Don't Let It Get Me

It's hard not to be disappointed. Going to a new alternative therapist, hoping against hope that this one will be different. This one will work wonders.
This one can help you be fixed.


First impressions aren't everything but...my first impressions were not favourable.

"So, dude, what do you think's inside that hatch thing?" "Hope. I think hope's inside."

August 2015 is an important anniversary. In 1 year and 2 months I will have had this headache for 10 years. 

A decade of pain. A decade of frustration and despair. 

A decade of false hope.

I don't want to get to August next year and still be in pain. I want it to stop. I want to be better. I want to be fixed. 

When I was told that because I had chronic pain I couldn't bungy jump, I was angry. Angry at my body, my head. Angry at life. I wanted to get this sorted, I wanted it to stop holding me back. I wanted to be free.

So I went to the doctor yesterday, to ask his opinion. To ask someone else what I should be doing, what I could be doing. 

I opened the hatch. 

And what was inside?

Sorry Locke, but it sure as hell wasn't hope. 

I want to be fixed? 

It's about time I fixed myself. 

The roads are bumpy in Tasmania

On my last full day in Tasmania, I emerged from MONA to heat. Actual sunshine, and warmth with it. Standing on the jetty awaiting the arrival of the ferry back to Hobart, I watched the water lapping over the rocks. Again and again and again.

And my mind felt as dark as the water surrounding me.

I imagined myself putting down my handbag, taking off my trainers, removing my sunglasses, and hopping lightly over the glass barrier, plunging into the water. But the water by the jetty is rocky, so I wouldn't just plunge down into the dark, shivery depths; I would fall hard and fast against solid stone.

And I imagined for a moment: what if I did that, and my headaches went away? If I smashed myself against them, would they correct this abomination inside me? Would it die? Would it finally subside and disappear as I have dreamt of it doing countless times?

This headache is like those waves. They break over me again, and again, countless times, never ending.
And I am promised salvation by those that never deliver it. I put my faith and trust in them, and they never deliver the freedom they promise me. It's a wonder my trust isn't used up, that the well of hope hasn't dried up.

It's still full enough to provide me with tears.

On Tuesday, I went most of the day with a headache. A headache I pushed and prodded at, tried to breathe through, that made my head, and my soul, feel heavy. At 6pm I took painkillers. And by 7pm the 8/10 scale headache I had pushed through all day was down to a 3. I could engage with life again.

If I could, I would take painkillers every day. But I am on medication designed to free me from a dependence on them. Frequent painkiller self-medication can and does result in medication overuse headaches and then I'm adding another resident to the can of worms that is my head. And sometimes when I take painkillers, they only take the edge off - taking a 9 down to a 6. But I'm willing to bet anyone else's 9 is my 6 in the first place. I tolerate the pain because what the hell else can I do?

How can a person thrive when every beautiful, amazing, incredible experience is marred by a constant agony?

If a bird or animal in the wild is too ill to carry out it's everyday tasks, it dies.
And yet I live.



And yet I live and there is so much left to see. I am slightly nonplussed by the ancient rainforest and bush of Australia, having seen it a fair few times. But I live for the day I step into the wilderness and am overawed by the sheer scale and beauty this earth is capable of producing.


And yet I live and there is so much left to do. Exploring new places, learning about new cultures. There are mountains to climb, though the first is within me it seems.

Is the answer to ending this abomination inside the very organ causing me such agony? Could my brain hold the key to what is torturing it? Can the healing only come from me?

I am haunted by what was, what is, and what may be. I do not want to live a life where the moments I savour most are marred by pain, or the moments of freedom from that pain are brief, as though they never happened in the first place.

Heh-day-key

Break the head down into chunks,

Chunks that hurt and chunks that don’t.

Chunks that burn and boil and boom,

And chunks that can’t, chunks that won’t.

Dissect me into pieces,

And take my mind apart.

Break into the sections,

And pack away the heart.

There’s a fire raging forward,

Tearing limb from limb,

Leading me into lava

Where I’m struggling to swim.

There’s a dragon sitting on my neck,

Breathing flames into my skull.

Burning muscle bone and even breath,

And the rest is left quite dull.

When you spiralling down a whirl of pain,

Leaving it hard to see.

You wonder how much longer,

This can even be.

There’s a fire raging forward,

Your courage eradicated.

Unstoppable until

You’ve slept or ate or medicated.

You’re broken, oh so broken

Split right through the head.

There’s still a small-ish part of you,

That wishes you were dead.

And so the migraine passes,

The pain has left , hooray!

It’ll just come back though, it always does

The headache that never goes away. 

Short Term Gain, Long Term Pain

Think about where you are right now in your life. Maybe think about your job, your relationships, friends and hobbies. Think about your health.


Now think about where you'll be in 5 years time. Whether you'll be in the same job, be with the same person. Whether your health will still be the same. 


My acupuncturist today talked about how, 5 years into the future, my headache won't be such an important part of my life. 


But how can he know that? How can anyone know that? How can I dare to hope that? 


When you have chronic pain, you forget what life was like before it. You forget what it feels like to move without things aching, to wake up and spring out of bed. You can't remember the last week you went without trying some sort of pain relief, whether it be conventional medicine or otherwise. It still feels like regardless of any improvements over the last year, I still cannot envision a day without my headache. Without at least once a day going "ooof that hurts" or "urgh that aches". 


But my headache HAS improved in the last year. I've gone from needing deep heat on everyday, to every so often. I take painkillers less than once a week, when it used to be a miracle if I went a few days without them. 


I still crack and rub and generally wish away the pain, but I can't deny that there's been some change.

But some change doesn't feel like anything when you've been putting up with this for 8 years. And when a general improvement is punctuated with moments so dark, so distressing and so deeply agonising that you can barely gasp for breath, it doesn't feel like anything has gotten better really. 


As I write this, my head aches and my neck is so sore. When you've read this, and you go back to whatever you were doing, my head will still ache, my neck will still be sore, and I will still be thinking about 5 years time. 


Maybe, in 5 years time, I will be free.

Hello headache, my old friend

For more than eight years now I've woken up every day and had a headache. Eight years is a long time for my paltry memory to reach back, so I can't remember if it would be there when I opened my eyes right at the beginning. But in the last 5 or 6 years, it generally has.For a few bleary moments, approximately a second and a half, when I first open my eyes, my mind adjusts to the situation, and the context in which I base myself. This context of young woman with constant headache. Often, unless I am instantly hit with an inescapable thud of pain, those few bleary moments are a few bleary moments of freedom. It's as though my headache is waiting in the wings, a Pantomime villain, and my temples, my neck, my skull, my nerves and blood vessels are all about to join in a chorus of "he's behind you!"

And then out from the wings he leaps, cackling evilly and all the pain arrives trailing behind him like small minions. The headache orchestrates the minions, directing them to where he needs them most - lying across my forehead like a wet flannel, resting in my temple like mini Buddhas, ohming a tingle of agony. 
All this in those few bleary moments. 

I thought my headache was getting better. But this morning, as with yesterday too, my pantomime villain was barely containing himself to the wings before I opened my eyes.

And at 2am he snuck his new favourite pal in too: hello nausea, you sneaky bastard. I thought I'd had enough of you. 

When my alarm went at 7am, they were both there. Picnicking. Dining out on my nerves and blood vessels and pushing on certain bits and pressing on others. Feeling nausea lying in my throat; my headache lolling around above my eyebrows.

Dine away, villain. Push and press away. The context into which I awake everyday might include you, but it isn't solely about you. I am more than my pain. Good always defeats evil. Go back to the shadows with a boo and a hiss. You won't be missed. 

Deserving

At the first consultation of a new treatment Tuesday, after turning me into a human pin-cushion and hearing my life story, the acupuncturist said he didn't believe there was anything psychological to my headache. The solid mass that pretends to be my muscles gives him the hint that it's physiological. 

But at last weekend's hypnotherapy session I was asked about focusing on why my headache started. I spoke about how I often feel that I did something to cause this headache. The medication overuse, stress and anxiety, going on too many roller coasters. 

When you walk into a room for a Chiropractic appointment with someone who is not your usual chiropractor and they say that you're giving yourself mini-whiplash every time you flick your fringe out of your eyes and that's probably the cause of all your problems, you're inclined to believe them. They are the expert after all.

Except I didn't have a fringe when my headache started. Sure my mini-whiplash probably doesn't help, but it didn't cause my headache in the first place.

And the cause, the why my headache started, is likely to always be a mystery. Yes it could have been the stress of moving schools. Yes it could have been the roller coasters. 

Yes it could have been the medication overuse. And whilst I know that biologically medication overuse comes from taking pain killers too often, and not from huge quantities in one sitting, there is part of me that will always think I am to blame for this headache because of the things I have done, and because of the pain I have caused. It's karma. Except I can't cross it off a list like Earl. 

Trance on Saturday focused on emotions, and how they can cause pain. And how pain can manifest itself as an emotion. 

When I try to describe how my headache makes me feel, it's along the lines of frustrated, powerless. When I try to describe how my headache feels, if it were emotion, it would usually be anger. An anger that assaults my muscles, my skeleton, my senses, my organs. An anger that courses its way through my veins, pools in the temples, strikes behind the eyes, lies at the base of my skull, coiled like a snake waiting to spot its prey. 

When treatments don't work, I usually think it's because I haven't tried hard enough to make it work. When my head gets worse it is easy to point to the things I'm doing wrong, and not the things I'm doing right. The eating pastries as a snack, not the 2 litres of water I drink every day. The times I sit on my Xbox for hours not the runs I go for, the walking I do or the daily stretches. 

We only have one life, and sometimes it can be too short. I need to let go of this feeling that I did something in this life or lives past that mean I deserve this pain. I need to focus on making the best of the life I have, and make sure that I get the right balance to enjoy the life I deserve.