When the nightmares are real

July 15, 2015

It was only recently that I realized my dreams might be something to worry about. I started to suspect there was a problem when I read about the recurring stress dreams that people with PTSD sometimes experience. Mine probably aren’t that severe, but they’re similar in nature. Then a friend with chronic illness was talking about his health-related anxiety dreams in a way that assumed everyone knew it was problematic to have them. Hmm. All the little pieces added up, and now I’m thinking my dreams might be a reason for concern.

When I was a kid I was scared of a substitute teacher. There was no real reason for it, there was just something about her that bothered me. I had a recurring dream that she was chasing me down my street. I think she was carrying fire, too. Until recently, that was the only recurring dream I ever had, and I hadn’t had it in 25+ years.

Now I have a recurring dream where I’m desperate to find a toilet, but I can’t find any. Then I finally find some in a public restroom, but they’re built too high up on the wall, and I can’t climb on to them. I finally find others, but there are no walls between the stalls, and no doors, so there’s no privacy, and that absolutely terrifies me. I’m feeling the diarrhea coming on, wondering if I’ll shit my pants, and trying desperately to climb onto a toilet that’s 3 or 4 feet off the ground.

Before I can resolve the dream one way or another, I wake up, my heart racing, terrified that I’m about to have diarrhea in my bed. I run top speed to the bathroom and…. nothing. That’s when I realize it was a dream.

Lately I’ve gotten better at returning to reality quickly, and I usually stop myself before I get all the way to the bathroom and I return to bed. But returning to reality also means acknowledging that there’s a lot of truth in these dreams. When I was a kid, that teacher would never have chased me through the neighborhood streets carrying fire, but now I could easily shit my pants. It’s happened before and it will probably happen again. The other symptoms I dream about are real, too.

For a while I had recurring dreams where I accidentally ate gluten, then had to wait in agony for the onset of symptoms that I knew would come at me. Waiting for the symptoms was horrifying. I’d wake up with my heart pounding, fear coursing through me, usually sweaty and anxious. Thankfully, those dreams disappeared around the time I got rid of the last remains of hidden gluten in my diet. But for some reason, I had that dream again twice recently. I can’t imagine why.

I have other health-related anxiety dreams, too. Some are about pain, some are about my diet, some are about other symptoms, some are about doctors and insurance companies. Sometimes I dream about pain and then wake up to discover I’m actually in pain. There was one time I dreamed someone was screaming, then woke up to discover that I was screaming because the pain was so bad. My own screams woke me up that night.

What does all of this mean? I don’t have the answer. I don’t need an answer right now, but what I’d love would be to know if others experience similar dreams.

Have you ever had a health-related anxiety dream? Does it happen often? What do you do about it? Does it concern you? Please comment below, anonymously if you prefer, and share your experience. I think that it helps us all to learn from each others’ experiences. Thanks!

4 Comments | Expectations, Frustration, Isolation, Rants, Symptoms | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

Curing myself of comparisonitis

July 7, 2015

My friend P seemed to think that I was doing “better” than she was health-wise, because I was going out of the house more, running more errands, doing more housekeeping, taking more walks, and just doing more. I can understand how she felt. After all, she saw me on my better days.

The funny thing is, while she envied the way I could go out more on a regular basis, I envied the way she could take trips. They weren’t huge trips and they involved a lot of rest before, after, and even during, not to mention a lot of painkillers, but she took them. She could fly, while I haven’t been on a plane in more than 4 years (I used to fly 3-5 times each year!) But of course, I heard about these trips, and didn’t see the pain she had to endure to make them happen.

P envied one part of my life and I envied one part of hers. Sort of how I envy that blogger I follow who has created a great business she can do part time from home, when her health allows. And maybe you envy friends or family or strangers on the internet who seem to have that thing in life that you wish you had.

But when you really think about it, who are you actually envying? Who’s life are you seeing? Who are you comparing yourself to? I can tell you: a fictional person. You’re only seeing part of the picture, and you’re assuming the rest.

P saw that I was doing more errands and more housework than her, but didn’t consider that it was necessary because I have no one else to do those things. She has a husband who helps with them. I saw that P could fly, but I didn’t consider that she feels pressure to see her family, while my family is local. We were each looking at just a sliver of the other’s life. That blogger I envied? She probably has her own problems, but I wouldn’t know because I only know what she puts out there for the world to see.

Just like how you only know about certain parts of my life. Now, it just so happens that I’m very open about things on this blog, so you happen to know quite a lot about me, but obviously I can’t tell you everything. It’s not possible. Besides, it’s easy to focus on the things you wish you had and forget about the wonderful things you have that I don’t. Maybe I leave the house more, but on the days I don’t, I’m completely alone, while you have a spouse or children who you get to be with. I’m not responsible for anyone else, but I also don’t get to have the joy of having children or pets. I’m not on any medications with horrible side effects, but I haven’t found any medications to help me. You see, there’s a flip side to every coin.

I’m not suggesting my life is any better or worse than anyone else’s, only that’s it’s mine and so it’s the only one I truly know, just like yours is the only life you truly know. An interesting new form of comparison has come about with the spread of social media. Before, we might have envied the sliver of life we saw a coworker, friend, or relative leading. We might have compared our lives to those of celebrities. But it ended there. Now we can compare our lives to those of countless ordinary people on the internet who we’ve never even met. It’s so easy to look up any topic and find thousands of people who are doing better at that sport, playing that instrument better, or leading a healthier life than we are. But where does that get us?

It just leads to us feeling worse about our own lives.

So I decided today that I won’t do any more comparing. Well ok, I’m only human. I’ll do more comparing. But I promised myself that when I find myself comparing my life to someone else’s, I’ll make myself stop. I’ll remind myself that their life isn’t perfect and that while they might be kicking ass in one area more than I am, I’m kicking ass in plenty of others.

And now I’m challenging to promise yourself the same thing. The next time you find yourself comparing your life to that of a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger online, stop, and remind yourself of all the ways your life kicks ass. Then move on to something that’s actually helpful and positive. I bet you’ll be glad you did.

What do you think? Do you suffer from comparisonitis, too? How do you feel about it?

6 Comments | Decisions, Expectations, Frustration, Limitations, Rants, Relationships: Family & Friends & Dating & Sex | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

Birthdays: to celebrate or not?

June 29, 2015

There are certain holidays that come with pressure to celebrate. New Year’s Eve comes to mind. A couple years ago I skipped it and it felt sort of nice, in a sad way. I was too depressed about my health to feel that a new year was worth celebrating. I played board games with friends, and was home well before midnight. That worked for me.

This year, my birthday was sort of the same. I was feeling lousy and did feel like celebrating anything, especially not getting another year older which, in my mind, meant another year of lost youth, another year of lost opportunities, and another year closer to the health woes of old age on top of my current health problems. Yeah, I wasn’t in the best frame of mind.

So I decided to skip it.

Whoa! Not so fast! My family and friends didn’t like this plan. I know they meant well, but I was surprised at how much pressure I felt. People kept asking me what I was doing for my birthday, and they were upset when I said I wasn’t doing anything this year. I tried to brush it off by saying I threw a party last year, so there was no need to anything this year. I think they all suspected the truth, though. They knew I was feeling down. Some of them knew I was feeling too sick to celebrate. I wasn’t sure if I’d be up for doing anything at all that day. Would I be able to leave the house? Get dressed? Take a shower?

A friend who isn’t working said she’d take me out to lunch that day. Ok, that seemed reasonable enough. Low key. Simple. And if I had to cancel at the last minute, she’d understand. That made things so much easier! When people asked what I was doing for my birthday I could say a friend was taking me out to lunch. Yeah, ok, it sounded lame. I knew that. But it’s all I had.

In the end, my friend and I had a lovely time. Except for her paying for lunch, and letting me choose the post-lunch activity (sitting by a pretty pond, then chatting at my place) there wasn’t much mention of my birthday. And that’s just the way I wanted it. Simple. Easy.

Holidays are hard enough when you’re single and there’s no default person to celebrate with. I don’t have an automatic date for New Year’s Eve or someone I know will celebrate my birthday with me. Sometimes that’s really tough. Throw health problems on top of that, and then pressure from loved ones to have a bigger celebration that I want, and it’s just too much.

So that’s why I didn’t really celebrate my birthday this year. And I’m ok with that. Maybe next year I’ll have a party again. Maybe not. Either way, I refuse to stress out about it.

3 Comments | Expectations, Fatigue, Frustration, Intrusions, Limitations, Milestones, Pain, Rants, Relationships: Family & Friends & Dating & Sex, Thoughtfulness, Unpredictable | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

We won! Celebrating while sick

June 27, 2015

Yesterday was a big day here in the U.S. The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) issued a ruling that makes same-sex marriages legal throughout the country!!!!!

Are you done dancing your jig yet? Ok, let’s continue. This is huge news. SCOTUS also issued a big ruling for health

Equal Marriage Celebration Rally

Equal Marriage Celebration Rally

insurance coverage in this country several days ago. That’s huge too, but it doesn’t have the same kind of emotional impact for me. There weren’t celebrations all over the country for that (at least, not as far as I know.) So today I’m writing about the equal marriage ruling.

This is a good thing for our entire country. Many of my heterosexual family members and friends are saying that, too. But as a bisexual woman, that feels very personal. I’m currently single. Maybe one day I’ll get married, and when I do, it might be to a man or it might be to a woman, but whoever I marry, that marriage will be recognized throughout the country!

I have many friends who woke up yesterday knowing that their marriages were only recognized in some states. A few hours later, those marriages were recognized in every state! This has a lot of legal, financial, and logistical implications. I won’t get into hospital visitation rights, adoption, travel, or taxes right now. And there’s still a lot of work to do to gain housing rights, end LGBT youth homelessness, end employment discrimination, etc. You can see a good partial list here. So yes, next week we need to continue to fight, but right now we need to celebrate!

I spent the morning on Facebook. I hated to be alone – I just wanted to hug someone! I was bouncing up and down in 11535803_10152997661181169_4394317502946977616_nmy chair, crying and laughing at the same time. I’d stop crying, then read something like “Love wins!” and start crying tears of joy all over again. We finally had marriage equality!

This wasn’t quite a surprise. I knew this ruling was coming. I was watching the SCOTUS blog, and was disappointed each day when they didn’t rule on this important case. I expected a win. But when it came, the emotions were shocking and overwhelming. I could hardly believe it! We won!

So there was no question I had to celebrate. A large group of organizations had gathered together to host a rally and a celebration on whatever evening the ruling was issued, so obviously it was going to be yesterday. But here’s the thing about adrenal problems: any stress is a problem. That includes good stress. As I told my dad a few weeks ago, winning the lottery right now could leave me bedridden. So while this was a fantastic day with glorious news, the emotional excitement of the morning at worn me out. I could feel the chest congestion, the difficulty breathing at times, the roughness in my throat. My body had started to rebel.

I debated. I debated a lot. I knew that going to the celebrations could have really bad results, but how could I not go? I was protesting at the State House here in Massachusetts in 2004 when the legislature tried to work around the Supreme Judicial Court’s ruling to make same-sex marriage legal in this state. I was there when they finally delivered the vote that would lead to the first marriages in May 2004. But in May 2004, I didn’t feel well enough to go to City Hall and see the first marriages taking place. I was there, though, in 2012 when we celebrated the SCOTUS ruling that invalidated DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act. This meant that the federal government would recognized all same-sex marriages, an enormous victory! So even if your state didn’t recognize your marriage, the federal government would.

And here we were in 2015 and I wanted to celebrate. First things first, I sat on the tv with some knitting and a movie and I forced myself to relax. It was tough not to go online, but I knew I needed to calm my emotions. After I rested, I made a 6-27-2015 1-09-45 PMsimple plan: I would get takeout for dinner, then go to the first rally. I would skip the more boisterous celebrations. As much as I wanted to go to them, I knew it would be more than I could handle. And if at any point on the way to the rally it felt like too much, I would come home, because celebrating on my own, or on the phone with loved ones, or any other way, would be good enough. It wasn’t my first choice, but it was the right choice.

In the end, I made it to the rally. Where I once saw opponents holding truly hateful posters, I now saw waving rainbow flags. There was a huge rainbow flag on the gate to the State House! I almost cried all over again. I heard amazing speeches, saw the cheers, and felt fantastic, though tired. So I found a place to sit. I didn’t cheer out loud, only in my head, and I took it easy. It was a necessary compromise, and one that I don’t regret at all.

I can’t begin to explain how meaningful yesterday’s decision was to me. Everything I write here is woefully inadequate. But the energy yesterday was perfect. We all understood each other. Strangers hugged and cheered together. I hugged my friends, simply saying, “Can you believe it?” and “What a day!” and we all understood. No explanations were necessary.

And now, as I type this, there is a rainbow stripe at the top of my screen, because apparently WordPress is in on the celebration. My Facebook feed is filled with celebratory notes, excited words, memes, articles, videos. Profile pictures are rainbow-colored or bi-colored (I went with bi colors.) My straight friends and family are celebrating just as much as the queer ones. Just as it should be. Because yesterday, we all won. And in my own way, I got to celebrate that, despite my illness.

2 Comments | Fatigue, Frustration, Isolation, Limitations, Medication, Rants, Symptoms | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »