Where do I begin? I have been struggling with mental health stuff for about half a year now. I've been struggling with sleep for about the same length of time. Now my seasonal depression is kicking me in the teeth and we've got all the wonderful stress of the holidays going on. On top of that, I came to the sad conclusion that my night vision is bad enough that I simply can not drive when the sun is down. This severely restricts my options in going out to do stuff.
On one hand, I kinda knew this was coming down the line because my night vision has been degrading for a while. On the other hand, I'm really upset because I feel like the world has gotten smaller and I am yet more trapped in my own home by circumstance. Loki and Freyr have done their best to comfort me and assure me that this is not an awful thing. It's really hard though, because I've developed a fear of going blind after the experience about 3 years ago when my blood sugar was high enough that it screwed with my vision and everything was blurry.
Beloved assures me that since I've got my blood sugar and other matters under control, I shouldn't fear going blind anytime soon. He suggested that laser surgery could possibly fix my astigmatisms (I've got 2 in one eye and 1 in the other.) and maybe even help me regain some of my night vision. I am just really sad about this and how much these vision issues have negatively impacted my life. I love astronomy but with my night vision problems, it's harder to see the stars (never mind the light pollution makes my eyes have problems too). It just about makes me want to cry.
The vision thing is the latest in a series of running problems. Over the course of one week, I developed an allergy to latex, shellfish, and Aleve. So, I can't use dishwashing gloves now. I can't eat my favorite soup any more (clam chowder). And I can only take Tylenol (or its generic counterpart) for my intermittent migraines. Let me tell you, Tylenol is about as useful during a migraine as spitting into the ocean. It's next to useless with my arthritis, but I try anyways. That week I got angry with Loki who held up his hands and said, "Hey, this isn't mischief. This is your body hating you, again." So, I got weepy and upset over the fact that my meat suit is malfunctioning, again. He tried to cheer me up with jokes and stuff, he really did try. It's just hard to accept that my body has a laundry list of issues that just are getting worse as I get older, it seems.
I've got someone I care about in a bad situation that I can't do a damn thing to help. I can pray, but that's about it. The awful part of it is the fact that I have been running into flashbacks to past trauma because of a number of things. This started about half a year ago and just hasn't stopped. My psychologist has been wonderful about doing his best to help me. When Loki, Freyr, or Beloved notice that my brain weasels are getting out of control, they remind me that I have another dose of anxiety medication to shut them up. The flashbacks to past trauma have ranged from emotional ones to completely reliving the experience. (Fortunately, the last one only happened once so far.)
Freyr has been leaning on me to do more self-care. Loki's been throwing things that help that process into my path (like the random discovery of a lotion that is specifically for diabetic skin that is sensitive and I don't react to it at all). I've been struggling with it. Last night after my shower, as I was applying lotion to pretty much everything, I felt like a greased sausage. It was humiliating. My super dry skin was very itchy. The places where I had cracked skin was sore and the places where there's skin buildup was extremely uncomfortable. I mentioned how I felt about all this to Beloved. He gently chided me that I wasn't a greased sausage but a woman with a skin condition.
As I was in the process of trying to get some rest, I got a stern talking to from Loki about my 'exceedingly uncharitable and inappropriate' comment about myself. I was firmly reminded that negative self-talk like that is not acceptable and I had to knock it off. Communication with Loki and Freyr has been alternating between stuff like 'hey, are you ok? you can talk to me," affectionate stuff, and stern reminders that negative self-talk and neglecting my welfare is unacceptable. When I was really upset about how somethings weren't going quite right in my relationship with Beloved, the two of them told me that I was going to talk to him about it or there was going to be a consequence.
The last time I ignored them on something important like that, I found myself in a position where the issue was right in my face the whole time until it got fully addressed. So, I talked to Beloved. Had a meltdown over the fact that I have emotional needs at all. And got reminded that I was raised in a household where basic needs like eating were treated as reward/luxury items for me rather than necessities and punishments for having needs happened on a regular basis. It was a hard day.
I'm just trying to keep my head glued together. Loki's been attempting to cheer me up and get me to shrug off some of the depressive symptoms. It sort of works for a little while and then it doesn't. Freyr's been really big on how I need to take better care of myself and kinda using the carrot and a stick approach when I dig my heels in about refusing to do so.
Somehow in all of this, I wrote a devotional for Loki. It's up on Amazon as an e-book and a paperback. The paperback has more stuff to it.
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