#ChronicPain | RealStuff by RealMe

I Don’t Want To Know You; Let Me Go!

We must make a deal; a truce, a contract, whatever you want to call it. Pain, we are one unwillingly.

You came to me in subtle ways, from the heart of a small child to a broken teenage girl you’ve followed me. You stole my youth with untrue love, my trust was left in your dusty tracks. When I ran from you, you pursued and I tried to cast you away in young adulthood by avoiding my inner truths. Eventually my emotions brewed into a bubblingly froth and spilled over into every damn day, always soiling my hopes without LittleMe on my tail. Souring every chance I took for love and acceptance I grew cold, angry and put my tender heart into a well of dried up tears, abandoning my truest self.

I was not broken entirely for I always had dreams of love, being seen and kept. I lost my father to his ego, my mother to her internal pain, my trust to the unfaithful that’s true, yet I always kept a secret sense of divine Love that is, the belief that there was more than I could see unfolding. I would not say God as many people do, but sure, maybe that is an alright use of true love. I began my adult path of pain feeling breathless and broken without a child. Without guidance from my elders blood, I sought out mentors, always watching carefully the ways of other familial tribes. Jealousy overcame me as I too wanted the sense of togetherness, the traditions, the “every year we go to the coast of Maine”, or the Hamptons or in my case I would have settled for a motel 8 in Panama City. So, boohoo. I didn’t get that. People are dying from hunger and draught, floods and war so who cares. I got over it….kind of. I did have my baby, a failed marriage that should have never been in the first place and tried to recreate a sense of family with other loves. I never have and never will give up. The big slice taken out of me isn’t from any of my emotional grievances. It comes from my body in constant pain; never ever do I have freedom from physical pain. If it were not for my thwarted past of thorns, I couldn’t handle my life now. I have a young adult I longed for still not on their feet for a variety of reasons; I live in a perpetual state of home sickness for my friends back home and have never felt whole in my second country of residence. Without my young adult around me I truly feel incomplete and waves of fear roll over me tossing me into walls of sorrow when I think of her away from me. After years and decades of bereavement over my broken family the divine love gave me more. I sincerely want to believe there is a reason (it better be good) that your divine being put all of this on me. I factually can’t remember what a painfree day is. I continue to be mindful, aware that it all could be even worse, but I am allowed bad days; I can’t always keep everything together, much less keep anyone else together. Today was one of those days when I just felt broken. Done. Overbaked and raw simultaneously. If there is a divine being, karma or whatever, what the hell did I do in my last life to be given this trial. Oh, and my toe hurts. Signed Grumpy, Lumpy and Dumpy.

Renewing The Circle; A Lost Mother’s Daughter

Nurture, Nature, and Embracing Womanhood Painting, Oil and mixed media by Andrea Polla In her own light she was conceived again and again as she grew into her truest self, following her own oath and quest to live life in tune with her deepest heart. She began with no knowledge of who she…

by ROCK May 31, 2023June 1, 2023

Vermont to Sweden; How I feel about cold weather.

Cold weather factually is weather that just appears to not be warm. It can be quite cosy in fact. The judgement ensued upon it’s character in my history book began with the Donner party who stupidly thought they could cross the Rocky Mountains in wobbly wagons with a few snacks. Cold weather did not cause…

by ROCK May 23, 2023

Go Fissure; A Leap of Grace

Have you ever broken a bone? For some unreasonable reason I continue to believe I am graceful; I was an awesome dancer and prancer in the not seemingly so long ago days. With my variety of ailments and chronic pain issues, including osteoporosis one would think I’d be crumbled up in a fragile porceline glop.…

by ROCK May 22, 2023

Friday the 13th; Beautiful Bones, Pain and Freedom

Posted on January 15 by ROCK

Santa’s Dysphoric Bodily Image; no worries his spirit may be heavy yet he is always ready for next year.

Rock knocked his balls out of the park this last week when Lm was willingly placed in a physical renovation program for humans with Chronic Repetitive Pain Syndrome in a prestigous university hospital with an entire staff run by strong women. This gave her the power punch she has needed and despite her discomfort with traveling, her inability to hide out and write, draw or bite her nails in a closet, she pushed through succesfully. At one point, Rock stepped aside and let her fly, a first for her in a very long time. The head Doctor was kick ass brilliant, beautiful as she reflected her own knowledge with a striking clarity; her eyes drew Lm into a new type of comfort, strangely that meaning accepting she must face her physical discomfort with vigor and bone by bone, breath by breath reawaken from the massive sink hole she has been lying in for three years. Due to privacy, as always, Lm has vowed not to reveal names. “Doctress” is how she will refer to her as she sits soaking in the late afternoon sunlight; regal as royalty, she deserves a crown. Rock admits he is so damn tired of getting Lm up and out of the deep stairwell, her aches and pains are a load to carry and perhaps he should thank Doctress also. The depression which was hovering over Lm lifted in a one week stint as day after day angelic women served her hope; nurses and assistants, a physical therapist, occupational therapist, a psychologist, a social worker and a psychiatrist broke through the black ceiling allowing Lm to refind part of her inner strength. From the woman who brought the food, and a pack of several special humans from different worlds converging, Lm was able to glue pieces of herself together again. Friday the 13th she was released. Bad luck? No! She packed up her troubles, traumas and beautiful bones and with Rock trailing behind her for once she led the way to their next adventure. What is important, sincerely the most significant experience summorisation is Lm after wallowing in severe pain, rolling over and over in deep fear for years has been handed a baton to continue passing forward; she can not run a marathon, yet she can pass on her light to others. How long will she hold it all up? As long as she puts her stubborn mind to it. Rock has relaxed and leans against a wall watching her efforts with glee yet with sentimental reservations as part of him fears Lm will go forward without him. Lm knows this and although she won’t admit it, she will never let go of Rock nor abandon his concrete loyalty, together they have come this far and as they enter part 2, scene one, stage center, their characters will eventually merge. Lm echoes, ” hold on, hold on” to all those hurting in any way out in this crazy, broken and struggling world. Her faith in nature leads her to believe even in the smallest of ways, life will be better for not only herself but for this floating planet called Earth, it’s inhabitants and the creatures above and below. Believing in the spirit of love is a choice. One tiny choice, minute by minute.

05:20

Posted on January 9 by ROCK

I don’t want to be awake. It’s been a perfect night for sleep, rain in Stockholm. Tin roof, comfy bed, the whole kit and caboodle. Real as can be, exhausted by additional pain from flying while disabled, I lie here wondering how will the special chronic repetitive pain syndrome diagnosis is going to play out. Later today I check into Uppsala universitet sjukhuset smartkliniken, that is Uppsala University’s pain clinic for a one week assessment. From this poking and prodding of both my mind and body it will be determined if a team of specialists will have me back for a month long stay. How does one rehabilitate chronic pain? I am too far gone to think about the entirety of it but will say, from what I have read, my brain is scrambled, the coding has been buried or tiny mice in my head have chewed through the wires. I am never free from pain, rested and refreshed or in the slightest comfortable. Hope is on the table and I want to be that kind of human who believes, ” change is gonna come, yes it is.” Lm attempts to move forward and cry the entire few hours and minutes I have left with fear and angst using the “why me spiel”. Rock is in place, ready for whatever comes next and has tucked Lm into a safe space for the time being. Real as it gets has taken center stage and I, the woman almost sixty years old will wrestle with fervor to let the rainy, dark morning give me some time for my eyelids to grow heavy, for my own purring snore to begin and perhaps I’ll be gifted a dream where I am unchained from my physical limitations and run a muck carefree.

I Will Remember, too

Posted on January 8 by ROCK

#Grief, #LettingGo, #Husband,#Wife, #Family, #Pain, #Continuance — Photo by Ivan Samkov on Pexels.com

Your Love

Your love pushed me through walls of pain, caused me inexplicable grief and forced me to face myself. Your love has kept me believeing that life can be better, that past’s can be put to rest and life is worth living still. Your love is constant, even when you roar, stomp or confront my bitterness. You are surprisingly tender and need me when I least expect it; I feel honored by your vulnerability. Now, I face more pain; pain not from threat, regardless life breaking. I sit and watch you live from the sidelines and want so much more for you. I want to roll in the grass, make love in the forest, move my body in sync with yours…but I can’t. I can smile and feel the tears spilling from my eyes, laugh sometimes at your ridiculous attempts to amuse me, but I can never be the lover you once knew, your strength or release. For this, my true love, I am sorry. For it is not me who leaves you, alit by the frame of my spirit that awakened when I saw your arctic eyes, felt your strong embrace and the one I have known as my lover from our first kiss. No matter where pain takes me, nor the realms that seperate us, know. KNOW. You are the love of my life in beauty and in sorrow.

New Year’s Eve Forecast; Pain with a hint of Hope

Posted on December 31 by ROCK

Narrator: RealMe. Little Me needs to step away for a good long while. I am by the North Sea where I have spent several special occasions in this very old gatekeeper’s cottage; it’s familiarity soothes something deep within me, a place so primal and eternal that I feel reintroduced to my own heart, my dogged determination and please bare with me when I whisper to you my secret idealisation, a very old soul called ME. From my bed with floral bed curtains in green, muted red and golden hints I sit carefully propped up to convalesce both my body and my mind. I look out of the iron crossed windows, down to marshy meadows where the inlets water is smooth; no winds have begun to blow which I often enjoy as they give me a natural resource to recharge my vitality . Tuesday I fell in the bathroom in my beloved 1700’s farmhouse injuring three ribs and spent the better part of two days in hospital and Doctor’s appointments. This has occurred one week short of my flight to the best CRPS, that is Chronic Repetitive Pain Syndrome, rehabilitation hospital in Sweden. I have had fear of how I’ll manage with my additional pain and travel with out conflict, yet when I woke this morning to the foggy gray skies, the solitude of the sea and the ease of no no frustrations a wisp of hope wrapped around me like the arms of an old friend and gently said, ” you can do this”. It is true, I can and I will. This special cottage is strong, durable and has seen centuries of storms. The spirits here unite and gather around me and lift my head up, warm my heart that was growing bitter and sway me so gently that I know I can control Little Me and face the new year with hopefulness. So, to you my readers I send simplicity, a lot of love from one survivor to the next. May a season of bliss welcome us into 2023.

Half and Half; The Division of Self

Posted on December 21 by ROCK

Chronic Pain; The Modalities of Madness

“It’s that TIME of year, the gruelling, catastrophic melancholy jingles of good tidings deepen Lm’s bastard of a headache.” Rock reminds Lm it’s not her “JOB” to be jolly. Lm thought last year was tough with her mother visiting; fibromyalgia, brain fog and her severe spinal pain made being merry impossible; polite and engaging was a morose daily event. Lm’s mother still does not get it even though she says she does. Her mother wakes at seventy-nine years old in good health, fully dresses, puts on her jewellery and lipstick then the giant elephant, PAIN in the ass, Lm woke slovenly, unrested, clad in in her night clothes, needing the toilet and wishing her mother to be quiet. “Good morning!” “How do you feel today?” Blah, blah, blah would ensue, and Lm would use the bathroom then excuse herself to her room again. She had wanted to shout and completely lose her fucking cool and say, ” I don’t know what a good morning is!” “I feel like shit”. What a tiring memory; simply recounting it drives steel bars through Lm’s ears, clanging, banging, whistling to the point of insanity, “Tinnitus”, Rock recalls. Lm glares at Rock, “Shut up, you don’t have ears.” Now, after having covid last March 2022 Lm has made a steady decline, like a little steam engine riding it’s breaks she slowly took each turn, believed she was in control and would not careen into the mountain sides and land in a big heap culminating into a pile of unsalvageable parts. Yet, she did. She is a heap of bitter moments, throbbing bones, more and more fatigued each minute as she lies entangled within her dreadful blob of perpetual turmoil. Dreams are cruel and vivid now. Christmas music isn’t cutting it for her and Rock pushing her to wash her hair, take more pain meds only irritates her. An unwelcomed mouse gnaws in the ceiling above her bed and her eyes burn from lack of rest. Sleeping is her game now. Fa la la la la. Rock is not as strong now. He has always carried her with crushing will and managed her weaknesses; it’s obvious he is vulnerable, too. She has clung to his ability to push through the physical pain, the abuse, the sickness, the past, the failures and smile. He can’t do it alone now and is scared. Who will help Lm? Who will see she is too weak to fight much longer? She does have two promising doctors now and soon will fly off to a special hospital for chronic repetitive pain patients. What about her CPTSD, BadDad, unresolved “Black Sheep” night terrors? What about suicidal ideation? No one wants to hear this part. Amsterdam is sounding like a good place to depart this goddamn nightmare. Laying on sofas, forgetting words, sleeping for hours now while it seemed like a romp in the snow wasn’t so long ago, a wintery walk through the forest, cooking masterfully with passion, playing a game of cards with the kids, being the “I got this” kind of mother. Lm knows she doesn’t have this now. She won’t climb a mountain, canoe or see Botswana nor make it back to her favourite old haunts with her husband. She dreams of parties and dancing, remembers her youthful beauty and laugh. She can’t take care of her surroundings and just wants out. Rock can’t console her more. He has run out of ideas. There are no good surprises coming. She will sleep through the holidays, check out her last shot at being “better” at the special pain rehabilitation centre and then come back, just the same, turn sixty in January in an uneventful way and wonder no more “why me?”. She will let go of Rock, stop dreaming and stop trying to make friends stay. No MORE existing through this shit, she will give in. She doesn’t want to be felt sorry for, sympathy and prayers. She wants OUT! Because NOBODY truly knows what it takes for her to live. The anxiety, lying in a pool of regrets, wrong turns, and basically her dumbass MINDFULNESS journey leading her right back to what she really is, useless. A total drag. Someone who holds everyone she loves back. Pride has left on the last ship out of here. Divided. Lm is now a thing. An “it”. Rock stumbles and TRUTH agrees, the two of them are in for a big last fight before the bell rings and the winner is declared. Honestly, in the boxing ring of life, he doubts either will rise again.

Why Does TRUTH Matter?

Posted on December 10 by ROCK

The Philosophical Dialogues Between RocK and Lm ; Part I

Rock is calm, in control and direct; he nudges Lm after days of her hiding so deeply within herself that she hasn’t eaten properly. She developed this unhealthy habit as a teenager along with over exercising, mega dosing herself on over the counter diet pills and eventually she was given “black beautys” by her worst addiction, TJ. That’s the TRUTH. Her first love was older, maybe twenty-one going on twenty-two when she met him on the city docks in Annapolis, Maryland; he fulfilled all the longing she had for her father’s attention. When BadDad had visited her in Nashville she was treated like a wealthy princess, shown off to his friends for her beauty and good manners which he was proud of. When she ran away to live with him he had married the wonderful Elle and she longed to be with her baby sister, D. Expectations were quicky extinguished. BadDad was curt, often critical of Elle and used Lm to find younger girls to hit on. Lm never knew how to deal with this and just pushed it into the stairwell with everything else that tried to break her spirit. She was naive and desperate for love; TJ was smooth, like Old Spice commercials, a sailor, a good drunk, a good Catholic, and a sex addict; he introduced Lm at barely sixteen to a wide variety of drugs. TRUTH. “You could have overdosed!” Rock is actually still surprised Lm is alive. “Yeah, well I didn’t, did I?” Lm is snarky, angry at TJ to this day. He was the one who slept with everyone she knew, in fact he slept with other girls while she waited for him in his best friend’s room. His best friend was a good person and although drugging and drinking, too he maintained some sort of faint resemblance to decent ethics. She would go to him (aka “Moby”) and sob; he always comforted her and he didn’t hit on her which gained her trust. Soon TJ introduced her to crystalmeth, cocaine, hashish, uppers, quaaludes, hard liquor, acid (LSD) and the habit of daily pot use. Her mornings were black coffee, amphetimines and saltine crackers, just enough to start the day. Lm’s father couldn’t do much because he wasn’t around enough and well, he had no room to talk. Lm new about his teenaged lover, his mistresses and flings and tried to bury the secret life he led behind Elle’s back. Her desperation for being seen, loved, adored, and wanted was now a sickness and TJ took full advantage of it. He would show up at her school in his old station wagon which he and Moby named “the Whale”; they started a painting company and lived on an old boat docked not too far from her house. She had been transferred to an elite private school after failing religion in tenth grade. She refused summer school and thus was tossed to the next VIP high school and it was life changing. She made friends, met really nice nerdy boys she liked but TJ had a good grip on her. She felt obligated to him and missed out on much of the fun with her new classmates. Other than BadDad and a few drunks hitting on her, TJ would become the one who broke her into small fragments of a girl, he would groom her just as her father had and she would take all of his emotional and mental abuse in a grotesque self deprivating way, for she had no identity; she was only HIS. Rock forces Lm to nurture her inner child, sip some tea, come forward with all TRUTH day by day. Why does TRUTH matter? Rock says, “Denying your own experiences leads to a deep sickness.” He is never giving up on Lm and promises to help her heal and in turn she can heal others. It’s dark twenty-four hours a day right now and Lm is also physically unwell. She can’t accept her pain within her heart, or that which engulfs her soul; how is she to accept her physical pain? Rock wants to hold her but he can not. He wants to teach her to hold onto herself. Rock said, “Lm, if I could punch TJ in the snout, I would; but we of all people know violence solves nothing.” Our only secret “mean” wish is that TJ and BadDad suffer for what they did to us. Lm whispers, “Why must I suffer in my dreams all alone?”. Tonight she may not sleep; it’s her only gaurantee that she won’t wake in a cold sweat, with those fat salty tears burning her fair freckled face.

Not EVEN Close!

Posted on December 8 by ROCK

Rock watches from the corner of his eye as Lm takes a long inhale of a pretend cigarette. She is satisfied she is back in her dank quarters, just the two of them without disturbance. Rock has told her she is far from healed and that acceptance of her past eases her presence and will lead to a healthier future. ” Oh yay”, Lm replied, ” a healthy future is so enticing!”. Lm is not believing in Rock or the future full of smiles, love and peace anymore. She is overcooked, baked to a crisp and hard. Rock assures her that if she continues to tell her TRUTH, her story, that she will overcome all of her pain. Lm knows that even if one person saw beyond her soft blue eyes she’d be leary. Everyone, every single person in her world is backing away, and she knows that she has only her pain mentally, physically and emotionally to count on waking her at three a.m. She pulls out a drawer full of photos and sees herself at seven with BadDad and the nice girlfriend at a protest. She’s sad, looking down and he is oblivious. The word of the day, her life and relationships, with her mother and father is oblivious. Obviously oblivious.

Resurrecting ROCK

Posted on November 9 by ROCK

After a long hiatus, Rock was found face down in wet leaves, stashed behind the family pet’s gravestones

For some newer readers, you might consider going back to the very first post in October 2021; Rock has been crucial to LittleMe’s growth, always her protector and strong. As Lm gets healthier, crushing her past with a mortar and pestle grain by grain she hid Rock and escaped his wise, solemn advice. Why would she do this to her best cover, her internal bodyguard since she was so small, she couldn’t talk? Rock knows and is upright, straight forward so let him explain why, despite her bravery, she still needs him and always will. ROCK is all knowing, a TRUTH teacher, and he sees what Lm is thinking before she acts. Without him, Lm (despite feeling she can take on the world), well, simply put, she can’t. Lm suffers from childhood trauma, chronic post-traumatic stress disorder, CPTSD, depression, and extreme insecurity because those she loved like BadDad let her down, not once but to the deepest, darkest, unforgettable place that creeps up on her, breaks her and torments her still. “Lm?”. Silence. Damn. “Lm? I’m back, still here for you. Are you under the bed? Are you in the stairwell opening memories without me?”. He waits. He hears a whistle, the kind a small child tries to make but it’s more like a soft blow of wind with a hum. “Come out Lm and let’s talk about what you’ve been up to. “Lm is indeed under the bed. Out stretches her hand from the same old bed she fled to when BadDad memories became too big when she was young. She feels Rock’s gritty surface, whimpers and doesn’t retreat. Rock is everlasting, part of her until her last breath; she wraps her smallest self around him as tears flood the floor. Rock is good at cleaning up messes and doesn’t mind. “We are closer to being one, but Lm you are not ready. I will know when it’s time to merge.” Rock wants to keep her safe and tells her, “Don’t hide me away again, we need each other Lm. Do you understand why now?”. Lm nods her head up and down and wants to articulate “Yes.” She can’t talk right now and is grateful Rock returned. “Tired of keeping up that big girl smile?”. Lm nods again. “I got you. Rock is here. Rest your heartache, leave your longing, stop waiting for the sky to open and for BadDad to hear you, admit his sins, to regret his lies and wrongs. It IS NOT going to happen Lm. He does NOT care and never will because you remind him of who he really is. Rest child. I will stand guard; I will keep you from starving for his love.” Lm lies in her puddle of tears with Rock. She is sorry to admit, she is not even close to being healthy. Rock knows Lm also has much chronic physical pain and is tired of fighting, that she is weary. He assures her she can close her eyes, but he knows he can never stop her dreaming.

Bored With Mind Games; Eight Points for Truth

Posted on August 23 by ROCK

Veritus. Lack of respect for what a loved one or friend has experienced or is living in the NOW is a selfish play. There are rules to abide by to live an honest life. Sound dysfunctional? Perhaps you too are on your path to freedom from illusions and the superficial world. The key to acceptance is TRUTH; keep your integrity in the pocket nearest to your heart. Lm is tired of holding her painful memories inside because they may disrupt other’s delicate worlds. Five of seven half siblings from BadDad have made it very clear that Lm’s truth is to be put neatly into a shoebox for eternity. ROCK is so damn tired of covering up her pain so others can feel better. Today she sat near him and felt his rough, brazen surface and gave him her list of Truths to be unfiltered, unpolished and he is sorting through her pile of letters, forming words, spelling out her emotions into sentences and organising her memoirs. Truth will set her free. Free from lies, from trying too hard to hold her past together and release her into the wind like a dancing butterfly. Yesterday, Lm crawled out from her hiding place with her best friend AP on her shoulder in angelic form. She pointed to all the wild flowers left to grow freely and together they hugged honey bees, chunky bumbles in their yellow and black suits and hundreds of butterflies swooned around them. Golden light fell upon their lifelong friendship, finely tuned and real. Coltsfoot mixed with red full roses, dandelions and clover lifted Lm off her feet with AP; laughing like children they flew through the tall grassy meadow, into the realm of Goodness. ROCK saw Lm’s eyes shining with delight and decided not to bring up the unnecessary, the dirt or grit. At the bottom of her stairwell she will inevitably return for he knows AP is only a temporary unfettered moment of liberatio.