Resurgent Flashbacks

    This may be the hardest blog post I have ever had to write; certainly the hardest since my diagnosis of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. There will be no silly EDS memes. For the first time in my life I am extremely concerned about my mental health situation without being equally worried about my physical well-being. Historically, since my EDS diagnosis in 2014, my mental state has always had a direct linear relationship to my physical state. When my physical issues such as pain levels or getting sick worsened I would understandably have increasing amounts of mental distress. When I lost my therapeutic massage and ketamine infusion treatments during the first March 2020 pandemic lockdown I became suicidal for the first time since my diagnosis. As soon as the lockdown ended the thoughts about how death would be easier than coping with my illness immediately stopped being my constant companion. However, for the past week, this golden rule regarding my mental health has been utterly violated and has manifested as constant depressive episodes triggered by my PTSD.

    There are a variety of causal factors but the most unique one that became such a severe problem only recently is what I would classify as the second most painful memory of my life. The focal point of this memory is my beloved 10 year old dog Chelsee. You see, in 2011 I attempted suicide for the second time and due to what I learned from my first failed attempt I could not have been closer to succeeding without achieving the goal of death. The most important differing point is that unlike the first time I waited until I was home alone and told no one what I did. I utilized my morphine prescription for a far more deadly overdose. After I made my decision to die there was one thing I needed to do before I took an entire week’s worth of pills, and that was say goodbye to Chelsee.

    Chelsee was the only one I could say bye to without them being able to interfere with my intended plan. Moreover, even if saying goodbye to anyone else was an option, it would not have had the same importance. Understand that during this most terrible period of my life I had an antagonistic relationship with nearly all the people closest to me. Resentment over how people treated me before my diagnosis escalated to hatred. My doctors convinced my family I was physically healthy and mentally disturbed. When every medical test imaginable turned out negative it seemed that it was up to those who cared for me most to snap me out of my seemingly psychomatic (mentally induced) chronic pain. The instant I was diagnosed with a serious physical debilitating illness all that fundamentally changed. Today, I have the best support network anyone could ever ask for. There is an incredible amount of mutual love between me, my family and my friends. My doctors are more supportive than they have ever been in the past. But back then, 10 years ago, it felt like all I had was Chelsee.

    To my 16 year old self it seemed that Chelsee was the only one who didn’t look at me with judgement in their eyes. The catalyst for bringing her into our family was so that a dog’s love could be therapeutic for me. Did it help? Yes. Could it ever have been enough to dissuade myself from embracing oblivion? No. Accepting death meant accepting never seeing her again. So I steeled myself, exited my room, and went downstairs to find her. She looked up at me and her tail starting wagging, as it always did. I took hold of her and broke down into tears. In her eyes there was no judgment; only uncomprehending concern for my distress. After a few minutes I said a final “goodbye,” locked myself in my bathroom, and set about swallowing every pill I could find. I slumped down with my back to the wall and waited. First, ingesting so many narcotics completely took my pain away and a smile appeared on my face. Then came the welcomed drowsiness. I became comatose for an undefined amount of time until I was discovered at the last minute and woke up in the hospital emergency room, leading to my most painful lifetime memory. I woke up with a breathing tube inserted in me while my dad and a ring of 5 health professionals looking down at me with utter concern. The combination of witnessing my dad’s distress and the soon to follow realization that my suicide attempt had failed again led to my screaming “Why am I still alive?” thus completing the most traumatic memory.

    It took many years to come to terms with this memory. I was plagued by flashbacks typical to one suffering from PTSD. However the point of this post is to explain what suddenly changed this past week. The answer is that my mind has made a new connection that has linked the present to the past. Anyone who has owned a dog can tell you as they get older you think about the consequences of their inevitable aging more and more. You always knew you would lose them one day, but it persists in your mind increasingly often as the years pass by. A week ago I had a flashback of saying goodbye to Chelsee before my imminent death for the first time in quite some time. Then came the catalyst tipping point, thinking about how in a few years or less I would not have to say goodbye because of my death, but because of hers. In some way or another this doubled the vividness and intensity of my flashbacks as the past, present, and future overlapped, triggering a new depressive episode.

    As I sometimes do during such episodes I turned on a comedy show to try to alleviate my distress; in this instance I chose Rick and Morty. Unfortunately rather than cheering me up, the episode was the most uncharacteristically depressing story the show has ever produced. At the very moment I was experiencing a flashback a sad song began playing on the show. It’s a catchy song and has been stuck in my head ever since. I will link it below. The problem is every time the song enters my consciousness it immediately triggers a flashback that connects the past to the present, triggering a mental breakdown. My pain still keeps me awake anywhere from 25-36 hours every day and the resulting exhaustion destroys my mental defenses until I finally get some sleep. Rather than my typical situation of having one depressive episode per week during such vulnerable moments, I’m having them whenever I think of the song. This has dramatically increased the frequency of the flashbacks which on a day such as yesterday happened seven times, including when I have not even been awake insanely long. My emotional attachment to Chelsee has extra emphasis because with my incurable illness the reality is I will probably never be able to have children adopted or otherwise. Chelsee is the closest thing I'll get.

My recent medical issues have not helped matters and are amplifying my mental distress. As you may know quite recently I received my second Covid-19 vaccine dose. With my compromised immune system, I should be happy that I can start easing out of my 1.5 yearlong isolation. However, my celebration has been marred because my reactions to vaccines are invariably extreme. For the sake of being concise I won’t describe the experience in this post, but it’s exhaustingly horrible. I don’t have to simply deal with the side effects, I have to deal with them on top of my usual severe chronic illness. First I had to spend a week shifting my sleep schedule (which is unimaginably uncomfortable given my insomnia) so that I would be awake for my vaccination appointment. This meant another week of awfulness dealing with my uniquely extreme side effects. After two weeks of such indescribable discomfort what I need most is a break. What I get is the exact opposite, because after two weeks of zero productivity I need to catch up on my university assignments.

    There are multiple other factors that are currently stressing me out even further, but I have done my best to explain the primary problems. My usual solution to things that trigger me is to deliberately continue to expose myself to them so I get desensitized. In the case of my current crisis that strategy has thus far failed. My next step is to restart therapy as soon as possible. For the first time since my diagnosis a large portion of my distress is primarily psychological in nature. This means a psychologist should have a lot more utility in helping improve my mental state than they have had in the past. To conclude I’d like to say thank you to everyone who is reading this for caring enough to take the time to do so and let’s hope my current troubles are a temporary setback. With my family, friends, and doctors supporting me I'm confident I make it through these new troubles.

Referenced Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EewB7xHHIvE&ab_channel=KishiBashi