Lying Awake

Something to ponder: The loneliest people are the kindest. The saddest people smile the brightest. All because they do not wish to see anyone suffer the way they do.

    Whenever I try to make some sort of concerted effort on something like reducing the dosage of the medications I'm taking to safe levels my functioning is badly affected for an extended period of time. This can lead to what might be considered moments of (mental) weakness though I don't think that's giving myself enough credit. I think I prefer the term "moments of vulnerability" where I don't just have to contend with pain but with exhaustion. In these moments I can't think clearly and I'm more reckless and uninhibited. This is just a fancy way saying I say stupid shit. At night there's a third issue to deal with, sedation from meds. This is when I'm at my most vulnerable and why I tried to stay off social media after taking my pills. It's also why I sometimes see a message and won't answer until the next day. It protects myself from myself.

    On certain days it's easy for me to realize just how much my mood depends on how well rested I am from the night before. For example, on a day where I got bad news about an exam I took I was still singing and had a skip to my step because I had energy levels a lot closer to a healthy person. The opposite is also true, on days where I'm apathetic about something I was extremely excited about the previous day just because I had as shitty sleep that night. Something you might not think about is that feeling rested is such a rarity for me that it's all it takes for me to be cheerful. There was even a day where I felt great but knew I had to wake up early the next day which I knew would be so uncomfortable I just wished I wasn't alive for that specific day. A time travel machine would work wonders for those days. At the end of that specific great day I actually cried a bit in pure dread of what tomorrow would be like. Part of the reason I was feeling better than usual that day is that I had finally gotten back to my normal weight again after throwing up so much for so long. At one point I had dropped down to 114 pounds, and eventually clawed my way back to 130. 

     The worst part about my insomnia isn't just lying in bed awake for hours, it's not being able to think about anything other than the fact I am totally screwed not just for that night but the following day. Typically, if I'm lying awake for hours, that means I tried to go to sleep too early. In terms of being able to fall asleep it's not just overdosing on pills that makes it happen. I also have to be legitimately sleepy to sleep through my pain. Some of my pills take a long time to work, so a lot of planning goes to when into when I take them each night. If I take my pills too early and am lying awake then it's not like I can just get out of bed and try to get some work down while I'm awake anyways. The pills are too sedating. If I take them too early then I still lose all productivity for that night since I can't work or sleep. Of course having a shitty sleep also means I won't be productive the next day either. This kind of trap was the main reason I was unable to take more than 2 university courses at a time, at least for the time being.

   
    At the beginning of the winter 2017 semester I contracted either strep throat or the flu. This would not be a huge deal for a normal person, but if you happen to have an already excruciatingly painful condition the experience becomes a catastrophe. At first I was pretty sure I had the flu because my throat wasn't so bad at the beginning. I went to the campus clinic and they gave me tamiflu to be safe because of my fever/typical flu symptoms and the fact I have EDS which puts me at higher risk for complications. Then things got worse. I couldn't eat anything without immediately throwing it back up. My throat got worse and worse, to the point where I completely lost my voice for days. I mean that literally, I was totally inaudible. Whenever I get sick, even with just a common cold, my pain gets significantly worse. When I'm very sick it gets far worse. On average I would rate my pain an 8/10, but understand I have developed a very high pain tolerance and that average is only accurate when I am inactive. If I walk or stand for more than a few minutes the pain goes up to 8.5. As I learned, if I have the flu/step throat, the pain goes up to a 9. Realize that I didn't dish out 9s lightly. The last time my pain was a 9/10 was when I tried to kill myself in 2011. It was so agonizing I literally could not stand up without using my arms for support. That's only happened a few times since my pain started in 2009. Aside from my leg pain being horribly debilitating my throat kept getting worse. This made us suspect strep throat over the flu and so my sister's friend drove me to the emergency room along with said sister. My lack of voice prevented me from speaking to the doctor so we got some lozenges and sucking on them helped slightly so that my sister was somewhat able to translate what I was trying to tell the doctor. He didn't swab me but suspected strep throat so he prescribed antibiotics. I kept taking the Tamiflu just in case he was wrong. Over the next few weeks my pain started to recede back to "normal" levels. Being at university with a chronic illness is rough. Being at a university when you have both chronic and acute illnesses at once is simply the worst. It's lucky my sister is at the same university as me because when I can't even stand unsupported it's obviously hard to take care of yourself.