Journal

I apologize to my friends here.  I've been neglecting DS for a couple of weeks now.  I've been working on a new cross-stitch.  It's been relaxing.  My pain level has been surprisingly managable, despite stress at work increasing.  Oddly enough, I've also been slowly distancing myself from my family.  It's been over two months since I visited.  I was relieved when I found out I was working on Thanksgiving so I could reasonably decline dinner with them.  I'm throughly enjoying my little bubble of a world with my wonderful boyfriend and pesky cat. 

So for the moment, I'm delitfuling ignoring the exsistance of my Fibromyalgia. Not that I can really go out and do eveyrthing.  I still rest often and have become a how new level of homebody.  But I'm content, and surprizingly okay with staying home.  I usually get very upset if I don't go out for something (anything besides work and errands) once a week.

It may be because the new hobby, but also the sudden chill of winter.  Either way, I may be more a hermit for a while longer.  

Truthfully, the main reason I've been avoiding this place is that I was beginning to obsess with the pain and the problems and getting frustrated with it all.   I realize I still need to come to terms with my diagnosis.  I'm still grieving, and that can be a very private process. I'm still too raw to share my thoughts here. And I just don't have a lot of free time working night shift full time.  I don't want to spend it here comiserating. 

I am truely sorry to the friends I have made, and I don't mean to abandon you. It's just something I need to do for myself.  It's a selfish move, I know. But with this disease, you have to be a little selfish, adn take the time and things you need to create the best outcome for yourself.  

Maybe I'll be back in time.  Gentle hugs and wishes of painless days for everyone!

Joining DS has not being the homecoming I've been hoping for.  I don't feel quite like I fit in, and it's really discouraging.  Recently, I pretty much got into an argument with another member through Messages, and I don't know who started it, and while I'm sure it was all miscommunication, it left a bad taste in my mouth. 

Every talks about faith and support and being there for each other.  I don't feel it.  It may be because I already lead a fairly isolated life, and I just can't reach out to others that easily, even online.  Or I've seen too much tragdety and illness at work/family/life that it's hard for me to feel compassion or connection, that I'm too jaded- so I'm keeping what little emotion I have left for myself.  I've built walls, and it's scary to see how high they've gotten.

So now I'm wondering if I should continue on here.  If it makes any difference.   Usually, a visit just makes me more anxious and worried, or annoyed and frustrated.  Then again, that usually happens when I visit anyone besides than a select few.

I think, mostly, I'm unable to loosen up when it comes to this disease.  I'm still wound too tight, and still too tense.  I'm jaded becaues I've seen how much change has occured since it entered my life and I see my future slipping past me more and more everyday.  And this place is just a reminder.  How long before I can't work anymore?  How long before I have to take meds stronger than advil and flexeril?

Does turning away from this place change any of those fears? No.  But it would be much easier to ignore them.  To pretend that I'll get better one day or that I can be like everyone else, just at a slightly slower pace. 

I was already jipped out of my childhood. And now I feel jipped out of my young adulthood and I'm speeding headlong into old age.  But without the remembered joys of a long full life.  I'm 21 and I feel old.

I've been spending the last few weeks in a blur.  I wake, go to work, come home, go to sleep.  I live and breathe for the weekend, but then the weekend would come and I'd be too tired to manage anything but mild boredom.

So I pushed myself a little today.  My legs and feet were already killing me from work (eight hours walking and standing and bending... I need a new career), but I managed to limp my way through the grocery store.  That must have been a funny site- a young woman in scrubs limping and grimicing with any lifting, and I mean even the half gallon of milk was feeling like a ton.  But then I got home, brought the groceries in (boyfriend did most the work), and managed to put away the cold stuff.  The rest is staying on the floor, I refuse to bend over any more.

After breakfast with my sweetie,  I put together a lunch for him, mixed my trail mix (my first attempt, hope it comes out okay, I made over 24 oz!), did the dishes and prepared salad for dinner tonight.  

I've accomplished more this morning than I have in a long time.  My domestic bliss level is high.  My physical wellbeing not so great.  I already took a tylenol PM, and will be headed to bed shortly.  Let's hope I can survive one last night of work before the weekend.