Writing As A Form Of Therapy

Thanks @Decadian. Double ouch back to you! That sounds very painful for you...

I don't know if I have chronic pain - I don't concern myself with labels too much. I just know that I am in pain from at least 3 to 5 soft tissue injuries at any one time in my life, and it has been like that since my very earliest memories. I have never experienced "no pain", but then, who has?

We all have pain, and it tends to get a little bit worse as we get older and our past injuries catch up with us, and our new injuries take longer and longer to heal...

Hey, I'm 44 years young. I've got lots of jiggling left in these bones before I lay me down to rest... hahaha...

I have no control over the hypermobility condition - it is a source of constant pain. But I do have control over how I respond to the pain...

That is a great comfort and a great blessing, and also a very potent power...

I read on a few health forums (yeah, I know - doctor google is not your friend, but this is different - it's support forums for hypermobility peeps, just like this Sane forum is a support forum for mental health peeps...)...

...erm... where was I? Hahaha...

Yes, I read that one symptom of hypermobility can be that you are very resistant to analgesics...

What an irony - the condition that provides the pain also provides a natural resistance to pain-relieving medications... hahaha...

What a wonderful irony, I must repeat... hahaha...

I have taken aspirin or the other one that's over the counter on very few occasions in my life, for the simple reason that they do absolutely nothing to relieve pain in me...

I have to tell the anaesthetist before I go into either surgery or a procedure that requires anaesthesis, that I am bipolar and that I am hypermobile, and that I am especially resistant to analgesics and anaesthetics. They reassure me that I will get an extra dose, but I always surprise them by either waking up part way through the procedure, or coming out of the anaesthetic in the recovery room even before the treating doctor has left...

Incidentally, that's why I had all 4 wisdom teeth (2 of them impacted) removed in the chair in one go with local anaesthetic only - I didn't trust them not to dislocate my jaw if I was under general anaesthetic... I have popped my jaw in my sleep lots of times, and woken to it popping loudly in my ears. Then I'm in pain for a while from that, and my bite feels weird because it doesn't line up the way it normally does. Eventually it all gets better, but why risk additional pain...

I know that pain is very subjective. My 3 out of 10 is not your 3 out of 10, and so forth...

I suspect I may have a fairly high tolerance for pain, considering it's my 24/7 buddy... hahaha...

Having the 4 wisdom teeth removed in the one go? That was maybe a 5 out of 10 for me. It was fairly easy in the end. Just uncomfortable as the gums healed, and the stitches were too slow to dissolve... (yes, they had to cut the gums back in order to remove two very badly impacted wisdom teeth that were pushing all of the teeth of my lower jaw together in a big pincer movement from either end...

I ended up with 5 or 8 stitches or something like that, I think... I don't quite remember...

Anyhoo, I don't just talk to the anaesthetist, but I also tell the doctor and nurses about the hypermobility as well, because when I am not conscious, they need to know that my joints are very easily able to move too far and to cause significant injury, so please be aware of this when moving me or manipulating my limbs whilst I'm out for the count...

It's an interesting life, that's for sure...

I am interested - @Faith-and-Hope - if you experience the same kind of tolerance or resistance to pain medications in your family?

@Decadian - hahaha... actually, what my PE teachers said or thought was totally irrelevant to me. They didn't know what they were talking about, and I did. This was the early 1980s. There was very little knowledge of physio and body science back then, and no knowledge at all about hypermobility. As far as they were concerned, I was lazy and faking it...

I couldn't care less. Not then. Not now...

I have lived with this condition all of my life, just as I have lived with my bipolar all of my life. Bit by bit, I work out the right way to live, so that I can maximise the positive things and minimise the negative impacts...

That's just simply living, really... hahaha...

Pain is a mystical teacher, I find. I don't go looking for extra, but I am not afraid of pain either...

So many people in modern Western society are so pain averse, and will do anything to avoid it. Me? I don't exactly revel in it - I'm no masochist - but I just roll up my sleeves and get on with it, or I grit my teeth and bear it, as and when I need, and in the best possible way that I can...

Pain can be managed... most of the time... sometimes... whew... yeah, well...

Hugs and happy vibes beaming to you all... 🙂

I am well, @BlueBay. Thanks for asking. 🙂

As I did not get an interview for any of the jobs I have applied for so far, my lovely partner and I are going to go to Denmark to visit my family. My father is over there at the moment, and my lovely partner has never met any of my family other than my dad and my (now deceased) mum...

So, there is a trip in a few short weeks, lasting 6 weeks or so, to prepare for. Real world stuff. Have to run around and get insurances and car registrations and my business taxes and expenses paid and all sorts of stuff sorted before we leave...

I may not be around for very much on the forums in the next few months. I will try to drop by and check in every now and then. Rest assured, for those who are interested - I am well and reasonably healthy both physically and mentally at this stage...

I survived the wedding... hahaha... we had some very nice moments with people on both sides of the family during that long weekend wedding... some of it was very tiring for an introvert like me - very lound and noisy - but I think I handled it okay...

Then there was a 10 hour drive yesterday to go from the wedding venue and back home... I drove the whole way. We hardly stopped... that was a long day, and my lower back is niggling a bit, but otherwise I just seemed to be in the zone, and was happy to drive the whole way. It's a pretty drive for a lot of it, a bit boring in other parts, the usual kind of long drive, really...

I think it will be an early night tonight... I'm a little on the weary side today...

Hahaha... good old Australia - huge country... I've done a lot of kilometres of driving these past 2 years in our road trip around Oz. I haven't even tried to add up the distances during our trip, but it's got to be a rather big number, because we zig-zagged a lot rather than just straight simple lines and curves...

Life can be chaotic sometimes... it's good just to go with the stream and relax. Other times, you have to paddle as hard as you can just to avoid the rocks...

Here's to a relaxing journey for all. Hugs and happy vibes beaming to you... 🙂

Hi @GonePirate...how are you??

Wheres that @Appleblossom ??

Ive got to get to nighty night for an hour......Ille be back I can't hear anything (blocked ears) bad chest.....wahhahahaah.....Ille be better after a nanna nap !!

:0)

Hi @Silenus

I don't do too badly with pain relief these days. Generally two tabs will deal with a headache, either completely, or a second dose about 6 hours later will chase it off.

Different story many years ago with the monthly pain aligned with womanly issues .... there was nothing that could spare me from that sucker for a good 24 - 36 hours. Silver lining ? My twins nearly arrived before the maternity suite staff realised ..... birthing children wasn't exactly a walk-in-the-park, but certainly I was no stranger to that level of pain, so it was sort of been-there-done-that already.

My D3 has had similar issues, but having dislocated both knees within three months of each other a few years ago, requiring surgery on the one, and shattering the inside of the knee cap in the other, she has over-ridden most pain relief meds available to her in the course of the monthly battles ...... I have since learned that emotional distress ups the pain register, so hers has certainly been pushing the roof off for some time. This one has definitely had the worst of it in that regard.

in saying that though, my Wayward Husband has been making a good attempt at the record ...... in his e.d. regimen that includes excessive excercise, his bedside drawer, freezer, and wheat pack storage story highly resembles yours. He is stressing his system so badly that he has torn muscles, rolled ankles, strained knees , wrists, shoulders, etc constantly for the last five years. It's painful to witness but until he surfaces from the denial stage, there is nothing at all we can do about it.

And talking about the cleverness of depression and anger, he divides his injuries between service providers, so the GP, the physio, and the sports masseuse all have about a third knowledge of the frequency and extent of his injuries .....

You have probably found that minor injuries tend to repair faster than the average person, but major injuries repair quite noticeably slower ? Is this true for you ? Not sure why that is, but it means that WH is generally over the minor ones before he is seeing the next service provider with a major one, so only the major ones are registering, even amongst the three. Too clever, and yet it's self-sabotage in actuality ...... can't get through to him yet. You will know when I do !!

Morning @Silenus,

so glad that you survived the wedding well with some lovely moments. Good to hear about your trip back to Denmark. My son will be there about the same time I think. He will be hitchhiking there, well so he tells me because he says even backpacking is too expensive but he is very keen to see that part of the world. He is living in Prague for a year studying.

I have a question. When would you see using forums as being unhealthy for you?

@Silenus

That's nice to read that you are going back to Denmark. It will be so nice to catch up with your Dad and for your partner to meet your family. That will be such a beautiful experience 🙂

I will miss you on the forum, you have been a big part of helping me see who I am 🙂

Glad you made the wedding, gosh 10 hr trip non stop - your back would be aching

Take care, hope you have a nice day xxxooo

Hi @Silenus

E.d. -= eating disordered ......

WH is locked into a punishing diet and exercise regimen which I expect will eventually be diagnosed as Atypical Bulimia. He was a workaholic for many years (30) and I now understand this to have been o.c.d. driven, which in itself tends to be, or can be, an underlying condition of e.d.'s.

He was also very large (150kg) at several stages,and came from a family who tended to crash diet to control weight, idealised thinness, used food to control behaviour (reward or punish, particularly reward), had emotional dependencies adult to child from a family history of dysfunctional and war-affected relationships ......

Enter stage left some sort of mid-life-crisis and it has all amalgamated into "this" ...... e.d. ...... but something is driving it from underneath which will require specialist support to work out, and then work through. I can hazard guesses, but that is probably not too helpful, other than to provide the understanding that this is complex and difficult, and as healthy as it may appear to others on the surface, is in fact just as unhealthy as the BED (excessive over-eating e.d.) he was subject to previously. That one is only now being recogpcgnised as an e.d.

Have you heard of Orthorexia and C/S ? They are also part of his landscape, so it's an unhealthy relationship with food as well as with exercise, but these are just symptomatic of underlying emotional-behavioural m.i. issues, so in that regard, you are absolutely correct. It certainly has a punishment / reward feel to it.

The flip side is m.i. behaviours and personality change. We have reached a somewhat workable status-quo that is moving us forward as a family, but it is only a band-aid solution, and very emotionally taxing at times on the rest of us, while the truth of our situation slowly surfaces as it must. WH's condition and practices are not sustainable as they are, and will have heath consequences progressively that reveal what is actually going on.

Meantime we have to try to keep things as stable as possible, and accept that while he is heavily embedded in the denial stage, we just can't reach him with anything more than tolerance and compassion, unfortunately. It's a very awkward, emotionally draining waiting game.

Your cheerful explorations of the human condition are a helpful and delightful support / distraction. Thanks so much for being so compassionate and willing to share your discussions and insights.

🙂🙃🙂