A Person That I Don't Know, Recognize Or Like....

Yes, I said it and I mean it. I have Crohn's Disease and PTSD  (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). I have been living with the Crohn's Disease for fifteen years and the PTSD was diagnosed six years ago  (although now that I know the symptoms so well I think I have had it for much longer). Recently I was hospitalized for just over a month. Toward the end, the last few weeks were the hardest. I had doctors, the people who should have been helping me making accusations without looking at my chart. They wrote orders for their residents to not give me extra pain control medication no matter what often without bothering to come and see me themselves.

Unfortunately that wasn't even close to the hardest things that I had to go through while in that hospital; a hospital that I am afraid to go back to even if I desperately need medical attention.

The psychological effects were the worst. Much worse than hours and days in so much pain that I was starting to have a hard time telling what had really happened and what my mind made up on it's own. The doctors  (for the most part) treated me like I was an experiment or just a file number. Sometimes both. I was lied to, I was accused of being a drug seeking patient (which had they looked back in my chart they would have found no evidence of such behavior). I was accused of wanting to stay in the hospital. My very clear instructions left for the doctors in order to not "trigger" my PTSD symptoms was ignored by them. Every day the nurses were the people who I looked forward to seeing and being able to talk to for a little while. It was often my only human contact until it got bad enough that my mom drove the ten hours to come be with me. I don't think I would have made it out of that place without her fighting for me, without her holding me up.

Now I am at home. At least it is the house that I call home. The problem is it doesn't feel like home. Nothing feels right. The nightmares wake me at night often. I am still regaining strength. Except the problem is that I don't feel strong. I suffer from severe anxiety more often than not. I wake up  unable to move and scared. I try to find happiness in the face of all of this. I think it is the hardest thing I have ever done. I don't know if I can do it. I do know one thing though. I will keep trying....

Why?

I'm sitting at home, driving to get groceries,  sleeping (or sleeping at work.... don't tell my boss) and then the anxiety hits. Its not just that that little bit of anxiety. This is Fight or Flight "I feel like I'm gonna die" anxiety. Yes, in a large part it has to do with the fact that I have fairly PTSD but where does the rest come from? Seriously someone tell me. At those times when the anxiety from the PTSD hits and I feel like my mind is not my own it is the most terrifying thing I have ever felt. I try to be strong and trust that God has me go through this for a reason.  The problem is I feel like I'm at my breaking point. So my question tonight is why?

Happiness vs Depression

I have been thinking thinking a lot over the past few days about how happiness and depression often seem to coincide in my life at the the same time.  For example, right now I am laying in a hospital bed in pain and I am stuck in a room that used to be used as a storage closet.  I'm not even kidding. There are no windows, the walls are a dull colour, you can see where the shelves used to hang and it is a pretty small room. Now being in this room, sick, in pain, stressed about having to miss work I am feeling depressed. I quite often want to just break down and cry or scream at a God that I have been struggling to believe is even listening. But then again there is this white board in this prison cell like room that my girlfriend drew a picture for me on. Every time I glance at this picture I smile and I am reminded of her, the joy she brings to my life, how wonderful and beautiful she is, how my life life couldn't be complete without her. Then as I am looking at this picture and thinking of Fredylyn (my girlfriend) that depression that I felt consuming me just moments ago is fading away and being replaced by happiness.

Do you understand what I am talking about now? How it seems as though depression and happiness both exist in our lives at the same time? In my experience I have noticed that it seems as though as humans we think in a way where everything is either on or off,  right or wrong. I think that by thinking this way we are over simplifying everything. Yes, right now I am in a pretty crappy situation and over the last couple days I would say that feeling depressed has been dominating my thoughts and feelings for the most part.  However, there is that glimmer of happiness and hope for a better future, a different situation, a time that is coming soon where I will break through this depression that I am feeling at the moment and that time is coming soon.

I really want to encourage others that might be going through a hard times with this post. The way that I am really trying to look at this depressing situation I am in right now is that if I need to go through this in order to gain the tools to help someone else then it is worth it.

Please feel free to leave your thoughts. I would love to know what you think.

Cheers.

You Kick Me While I’m Down I’ll Break Your Legs

I know what those of you that are reading this are thinking right now ‘Strange title and this guy hasn’t written a post in a really long time’. Well you are right. It has been way too long since I have written a post on here so here I go….

Lately life has been feeling kinda crazy. It’s not just the crazy that you feel when you are really busy (although since the end of February I have been really busy) but it is the crazy that you feel when everything is well, crazy. As most of my readers know I suffer from a pretty serious medical condition that can sometimes just act up for what seems like no reason and land me in Royal University Hospital for a while. Due to serious complications from my condition last summer, two surgeries and then recovery/getting back on my feet I was unable to do much of anything until February except sit at home and have Social Services and my parents help support me (love you and thank you so much Mom and Dad) I felt like a really big failure. I didn’t really feel very inspired, I didn’t feel like my life was going anywhere and I was feeling depressed about all of it.

The turning point in all of this was when me and my psychologist started making some major progress with the depression and the PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) that I continue to deal with. Yes, I still struggle with feeling depressed about all of it sometimes and I still wake up yelling from nightmares sometimes but there has been a lot of progress as well. There is no way that I can give all of the credit for this progress in my emotional well being to myself and my psychologist. There have been several amazing people in my life that have really been there for me, stuck by me through the bad times and given me a lot of encouragement, support and helped me to take the situation at hand and reminded me to look at it in a positive way.

At the end of February I landed a job as a security guard with Commissionaires and have really done well in that job. At about the same time that I landed that job I also found myself a new roommate that has worked out really well. Then just a few days ago I met an amazing friend (TJ) and we have found that we have been through a lot of the same things in life so we have decided to help each other out as much as possible.

I guess what I am trying to say is that a few months ago I felt like I was completely down and out but I was able to take that situation and change it, learn from it and become a better person because of it. Yes, I did need to seek help to get back on track but for those of you that are reading this I want to let you know that there is no shame in that. If you are feeling down and out right now I want to encourage you by telling you that there is hope (I know everyone says that but it’s true), there is no shame in asking for help and stay determined to turn things around. You will get there.

Cheers.

No More

I know that it has been a really long time since I have posted on my blog. A big part of the reason that I haven't posted in so long is because I have been feeling confused, lost and very unsure of myself. The other reason as to why I haven't posted is the simple fact that I just haven't known what to say.

In the past while I have been really trying to find happiness and more meaning in my life but up to this point I have failed. I have looked for happiness in a dating relationship and failed to have that relationship work out and in the process I really hurt my friend. I allowed my own self interest to lead myself into a situation where I not only really hurt the relationship with my friend and I but I also hurt myself in the process. Even though I allowed myself to act selfishly in my own self interest while not thinking about how my actions could hurt my friend I mixed good intentions into my selfishness and then allowed myself to become sucked into self pity when even my good intentions were misread.

My other big mistake was allowing myself to believe that my relationship with God was in a good place and that I was continuing to grow in that relationship. As you know believing a lie that your relationship with God is in a good place when it really isn't can lead you into a bad place very quickly.

I allowed myself to believe this lie and it ended up leading to the point where I have come to be very confused, scared and falling into self doubt. Now I am at the point where I almost always feel confused, scared, lost and anxious. This place that I ended up in so quickly is a place that I am now desperate to get away from. I am not completely sure of how I will be able to get myself back to a place where I am in a better and growing relationship with God and feeling confident in myself again.

I don't know how I will repair my relationships with the friends that I hurt through my own self interest and selfishness in this pursuit of happiness. All that I do know is that this is not something that I will be able to do on my own strength but only through the strength of God.

At this point in my life my goal is to be able to repair my relationship with God, continue to grow in that relationship and to rely on God to help me believe the truth that only comes from him and nothing else. I need God's strength and guidance to get back to a stronger relationship with him that continues to grow, to work on repairing the relationships with friends that I have damaged and to get myself to a point where I can see past all of the self doubt, confusion and anxiety that I feel about myself.

I know that these improvements in my life won't happen overnight but I am determined to give everything that I have to God in order to allow him to work in me and effect change in my life. My flesh is weak but I do know that with God all things are possible. I ask for prayer from my friends and family as I work to effect change in my life with God's help.

Cheers. 

And It Hurts Again

Written On August 12th

“Enemy, Familiar Friend, My Beginning And My End, Broken Truth, Whispering Lies, And It Hurts Again..”

-Red

Pain. We all experience it at some point in our life. We see it every day in other people’s lives and it scares us. No matter what kind of pain it is we will eventually experience it.  We avoid it, run away from it and try to hide from it but in this broken world it always ends up finding us at one point or another. Even though we all know that we will run into pain at some point we are almost always shocked when we end up experiencing it.

Right now I am sitting in the surgical observation unit at RUH (Royal University Hospital) in Saskatoon. I see, hear and feel pain all around me. After the emergency surgery I began to wonder if the sharp pain that came from the open incision would ever go away. The only thing that kept me going at that pain was the knowing that I would be getting some more morphine soon and that in a few days I would be back in the OR (Operating Room) in a few days where they would open me back up and then properly close the incision. I also longed for the anesthetic that I knew would keep me asleep for a few hours and away from the constant pain that would never leave me alone and kept me awake all night. Knowing that I would be pain free and away from this broken world, this broken body and the anxiety that comes along with it comforted me a little bit.

As the nurses push the pain and anxiety medication into the port in my central line which I had found implanted in my chest while I was under for my first emergency surgery I feel a little bit of relief but it doesn’t last long. I fall asleep for about a half hour but then the pain comes creeping back. When it hits me it is like I have been stabbed in the stomach and I jerk awake. My whole body shakes and the muscles in my stomach that had been sliced through tense up along with every other muscle in my body. This only makes the pain and anxiety worse. It seems as though there is no escape and at the moment there isn’t. I will myself to pass out from the pain so that I can hide inside of myself but I have no such luck.

As I lay in bed waiting for my next surgery I try to get myself to another place, a place that I love, a place where I am playing music and feeling the rush of enjoyment with every beat in the drums, every key on the piano and every pluck of the strings on my bass guitar as I play. It doesn’t work. My thoughts turn to Christina, her beautiful long brown hair and her wonderful smile. I find myself missing her and being willing to do anything to have her here beside me at this moment but that will never happen. She is gone. It is August 12, 2011 and tomorrow will it will be exactly one year since she passed away. The emotional pain only makes the physical pain worse. I want to cry, I want to scream and ask God how he could have taken her from me like that. Alone and afraid very shortly after the car accident but I can’t do that because it hurts too much. When the medication is finally strong enough to put me to sleep I am thankful at first but then the nightmares come. They torment me as the images run through my mind. For some reason I am in the car with Christina when she has her accident. I’m not hurt but I can see her laying there broken. I try to help her as I hear the wail of sirens in the distance. I do everything I can but she has lost too much blood. I hold her in my arms and feel her leave me. I wake up crying as this all too familiar pain washes over me.

I can’t get away from it.

How do I deal with this?

I really have no idea.