Just Enough Pain

As you may know things have been rather quiet for me lately. I’ve been low, in pain and fatigued. Just like a bus that comes in threes, so are my symptoms it seems. As ever, I learn something every time I fall into this cycle. This time I learned that having no pain is just as bad than having too much.

As with a lot of things, balance is everything. I’m starting to see how the Buddha’s wisdom of the middle way applies to so much more than I’ve been led to imagine.  Let me offer what happened to me me the last two weeks as an example:

When my ankles kicked off and I had to use the stick indoors for the first time in a while I was in a fair bit of pain as well as the muscle weakness. I had just managed to see my doctor for the first time so I finally had a prescription for my strong medication (well the Danish equivalent anyway). I had used the last of my English meds a couple of weeks beforehand and I knew just how strong they where, because they were basically out of my system and I knew I had to take them 14 hours before I was due to get up otherwise I would be groggy all day and my mind would wake up late.

I have a choice each night. I can risk it and hope I don’t develop any more pain or set my mind off by over stimulating another way. Music, poker, TV, a writing idea,big fix, or any stray random thought can set my mind off on a second wind, usually requireing 4-6 hours to wind down. If it starts late at night this can mean I’m not back in bed until 4am (like last night as a matter of fact).

So when I work I can hope that doesn’t happen and therefore don’t have to call in sick the next day (having to make the call often just after I’ve finally gotten to sleep) or I can take a pill just after dinner and know both my pain will go and that once I settle down for the night I will pretty much stay asleep until the alarm goes off.

As you can probably guess after last week, which was very difficult, I took the pills; 5 nights in a row in fact. Well Although I was groggy for most of this week and still a little low, the pain was gone and I was catching up on my sleep. This, in combination with adding another bus onto my route to work to reduce the walking, was helping to reduce the ankle issue and the hyper-sensitivity.

I’ve since calculated that the number of days in a row taking the pills is the number of days it takes to ware off. Yesterday it hit me. I was feeling better as I wasn’t so cloudy in my head or lethargic, then out of nowhere my sciatic nerve flared up around my right hip and thigh. Being in pain again (but this time without muscle fatigue) showed me for the first time that week I was over doing it.

I had stopped using the cane inside because I didn’t feel the pain, but I was obviously still over doing it as I spent a good 2 hours in pain. This is when I realised that for me to properly manage the fibromyalgia, I have to be able to feel just enough to know where the line is, but not enough that it makes everything else impossible.

With a week of feeling low but not in pain, when the pain returned I also noticed how the looping of thoughts in my mind that I couldn’t get to shut up all week, was being distracted by the pain. The pain was actually taking my mind of the depression, like how I use work to distract myself from the pain. I found another loop in the vicious cycle.

Since then I’ve had a similar twinge in my foot and my wrist. However after just an hour, even without the weak pain meds, they went because I listened to my body and stopped doing what was triggering the twinge. I could feel the warning signs before they started shouting at me. I needed just enough pain to find the middle way.

I offer thee words for reflection…

Guess Who’s Back? (Hint – it begins with F)

Well I’ve had my first Fibro attack in my new job. It’s been so long since I’ve hurt myself badly that I’ve almost forgotten how overwhelming emotionally it is to go suddenly from productive and fairly content one day and to constant pain, sleeplessness, fatigue and mental distress the next.

It was really strange observing my brain function shut down (part of Fibro), it took me three attempts to make ice tea, something I do once a day and have the routine down. Before the flare up my partner had noticed I was having trouble coordinating the cooking so that everything was timed so it completed together. It’s things like this that are easy to forget about the most when the brain can cope when things are dormant.

This is where the stress of my job comes in. I made a small mistake in a database this week, my first cock up. It took me half a day to try and restore it using computer fixes. When in the end none of the ‘fixes’ worked I coped and pasted the data back in manually it took a 3rd of the time. (As is the way of computers) I was unable to maintain my mood, getting frustrated by the tiniest thing. This combined with a bad pain day reminded me why controlling the physical fatigue really does help my mental state, as my threshold for frustration is far lower otherwise.

I’ve been watching House for the first time and I’ve just started season three. For those who don’t watch it I’m going to spoil a little here so look away to the next paragraph if you don’t want to know. Watching House go from pain free and enjoying life to being slowly taken over by the pain once more (in the same leg I have) it is so close to what I go through it doesn’t even fit as a metaphor.

I do however have some hope. I worked from home for the first time this week in my whole life and I maybe getting assistance with travel from work. I told them about the issues and they came back with a change in contract, I have go over with them in details, but it seems they are going to try and reduce the strain so I can function better and keep the Fibro dormant.

It’s amazing to be in a company that actually gives a crap about you. I fought for three years to try and get that in Britain only to be turned down because they need 5-10 years to write a policy on anything worthwhile (especially if it means they have to pay for something). One month on the job here and all I have to do is text or call my PM and use my laptop from home. I raised an issue and they responded that week. They have it together here in Denmark, they really do.

It’s amazing how scared I was at opening up this soon into my position on my temporary contract. I was terrified of being dumped and then unable to make the bills once more. We were nearly homeless in December if it weren’t for this lifeline who know what would have happened. Not only did they come at the right time, but they are the right company for me. I don’t know how representative they are of Danish workplaces in general, but I do know I’ve landed on my feet here and I’m confident it will work out. The gamble to go all in and make the move paid off. Phew! Now I’ve just got to do it…

I offer these words for reflection…

The Need for Something Needless

I’m a recovering workaholic and perfectionist. I’m used to filling my time with all sorts of tasks that ‘only I can get done’. Recently I’ve started extending that to the potential of an activity to grow into a really productive project and therefore ‘not a waste of time’.

Having started a new job and constructed a new routine I realised that everything I put into my schedule was about keeping a roof over my head, organising the house, developing my hobbies into a new career, constantly growing and becoming a ‘better person’.

As I mentioned in my news blog I had my 3rd week slump in my job where the fatigue sets in, this wasn’t news to me as it has happened many times before, but what was is how I dealt with it. What I did was to find something needless, something I could do that would take my mind off my ‘to do list’ and just do something for the fun of it. I often saw this kind of activity as a distraction from my worries, as a way to reject or ignore them, but I realised there was a difference in my intention this time, this was about finding a balance.

I first realised this when I picked up the guitar to just pay a few tunes because I felt like it. At some point my partner said I was playing the song too slow and this triggered that perfectionist in me, but instead of playing it the ‘right’ way I just stopped and played something only I knew, not to avoid criticism and hide, but because I wanted a space where I didn’t have to be perfect. I wanted to play not perform.

I needed something needless. I’m not playing the guitar so that one day I can get in a band, go on X-Factor and who knows where that might lead, oh no. I’m playing because when its me, in a room, on my own, with a guitar, I get a release. It has nothing to do with other people or where it might lead, it’s to do with how it makes me feel. Not everything I do has to lead somewhere or even be good.

After I realised this I started playing poker again, but this time just played the free tables. This worked even better than I imagined. Sure I began thinking perhaps I’d play for small stake just for fun, but the truth is that unless it was for fun I know it wouldn’t work. I know that there is no chance I’d be a pro-poker player, not because I don’t have the potential for developing the skill (if anything this last year has shown me is I do have that) but rather because I don’t know if I would want to risk one of my few safely valves in my life.

Something needless allows me to be here now and enjoy myself instead of delaying gratification for what could be in the future, as I have spent most of my life. Most importantly I need it so that I can let go of the idea of constantly being perfect, as my working life often demands, giving me something that demands nothing where I can finally be off duty and let my brain rest. Writing used to do this for me but now it is growing into my second career. I try not to think of it as work but it does require a lot of energy and I can easily over do it without realising it if I don’t keep this in mind.

As Bertrand Russell so eloquently put it “Wasting time is not time wasted”. So if you wind yourself up, trying to do everything and to do everything right, find something needless like I did. Something you can enjoy no mater if your good at it or not, even if you have to be alone to do it. Something that provides you with that inner balance so you can face your daily demands with an peaceful heart and not with a worn mind.

I offer these words for reflection…

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