills, and energy pills. You will be told you are suffering from anxiety or depression, given a TENS unit, told if you just sleep and exercise properly, I will go away. You’ll be told to think positively, poked, prodded, and most of all, you will not be taken seriously when you cry to the doctor how debilitating life is for you every single day!

Your family, friends, and coworkers will all listen to you until they just get tired of hearing about how I make you feel, and that I’m a debilitating disease. Some of them will say things like “Oh, you’re just having a bad day”, or “Well, remember, you can’t expect to do the things you used to do 20 years ago,” not hearing that you said “20 DAYS ago”! Some will just start talking behind your back, while you slowly feel that you are losing your dignity, trying to make them understand, especially when you are in the middle of a conversation with a ‘normal’ person, and can’t remember what you were going to say next!

In closing, you’ve probably figured out that the ONLY place you will get any real support and understanding in dealing with me is with Other People with Fibromyalgia! They are the only ones that will understand your complaints of unrelenting pain, insomnia, fibro fog, the inability to perform the everyday tasks that ‘normal people’ take for granted.

Remember, I’m stuck to you like Velcro – and I expect we’ll be together for the rest of your life.

Have a nice day



I hate this illness more then anything. It all started hitting me about 4 years ago and it progressed slowly at first but over the last couple of years it has overtaken my whole life. For almost 3 years I kept myself isolated in my house....I hardly ever left. I became so anxiety ridden that I couldn't bear to leave the safety of my house. There would be times when the anxiety wasn't so bad so I would try to work a job but within a few weeks my anxiety would overwhelm me so much that I would miss work and eventually I would get fired. Along with the anxiety came full fledged panic attacks and the most severe depression I have ever known. During all of this was when my eating disorder really took flight. I have always had an issue with overeating but never like it has been these last few years. The body pain then took over and I demanded that my doctor send me to a Rheumatologist to see if I did officially have Fibromyalgia. Within 3 minutes of being in the doctor's office he had poked and prodded all 18 of the trigger points of fibro and 17 out of 18 of them hurt like hell. You have to have at least 11 painful trigger points out of the 18 in order to be officially diagnosed. He looked at me and simply said "you have text book fibromyalgia." Well thanks doc.....now what? He told me to listen to my body and take it easy....exercise (swim, walk, yoga) as much as I could, eat healthy, upped my dose of Cymbalta to help with the depression but is also FDA approved for fibromyalgia and then quickly sent me on my way. My psychiatrist had already put me on Cymbalta and Clonazepam for my depression and anxiety. Okay, so I joined my local gym which had a water aerobics class and so I started doing that and I found that I loved it and it was summertime so I swam at the pool at our apartment all summer as well. This was last summer. Last fall the extreme fatigue set in and BAM I would be stuck in bed for days unable to move due to such extreme exhaustion. Then came what we fibro sufferers call "fibro fog" it began affecting my cognitive abilities....I would be in the middle of talking and then just go completely blank or I would struggle so hard trying to find the right word to say or have major issues putting sentences together. Within the last month for the first time I actually forgot my date of birth and social security number while registering with my new doctor (I am 32 years old....this should not be happening!) And I can't forget to add that during the whole past 4 years I have suffered from insomnia....even after the extreme fatigue set in. Along with the sleep issues are the night sweats, vivid dreams and nightmares which happen almost every other night if not every night when my fibro is really out of control. 


These days I struggle on a daily basis with all of the above. I have fibro flares on a regular basis which is basically when my fibro is at its very worst and knocks me on my ass for several days or even weeks at a time. I am going to see a brand new primary care doctor May 14th and I am hoping she will have something different to tell me. I tell you, May 14th can't come fast enough!! I have been trying to get massages when a good deal comes up on groupon but massages are so expensive to do on a regular basis even though I know it's what I need the most. Thanks to my wonderful mother, who also suffers from fibro but on a smaller scale then i do, I am going to her massage therapist tomorrow to get a specialized fibro massage along with some heat therapy. I am looking very forward to that. 

Well, I could go on and on about this part of my life but I hate being such a debbie downer all the time. I am hopeful for a good day tomorrow and as we in the fibro community say...."sending soft hugs" to myself and any other fibro sufferers who happen to come across my blog. 

Much love,
Ashes

Overeaters Anonymous

Last October I tried attending Overeaters Anonymous meetings to help with my eating disorder. I finally admitted to myself that I had a problem. In the first few meetings I was told by other longstanding members to give it 5-6 meetings before deciding if OA was for me. In the few times that I went I had no problem opening up and talking about my issues with the group but the problem fell when I started trying to work through the 12 steps (they use the same steps as AA) at home. Those steps are gut wrenching to say the least. I failed miserably. In just the few weeks that I participated in the steps at home I felt more sadness and anger then I had in my whole life. It was because I wasn't holding back, I was my own counselor so I didn't filter myself. I just let everything pour out and it drudged up EVERYTHING that I have been holding onto over the last 32 years. I couldn't handle it. So I quit. I stopped attending meetings and I shoved my workbooks onto the back of my bookshelf on the lowest shelf where I wouldn't have to look at them. I hadn't opened one since....until this morning. I picked up the smallest of the 3 books called "For Today" which is a small daily reading. Wouldn't you know that the reading for today slapped me right in the face.

The greatest happiness you can have is knowing 

that you do not necessarily require happiness.

                                             William Saroyan

Dissatisfaction was one of the hallmarks of my compulsive illness. Few things measured up to my expectations, so I found a way to make it up to myself. I used food to give me the illusion of happiness. What freedom there is in giving up that chase -- to go somewhere, do something without demanding that I be happy. Paradoxically, it is when I go my way with an open mind, free of expectations, that I most often find my heart singing.

For today: What do I need, if not happiness? I need the willingness to take what comes, to get out of my own way, to let go of the idea that I should feel good all the time. 

Well played OA, well played. 

At home therapy

I remember starting this blog with the intention of putting myself out there for the world to see if they wanted to. I didn't want to hide anymore. I didn't want to keep all of my thoughts bottled up inside and swirling around in every part of me. I failed. I let my laziness take over and I honestly forgot I had even started a blog. I've never been a blogger or been someone who needs to write in a journal. My counselor however thinks that I need to write every day. I hate that suggestion but she's the professional so I guess I should give it a thorough shot. I hardly ever sleep at night cause my thoughts won't shut off so my counselor thinks that if I journal at night then I might start sleeping again. I'd rather have meds but we'll see how this goes....

The problem with journaling is that I have it in my head that it has to make sense and that it has to sound eloquent and smart. The thoughts in my head hardly ever make sense and they are by no means eloquent in any way. My thoughts jump all over the place so I get really frustrated journaling because I have a hard time concentrating and putting my thoughts into actual sentences. J (i'm gonna use my counselors first initial from now on) says that the great thing about journaling is that it doesn't have to make sense. She says to just put fingers to keys or pen to paper and just write whatever comes to mind. That freaks me out. I'm not an organized person at all....my room is a nightmare as well as my bathroom, car, office, closet, kitchen etc. However, when it comes to a journal I have this overwhelming need to have it completely organized. My thoughts need to make perfect sense. The thought of just writing whatever comes to mind makes me want to kill puppies (of course that's just an expression).

Perhaps this perfectionist way of thinking about my thoughts is what keeps me in such a severe depression. I wonder if my depression would lift if I could just let go and say whatever and get all of the junk out of my head in some random way. Even during my counseling sessions I am very careful to plan out what i'm going to say. I'm very articulate and I sound so together but I know J sees right through me even though she doesn't call me out on it. I think she's waiting for me to call myself out on it. I am definately stuck in my head all the time and as much as I hate it I don't really ever try to truly change it. I somehow feel safe in my head. I have a way about me that is able to make myself seem completely together when I am around people who I don't consider close to me. In fact I am pretty sure that the only person in this world who actually knows the real mess that I am is my boyfriend Chris and that's only because we live together and I can't hide my crazy 24 hours a day.

There was a period of time in my life for about 2-3 years after I got divorced where I felt okay. I felt normal. I was happy. I began living outside of my head and I truly gave of myself to others. A special relationship ended during the end of that time period and when that happened I lost my friends, my sense of belonging, my support system and myself. After that I shut myself off from everyone. Since then i've never been the same. I've dealt with chronic depression since I was a young child and during that 2-3 years I just mentioned my depression disappeared completely. But after the pain and loss I went through, my depression came back and it has stayed and only gotten worse with each passing day. I miss the person I was during those few years but I don't know how to get her back. I have become an empty shell of a person. It is the most horrific feeling. I wake up each day wondering why I am still here. What's the point?

Meh. I don't really feel like writing any more right now. See this is why I don't open up and talk about what's really going on inside of me. It's a dark world that I live in. I don't like for people to see that world. Thanks J for pushing me out of my comfort zone but just know I REALLY don't like it.....at all.

Mirror

I wrote this post about a year ago and I just ran across it again tonight and I realized that I still feel all of these same things about myself. It's sad that in a year nothing has changed. I decided to repost it so that way it will be in the forefront of my mind....I want to work on changing these things about myself.


If someone were to ask me what object I hate the most in this world my answer would be a mirror. If they were to ask me why my answer would be because I don't like what I see when I look into it. It makes me sad that when I look at my reflection in the mirror I can't stand looking into my own eyes for more then 15 seconds. Of course I use a mirror every day because it's essential but I don't really look into it. I try to really stare into it but the tears always come. So what is it about that reflection that I hate so much? Why am I scared to look deeply into my own eyes? What am I afraid i'm going to see?

Complete insecurity. A liar. A fraud. A manipulator. Anger. Resentment. Unforgiveness. Someone who is untrustworthy. A letdown. A failure. A bad friend. A nobody. Someone who is unreliable in every way. Loneliness. Incapability. Physical ugliness. Internal ugliness. Fat. Unworthy. Addict. Unlovable. Someone completely shutdown. Restlessness. Unsatisfied. A drifter. Unambitious. Lazy. Selfish. Self involved.

These are the things that I see and that I try so hard to avoid facing every time I step in front of a mirror.

I am haunted by these words. By these feelings. The things inside of me are not pretty. No one truly knows how hard I try to mask how I really feel about myself. I have convinced myself that denying and avoiding the truth will eventually make these feelings go away but who am I kidding. These feelings will continue to destroy me until I face them head on. Everyone always says "the truth hurts" but what they should really say is that the truth kills....it rips your heart out. That's why people avoid it like the plague. Nobody likes confronting who they really are deep down inside. It's torture sometimes to face the person you really are when no one else is looking. There is no one on earth I hate being in a room with more then myself....alone. The person that I described above is not someone I desire to be. She is someone I want to rip to pieces so that the person I want so much to be can come out. Unfortunately i don't know how to rip her into enough pieces so that it's impossible to ever put those pieces back together again. I want to have to create new pieces....better pieces....to take the place of the old ones. But for some reason I always manage to find a way to put back together the pieces that I hate so much. Perhaps because I've lived with them for so long that in some twisted way they are more comfortable to live with then going through all the hardwork that it would take to create a new way of life. Trapped. I forgot to add trapped to that list of things I see. Viscious cycle.

I am pretty sure that if I were to put this out to my friends and family the majority of them will tell me that I need to ask God to change me. Give my life all over to him and let him work out these demons. And that's a nice thought and all but the thing is I've done all that. I've layed my whole life down at His feet on several occasions over the years and I've even felt happy to some degree but still at the end of the day when I looked in the mirror I still saw and felt all of those things about myself.

It's always late at night when I think about these things the most. It's why I don't sleep. I guess I just needed to put all this down in writing, just to get it out of my head....at least for tonight.

Books that have influenced my life

The following books have influenced my life greatly and they are books that I will keep on my bookshelf for the rest of my life. I reread them at least once a year.

1. Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller
2. Mere Churchianity by Michael Spencer (www.internetmonk.com)
3. Dangerous Wonder (The Adventure of Childlike Faith) by Michael Yaconelli
4. Safe People by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend
5. Messy Spirituality by Miachael Yaconelli
6. 70x7 and Beyond by Monty Christensen
7. To Own a Dragon by Donald Miller