Ariel's Two Cents

 I'm having another rest day, and I am not particularly happy about it.  Rest days are still an uphill battle for me.  I am one of the people who has been forced to believe that they only have value when they are productive members of society.  After a lifetime of being told, in no uncertain terms, that it is unacceptable to be unproductive, it's nearly impossible to allow yourself to rest.  This is where I am at now.  I know that my body needs to rest, but my mind will not allow it.  Even when I'm lying down to rest, my brain is going a million miles a minute.  I have Bipolar II and am currently in a hypomanic phase , so resting with racing thoughts is becoming even more difficult than before.   Today's rest day is brought to us courtesy of frying chicken last night.  You got it!  All I did all day long was fry chicken for an hour in the evening, and I am in so much pain today that I can hardly even get out of bed.  I wa...

I did a "thing" yesterday and I need to write about it.  I have been seeing my therapist 2-3 times per week for over eight months, and I have never, not once, ever taken myself to and from the office alone.  Last week, Lori and I discussed the need for me to prove to myself that I can do this, so yesterday was the day that I tested myself with it.  It did not go wonderfully, like I had hoped, but I did survive, so there's that!  I went through a lot, mentally and emotionally, before I even left the house.   I woke up with my 6 am alarm and the first thought in my mind was, "How in the Hell am I going to make it there and back alone?"  I could not shake the thought from my brain to save my life.  My mind was intent on convincing me that every single thing that could go wrong, would go wrong.  These dark thoughts first thing in the morning prompted a panic attack of epic proportions and I am still reeling from it all.  I woke Michael up to...

  Painsomnia ...  Easily one of the most-hated aspects of my autoimmune life.  It hit me at 3 am today.  I woke up with excruciating pain ripping through my entire body.  My bedroom was too cold, and my blankets had been stolen from me.  I woke up to try and get myself warm again, but by then, my pain was too high, and it was too late for me to go back to sleep.  I asked Michael to help me get a cup of coffee (which he does every morning and never has an issue with it) and to grab my pain medication for me.  I keep it in what I call the "control bag" which is a medication bag with a combination lock on it, to keep everyone out of my controlled medications.  Michael doesn't even have the combination to it, so it's quite secure.  He got up and made the coffee, got my medications and computer for me, then promptly went back to sleep, which I have no problem with.  That is what he does every day.  It's our "normal" routine, so this...

  EMDR .  Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.  These words have been the main topic on my mind for the last year.  I read the book, "The Body Keeps the Score" by Bessel Van der Kolk, and it made me a believer in EMDR.  I spent a few months searching for a therapist that was trained in EMDR, and it didn't take me long to find Lori and make her my therapist.  She's more than just a therapist to me.  She's a healer who loves her craft and I love to watch her in her element with it.  When we are at our therapy group sessions together, she just glows.  You can tell that it is, indeed, her passion.  EMDR was recommended to me many years ago, but I was nowhere near ready to deal with my trauma at the time.  I am now ready to process my trauma in a safe place with the person I trust implicitly, Lori. Lori and I have done a lot of preparation work for the reprocessing phase of EMDR.  I had a long way to go when I got to Lori...

 I'm not Christian, but like many non-religious households in America, we partake in certain elements of the traditions that most of us were a part of as children.  This is no different for my family.  This weekend was Easter Weekend, and although we did not attend any religious services, we did have a family get-together.  My son who has unofficially moved out, came home and brought his girlfriend with him.  We just love her to death, so this was not a problem at all!  I wasn't able to afford the traditional Easter meal, and the kids all wanted fried chicken instead, so I chose to "go with the flow" and make the meal that they all wanted.  I mean, it's not often that they all agree on anything, let alone the holiday meal, so I went with it.  Interestingly enough, "go with the flow" was my intention on Insight Timer yesterday, so it was fitting that the day went the way that it did.  I was given ample opportunity to utilize my intention for t...

Today has been a bad day for me, and I think writing about it might help me to process it.  I woke up in a lot of pain this morning.  I overdid it yesterday by going to my group therapy session, then running errands afterwards.  The meltdown first thing yesterday morning was not helpful for my spoons.  I use an app to track my spoons.  It's called Visible  and it uses your heart rate to track your activity level to help you not overdo it and cause a flare.  It also tracks your Morning Stability score by looking at vitals like your Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and Resting Heart Rate (RHR) to determine if you should have a rest day or if you have been pacing well.  This morning, it gave me a rating of 1/5 and asked me to be kind to myself today.  That should have told me to just crawl back in bed and forget all about this day.  I used more than double my allotted points yesterday, so I feel like today started with a massive deficit instead...

 My heart is racing.  My palms are sweaty.  I'm getting dizzy.  My knees feel weak.  My vision is getting darker.  I almost can't see anything in front of me.  I'm hyperventilating.  I can't breathe.  I need help.  These are the symptoms that I get anytime I'm having anxiety.  I have been struggling with this since I was a child, and it has never gotten any easier for me to deal with it.  You see, I have been through horrible situations that have traumatized me forever.  I've been in a shootout.  I've been kidnapped.  I've been sexually assaulted and abused.  I've been beaten by lovers and attacked by my haters.  I have plenty of reason for reacting the way that I do.  I have been fighting a battle in my head since the chaos began.  I am a warrior!  I will never give up. C-PTSD is the reason that I struggle with these symptoms.  PTSD causes some symptoms, but when a person has comp...