Category: no joke

YO, People in Chronic Pain! Emergency rooms are thine enemy.

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Why?

Dying? Might feel so, yet, only you are in fact – not actually.

Nor are you enduring a “condition” which MUST and can be treated. Say a stroke? Broken nose? Appendicitis?

Nope, merely a humongous (what I call an “uptick”) of your constant pain. None of the above scenarios fit yeh.

Now, should you, IF you, fit into that emergency room method of triage – which is that list, an ORDER by which patients receive care in order of severity of injury or otherwise fixable health crisis – THEN hells bells GET THYSELF to the ER.

But.

Vomiting from extraordinary pain? Body writhing in pain? Tears, mucus, and horror rolling down your face? Lil kids’s eyes wide open staring at you in the ER waiting room. No kid whining “I’ve gotta go bathroom”, cause you already scared the shit outta them?

Pain knows no triage in an emergency room folks.

Pain has zero priority. Insane in every membrane pain causing vomiting causing dehydration, causing worse pain – means a whole hella nothing in that place hope once lived.

Sure, if you crave feeling desperation so badly. Perhaps you are masochistic enough – that you’d like to be purely reactive, outrageously desperate enough…that after those perspective of eons of tortured waiting, you determinedly (however feebly) begin wheeling yourself over to the exit. Exit being a brilliant idea. What with the brilliant idea of tipping over to the pavement, welcoming crushing car wheels..?!?

That type of act got me security attention and a quick IV. Never imagined possible horror moment, brain burned forever remembering my frightening those waiting room children with the intensity of my suffering that refused to let me have any control. Refused to let me hide that horrid visual and vocal manifestation in that waiting time, stretched to centuries (think loud gasps, retching, crying uncontrollably).

Be clear, tisn’t the ER’s fault. Simply, the whole shindig is set up for triaging those people whose medical problems can (hopefully) be “fixed” not merely brought medically into submission.

Alternatives are NECESSARY. YOU must pay attention and take control.

Take a nap. Saying you cannot if a pain uptick is rising, is akin to you thinking you won’t be melted by magma from a fast erupting volcano.

Start meditation on the regular. Meditation is scientifically proven to lower lactic acid in the blood and hemceforth throughout your whole body and brain. Lower your lactic acid, in turn raise your pain, anxiety and panic tolerance. Don’t be defeatist. KNOW this; meditation is the act of bringing your mind back to calm intention, bring it back from those sneaky thoughts – the whole “I’m bad at meditation” is a fundamental miscomprehension of what meditation IS.

Marijuana’s ability to drastically decrease nausea is a major miracle. Plus it lessens symptoms of pain for ever so many causes of pain.

Opiates? NOooooo if you are a true chronic pain sufferer you will get slammed with rebound pain that will hit you worse after a few days; far worse than that pain for which you took it in the first place. SO save any you’ve got for a last gasp attempt to knock yourself out – use em sparingly and rarely to sleep deep and avoid the ER. Do not take on the regular because your pain will only worsen. Hoard enough so you have backup.

Mostly, get your coping skills attuned to your own damn self. Feeling more oogy but want to stay at the party? Uh. No. GO home and sleep. (lil weed helps that there too). Dying to hit that concert? Nap before, nap after. Let the dishes stay dirty and go a day without underwear. Put those responsibilities like doing laundry aside, so you can get your joy on and not pay with the desire to commit suicide.

Use “the google” or whatever search engine and find the zillion legit articles about managing and coping with pain so you stay in a semblance of control of your own self.

You CAN do this.

In solidarity and lack of bullshit,

Renée

ps – Hey, if you are in pain because of an injury, something new and unknown… GO to the ER or Urgent Care – ABSOLUTELY! Just know thyself.

What if Every Person Was Blind?

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Totally different Darwinism, human evolvement but, all of us blind. 

From birth. Imagine society having alternatively developed around convenience to manage without thought or attention to sight..  Akin to our reality, except this key difference of everyone being blind.

 This radically different evolution would have tesulted in no more attention to the “lack” of sight, being the norm, than attention we ourselves pay to ordinary mechanisms utilized to compensate our human “ordinary” physical limitations.. Not possessing sight would result in normalizing certain …conveniences – those things we give little thought to unless unavailable.  A ladder, elevator. Stairs.  Analygize creation of some sort of tool, assistive devise, the purpose of which is to make up for limitations.  

Limitations caused by a factor so common such as height and our civilization’s usage of steps.  Just as petite person in our reality need utilize a step stool to get a platter from some high shelf. 

Can you imagine such a world?  Born blind into a world peopled by blind humans since the earliest of history’s tale??!! 

Of course!  We humans would have crafted such a world making sense to our having lack of sight.

That lack of sight (don’t get confused, we’re talking bout this imaginary sightless world now) necessarily leaving a vacuum, a suction humankind would have filled by necessity and imagination.  Manifested by senses intensified by usage and ordinary living.  Smells, sounds, the touch of a misty breeze, all revealing deductions ordinarily played out in television and movie stories about superheroes – but here in this blog blind world – senses attached to our intelligence instead more developed, naturally evolved, due to focus of an active creative human mind with tools at disposal.

And then I wonder just wonder.  If then, I’d wager for sure, it would be different.  

Wobbles in tone and mixups of words noticed; uneven tempo of footfalls heard; iciness of hand and warmth of brow touched upon greeting…

There would be no “you look (insert positive here)!”.

Tedium and focus to explain not so necessary.  Deductive reasoning doing that job.

(Secret… what a relief it would be.)

Yours in reality and imagination about nevergoingtobesosafetoimagine things, (it is ok to be naughty some times)

Renée

Call Shit a Rose and it still Stinks

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Everybody seems expert on personality disorders nowadays.  What with the proliferation of public figures exposing their proclivities (deliberately or not); talking heads (or asses) are busy categorizing and explaining behaviors utilizing labels ordinarily reserved for diagnosis by experts in the field of psychology.

“Narcissistic” is maybe most bandied about, perhaps because that diagnosis is tops on most lists describing U.S.A.’s idiot in chief.  Given the human penchant for seeking comprehension of … anything and everything… of course people wanna understand “why/what the heck is that (insert here: a behavior, a statement, anything that makes you go “what the fuck?!”) coming from?!”.

Next natural jump in thought is to apply this newly discovered, popular armchair diagnosis, to people in one’s own personal world.

And here is where the rub lies.  What does the label mean in real life?  To you, to me, to any person?  I research the crap out of these categories of human behavior and have learned that some personality disorders could also be known as “nasty unrepentant manipulative shitty shit”.  Guess what.  The behavior itself is what matters.  Not the label.

So when my mother shitbombs me with one of her missives that arrive dressed up as a serial killer’s envelope, (no return address, no post office stamp, my name typed on separate piece of white paper, then cut out unevenly, and taped carefully to a large manilla envelope yet contains only a single page), it matters not whether she has a formal diagnosis.  Whether a professional in the field of psychology has determined her to be borderline personality disordered, dependent personality disordered, narcissistic … is in the hard life of reality, completely irrelevant.

Diagnosis or not, my mother is a poisonous self pitying manipulative nasty mean unempathetic delusional liar.  Happenstance that her most prevalent traits are those contained within the professionally approved label.  The toxicity that she embodies is untenable to tolerate no matter, because it is the person she IS, not the label she is given, that matters.

Raining down protestations are weapons of mass effective perspective blockers, and are utilized by toxic people often.  Aggressively or plaintively asserted, “I’m not a this and that”…. Then they go ahead and engage in one or other of the very behaviors that a person diagnosed with “this and that” is characterized by.

Keeping perspective clear is tough for every person because our darn emotions and stray wishes love to color our view and move the horizon from where it actually is.  Keeping perspective when in constant chronic pain is a newish journey for me, and I’m finding the pain useful as providing both a deadline and a windshield wiper.  A deadline is a must have for tolerating toxicity because after all, I ain’t voluntarily allowing myself to die drowning in poison thank you very much, and after a while the breathing gets really tough.  The wiper, well just think of a mechanism cleaner, and most importantly, one that is much more effective than squeegees once used by the guys hanging out in traffic over by the Holland Tunnel.

Being thankful for this epiphany of my pain as a tool towards my mental health is an understatement, for no other reason that because clarity is VITAL.  The alternative I dread, but which could entirely be plausible, is that the insane-pain could be a total brain blocker rendering me oblivious to just about everything.   Oblivious meaning completely letting my rational analysis be rendered into shreds too tiny to be patched back together.   Luckily for me, when the holysheitpain- ness strikes, obliviousness equals shutting down entirely and sleep.

The moral of this post is, know your own true identity if you can.  Keep your perspective clear and free from the temptations of tempests of drama.  Be real about what is and isn’t healthy for you.   Utilize whatever challenges you face as motives,  the challenges are enough by themselves.  Keep it real so you can move it forward to happy goodness.  Just remember, and be gentle with yourself. Because the places that your challenges will take you are easily swayed off direction, for the winds of poison gust strong.

Holding onto positivity ain’t easy.

But nor is it irretrievable when a grip is lost.

Grab it back knowing it is up to you.

Yours in keeping it as clear as can in order to live a positive existence,

Renée

 

 

 

Can YOU chose your reality?

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Despair, jealousy, anger, frustration… all the negative emotions that smack us and send us spinning, coming from what oft feels from a void we hadn’t known existed.   Possibly, or probably, we were willfully blind.  Purposely overlooking varieties of red flags because we didn’t want to see the negative looming.  Seeing it coming or not matters not at all when that damn hard smack comes which sends a person reeling.  Somehow the smack (at least initially) mostly always feels like a crevasse has opened beneath us.

We cannot in any way control our immediate rush of whatever negative feeling strikes us IN THAT IMMEDIATE smack moment.

It is ridiculously important to sit with whatever emotion left you spinning without any ground under your feet.   Be real with yourself about what you’re feeling.  Don’t pull bullshit veils over your own intelligence.

Naturally the INSTANT AFTER you are propelled into the “HOLY FUCK” void, we tend to got grabbed and pulled in the cyclone created by the question “WHY”.  We get swirled in rapidly (hard to think straight) spinning, dizzying circles and are simultaneously battered with all the cyclone “WHY” debris.  “WHY” debris is no stranger to us, but man does it hurt!  Debris in the form of self blame, searching why we created or helped the smackdown occur.  Victimizing oneself, why me?!  Lots of flying around debris is labeled “willful ignorance” and we respond with, “How could blah blah blah have blahblah to me!”  IT IS HUMAN NATURE to engage in self examination, seeking to comprehend why.

Then STOP!  Can you?  Well it is completely and utterly up to YOU.

Because at this point you’ve reached the fork in the emotional health road.  That moment many, but not most, of us even know exists in our conscious minds.

This moment when we actually have a CHOICE.  We can’t control how fucked up we feel when someshit occurs and we’re stricken in the moment.  But after that initial strike?  We have a choice.  We can take control in a positive way that moves us forward towards peace and happiness, or otherwise.

Yes, really, you have this power.  We are in charge of our own realities and we get to shape where our minds go with intention.  INTENTION.  Yes, I’m taking about the non bullshit that is being mindful.  Meaning you look OUTSIDE of your own damn self.

Unless.  Unless that most valuable possession your heart and soul possesses, gets ripped or blown away, because you won’t hold onto it.  Hear me?  YOU won’t hold onto it.  Either purposely or non purposely.  Guess what,  YOU CAN STILL TAKE IT BACK.   Intention is there for you to hold onto, if you chose.  For certain you won’t be in charge of yourself without intention.

The toughest and scariest path to take at this fork in the road is the one hidden behind the brambles of every nasty thing you’ve ever consciously or subconsciously thought about yourself.  It ain’t easy guiding yourself in a emotionally healthy manner what with those devils riding your shoulders.  Devil ventriloquists to your brain, making you say to yourself (and perhaps others) “I’m so stupid” “Why did I fall for that” “He/she is a total (insert horrific adjective about a person’s flaw here) and I …”

POWER is necessary to push those prickly thorny blood drawing life sucking brambles of nasty out of your fucking way; and you need dig up yourself some insight otherwise you won’t see the alternative path.

Ask yourself, DO you muster the insight, the calm, the bullshit filter to push your mind down the road of the reality of learning and growth?  Can you?  Have you TRIED?????

or…

Do the frenemies-feelings (those emotions so familiar they are easy to fall in with;  and those suckers destruct self esteem) – take you by the hand instead?  Surely you’re familiar with these terminators aimed at defeating your power.  Self doubt, self blame, DO those emotions take you down a path filled with sticky tar that swallows your soul?  Are you comfortable wallowing in victimhood pretending you aren’t bitter?

Is it safer for you to feel shitty?  To not have expectations?  To anticipate negativity and disbelieve positivity?  What is your comfort level?  Do compliments make you uneasy?  What is the sense of worth you truly possess?

WILL YOU STAY STUCK IN WHATEVER SENSE OF WORTH YOU’VE GOT?

OR WILL YOU WORK AT MAKING YOUR REALITY A HAPPIER ONE?

This stopping in mental time, this recognition of choice, is extraordinarily difficult and seemingly completely missed by most.  All one needs do for proof of why it is so well hidden is to pay attention to all that surrounds us.  Listen to friends, news, various postings on media, and the discontent is rampant.  The norm is woe.

For goodness sakes, of course you must own your misery.  Face your depression.  Examine your reasons. Be real with yourself at the very least, if not also to others.

BUT DON’T LET THOSE TOXIC NEGATIVE EMOTIONS TAKE YOU TO LIVE IN VICTIMLAND.

Unless of course you prefer victim land, (where narcissists and borderline disordered people happily feed off depressives and people well trained to think they’re worthless).

Reveling in misery is many people’s idea of normal.  Hey, if that sinks their boat and they’re happy (well not my definition of happy but their personal reality of happy) in the muck at the bottom, that is an individual’s life to live.  The unspoken danger is that the longer a person stays in victimland- the more deeply sucked into that muck a person gets and the more difficult to even WANT to feel happy.

Me?  The muck pre-existing in the world not having to do with me personally, well that is plenty bad enough for me to want to never voluntarily take a path that leads to my own personal tarpit.

So I’m learning.  Working at noticing.  Being attentive (even in hindsight) as can be.

Working I am.  To take that other path.  To machete through the brambles, clear my vision to see that there is a way to  (yeah, it sounds corny) enlightenment.  That’s right, I said it.  Enlightenment.  The word used by mystics, religions, and defined by me here as stripping away the bullshit and taking whatever negative toxic crap I felt/feel and squeezing whatever positive I can out of it.

That means looking for lessons.  That means calming down enough to seek other perspectives, ones that don’t drown me and render me paralyzed.  Perspectives that make me grow in comprehension about whatever the hell it may be.  Recognizing that all I can control is my own self, and when I do manage control there is an undeniable ripple effect impacting whatever is around me.

None of us are perfect, that would be damn boring anyway.

But too many of us wallow in victimhood, feeling snarky, put upon.  And that just sucks the life out of the atmosphere.

Smack yourself with a reality stick if you want to be happy and even (holy shit…) joyful! This means analyzing logically.  About yourself, about another, about a situation.  Think about how whatever fucked you up – can also flip side – instead, make you better, more capable, more understanding about whatever the hell you now know about.

Find the generosity in your soul and guide it to your heart.  Forgive yourself first.  When you’re ready, let that toxicity go fly away so it doesn’t shadow your manner, your inner light.  Even if you don’t think you HAVE an inner light, you won’t know unless you genuinely attempt to reveal it to yourself.  Find the courage to look within.

No-one else is capable.  No-one else is responsible.  It falls upon each of us individually to manage our personal reality.  Only on our own can we find and harness our power to find and utilize that ephereal insight to shape this reality.  How the reality feels, what we let it do to us, how some thing impacts upon your existence, and hence also those around you.

Yours in the challenge of choosing to pause at the fork, find your power, and shape your reality to be happy,

Renée

why give a shit

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Ever ask yourself flat out real deal no baloney straight up why the fuck it matters?

You made or are making a choice. This that or the other deserves whatever energy you are giving/gave…

or not.

Which?

And to what point at all?

I’ve awoken to the sun shining on all I can do, and  alternatively that which must peaceably wait.

For me, the illustration is in my sisterchildhoodfriend letting me know she was genuinely worried because my bedroom is in a state never before seen let alone imagined.

Between moving on ceremonies and attendant rituals and celebrations; likewise high school graduation time absorbancy all encompassing -…….

… I’ve zero ability ((either energywise, physical capability -wise; emotional nonoverload-wise) – NO FRIGGINTENT WAY my room warrants even a smidgen of attention.

Except to slide stuff over on the bed to make room and so be it if stuff falls to the floor.

Otherwise, next.

Always a list of priorities and yep a straightened room feels most peaceful so priority it will get.

In another day or so.

Yours in letting unproductive anxiety go,

Renée

living through “I hate you”

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Being a parent is not all you are.  But living with pain a person tends to search for motives, reasons, inspiration … for living with that pain.

Why do you want to live?  Have you thought about this question?  Do you just experience, whatever you may do and have done to you or with you – without wondering?  Wondering about whether there is a point, a reason, a motive that justifies it all?

I suspect anyone stumbling across this blog may well be enaged in self examination of their life.  I for one do not experience the bliss of ignorance without challenge to that deepest question of all, “why am I here”?

Because I must be here for my children.  Plain and simple.  They need me.  It isn’t merely shelter, food, and water that sustains them.  My love demonstrated through actions as wide ranging as my giving a hug, to efforts to guide my children in how they choose to perceive the world, perceive their experiences, and do so in manners that are most emotionally healthy and productive.

Defining myself by my children is forgetting something incredibly important.

I am more than my children.  Peering through the iron filings of chronic fatigue, around the stabbing knives of pain and dodging the violent trolls – I can see that I can make people laugh.  So can you.  I can create.  I can give and receive goodness.

So can you.  You may not feel it some, most, or any of the time.  And here is where you must get deliberate.

We must practice self love.  Remember that we matter and that the pain does not take away from who we are, but certainly makes it hard to remember.

We must be ACTIVE thinkers, DELIBERATE in the direction we allow our thoughts to take.

We must push against the despair, and remember we deserve to live because of ourselves, not merely for others.

Time and again I find myself weighing, am I more burdensome or worthwhile?  That burdensome and worthwhile is based upon my (biased by my own emotions) viewpoint about myself.  How very limited and certain to be inaccurate, for we struggle to see ourselves from any perspective other than our own.

Yet to be as mentally healthy as we can, we must practice self love.  Practice means having to engage in activities purposefully that make us feel good.  This could be meditating, eating a delicious meal, taking a bath.  But it need be soly focused upon treating yourself with loving kindness.

When we love ourselves, we are stronger.  Reality is, we can also be better parents when we don’t hing our worth merely upon our children’s reactions – but necessarily utilize our judgements and insights.

Yours in practicing what seems impossible,

Renée

This is no joke:

Pain-related helplessness was the only predictor for suicidal ideations among the cognitive variables.