Head Space

Do you have those days, weeks, months - the ones when your head space is clouded and dull, where everything seems too much trouble.  There are bright spots, like my massage and lunch with Amy (the best hands in Australia), cuddles and talking with my grandkids, sunshiny winter days - but mostly it is just overwhelmingly negative in my head at the moment.

Not depressed as such, but just too much to deal with, and the frustrations of trying to make things better only to be thwarted by doctors being on holidays or appointments booking into 2013.

I am not naturally a pessimistic person, always glass half full, but lately I keep getting smacked in the face by things that don't seem to be getting any better.

Take the D2, new medication - has made little to no difference.  Take the needle phobia - 3 months or more of injecting myself twice a day has not make it go away.  In fact, it is really doing my head in.  I just feel numb, so while I managed to stick that needle in, and push the injector button, I feel that each time I do a little bit of me dies.  Weird hey?  So I ask my D2 nurse if there is a support group, people going through the same crap that maybe I can join.  Seems not.  So I ask my doctor about seeing someone, sure she refers me, then he is on leave for all of this month, so who knows when I will get an appointment?  And yes, Mum, I know I can talk to you, but I don't want to, I need this to be my journey - hopefully you understand that and don't get offended.

So I am not looking forward to my visit with the D2 specialist in a couple of weeks, I know he won't be happy and that he also won't understand - after all, while he is a specialist - he doesn't suffer with D2 or have needle phobia.

Then there is the pain in my back, leg, knee and foot - all caused by the nerve in my back.  So I get a referral to a specialist - seems he can't see me until Jan 2013 - right that's a lot of help.  And I have private health, so this is not a hospital waiting list!!!.  So back to my doctors and I get a list of 4 other guys who might have shorter lists, well one has retired and two are December at the earliest.  But yippee I managed to get the 28th September - what???  That's right I am happy about an appointment months away.  Still, I need something to happen, walking around the shops today, I managed 20 minutes before I was in agony and heading back to my car.

Then there is the 12 kilos I lost because of my arthritis medication giving me diarrhoea most days, now I am off the meds, the weight is going back on.  Of course it is.  Then I hear on the radio that I need to walk briskly for an hour a day, 5 days a week.  Right, that's going to happen when I can only manage 20 slowly at the shopping centre.  Still, I am going to the gym tomorrow to see about joining.  How many hours on the weights do you think I will need to do - I hate to think, but I have to give something a try for if I go on insulin I will put weight on.

I think a lot of my issue is that I normally don't really think about myself, my focus has always been outwards - looking after every one else first and I have got into the habit of ignoring myself.  The D2 has been lurking in the background for years, I knew it was coming, I tried to avoid it, but I didn't try hard enough - it was too easy to ignore the warnings, too easy to think it would be years coming.  There were too many days of saying tomorrow, I will deal with it tomorrow.  Well you know that tomorrow never comes.

I don't know why I struggle to put myself first, but I do.  I'm not saying I am not selfish in some ways, heaps of ways even.  But it has always been easier to not think about me, it seems strange to even say that and I am not sure that anyone else would understand.

So now when I have to put myself first, well, it just seems so dammed hard, and I am so tired - emotionally, physically and mentally.  As try as I might, I just can't seem to get my head into the space it needs to be.  I even said to my Mum that maybe I just won't try, maybe it was easier to just keep ignoring until the end.  But I know the end with D2 is not pretty, but I just don't know that I can keep doing this for another 20 years, not sure I can even do it until the end of this year.

Then there is the self sabotage, suddenly I am craving all the things I am not allowed to eat, and every now and then, and some time way to often, I allow myself to indulge.  God, I am an intelligent woman - what's going on???

So excuse the indulgence of this post, I am just putting it out there in the Universe, not looking for sympathy, and not really feeling sorry for myself either, just tired, really, really tired of the crap.