Pain cycles
Living with chronic pain fucking sucks! Let’s talk about the physical pain, I’ve been in pain for almost 9 years now. I am driven, hardworking and motivated, but I live the life of a couch potato, I fucking hate it. Last week I went for a 3 hour walk, did a few photoshoots, did 3 interviews, had 3 doctors’ appointments and drove my sister 4 hours away (round trip) so she could go to skating practice. This week, every single part of me hurts. I go to bed in pain and wake up in pain. Last week I had so many plans of how I was going to move forward, what I was going to do, where I wanted to live. This week, I was offered the jobs I wanted, and I don’t think I can take them. I don’t think I can take them because thins week, making coffee is painful, taking a shower hurts and getting up to go pee sounds like a fucking marathon. Yesterday, I held my pee for 2 hours because I didn’t have the physical ability to get up and pee. I didn’t have the pain tolerance to stand up and sit down! That’s fucking ridiculous! And all I can think about is “what ifs”. What if, I take the job, and I can’t show up? What if I have to quit? What if they ask me to leave, like they did in college?
But, I’ve been through all this before, none of this is new. I know the cycle. Good week: “the world is your oyster!” Bad week: “you were lying to yourself last week.” I have 2 friends in my life that seem to also have cycles like I do. They’re dealing with different struggles, but sometimes I haven’t heard from one of them in a while, and I know they were in the down cycle, and when that happens, the world outside doesn’t exist. I know that if I can’t take their Facetime right now that they’ll try again in a week, and I’ll do the same for them. When they text “good morning” I know that I can answer honestly, to them.
You sit, you wait for the cycle to end, and you tell yourself “maybe next week”, “maybe tomorrow”. I know whenever I have a good day again, a day when, yes, I’m in pain, but I can function, I know that I’ll act like the bad days never happened. I’ll act as if I don’t know that the bad days are coming. Maybe if I pretend they won’t come?