illnesses

One of the things that I hate the most is getting sick.  First off, since I deal with chronic pain on a daily basis, illness just makes everything worse.  Secondly, my immune system isn't as strong as others, as I don't go out very much, although, that has changed a lot in the last 8 months...but I'm still not around a whole lot of people.  So, what happens, when I get sick, what others have, I usually get twice as bad.


Today started off with a nice round of vomiting, followed by 2 hours of the dry heaves, and we're finishing off with about 12 hours (so far) of intestinal issues.  To say that today has been no fun at all is an understatement.  


Now, for everyone else, dry heaves are bad enough, but when you have the back issues that I have, it makes it a bit more difficult to deal with.  Crawling to the bathroom, because you can't stand up, because your back hurts so bad, and your left leg is so numb that you can't feel it, and falling is your worst nightmare, you crawl, but when you are thinking about vomiting, then it gets worse, and you're not sure that you can crawl that fast....so, you decide to run...but still can't feel one of your legs due to the numbness you end up on your knees anyway.  Then, that heaving makes the back hurt even more, and the pressure on my spinal cord makes that left leg feel even more numb, and that burning, pins and needles feeling is almost unbearable.  


Most of the time, I can't even begin to explain the pain that I feel in my body, and I've realized that the reason why is that there really aren't words in the English Language to describe what I feel.  A lot of chronic pain patients complain of the same thing.  It gets very frustrating for us, because as we can't express what we feel, we know that PAIN is real, but since we aren't bleeding, or very little shows up on the tests the doctors give us, a lot of the time, the medical field thinks that we are lying, or worse, drug addicts seeking medication.  


Then, add to that frustration, the fact that we LOOK normal, but feel anything but, and then if we are fortunate enough to have doctors who believe us, and try to help us through medication, or in my case, a neuro-stimulator implant, and we're able to get handicapped tags, when we try to use those tags, to park our car at the mall, or the grocery store, or any place else for that matter, because we don't have a VISIBLE disability, therefore, we are faking it...


I can't tell you how many times that I have had to explain to someone who was actually RUDE enough to say something to me about the scars on my back or the implant in my back.  It's gotten so bad that I've actually lifted the back of my shirt, and SHOWN them.  I've even said something like: "gee, you don't look stupid, but looks can be deceiving".  It's not fun.  So, I guess, what I'd like is for others to stop judging what you don't understand, and can't comprehend, and I'll stop being sarcastic to them.

Enough

"e·nough

   [ih-nuhf]  Show IPA

adjective

1.

adequate for the want or need; sufficient for the purpose orto satisfy desire: enough water; noise enough to wake the dead.

pronoun

2.

an adequate quantity or number; sufficiency.

adverb

3.

in a quantity or degree that answers a purpose or satisfies aneed or desire; sufficiently.

4.

fully or quite: ready enough.

interjection

5.

(used to express impatience or exasperation): Enough! I heard you the first time.

Origin: 
before 900; Middle English enogh, Old English genōh;  cognatewith German genug, Gothic ganohs, Old Norse nōgr;  akin to OldEnglish geneah  it suffices, Sanskrit naśati  (he) reaches

Synonyms 
1.  ample. 3.  adequately, amply, reasonably."

Tonight, I'm thinking about the word ENOUGH.  Above, you'll find the Dictionary.com definitions of the word, Enough.  The definition that I like the best, is number 3, "Adverb: In a quantity or degree that answers a purpose or satisfies a need or desire; sufficiently."  This says quite a lot to me.  I've been wondering why it just seems that I'm never "enough" for the people in my life, or those who say they love me, and would never hurt me, and yet, they have lied, because I was never a quantity or degree that answers a purpose or satisfies a need or a desire.  When looking at this word, as it pertains to love....I can also make that definition a bit smaller..." a quantity that satisfies a desire".  WOW!  That kind of hits home a bit hard.  

As an adoptee, I never felt that I was ENOUGH for my family, and my brother, Tony, made that quiet clear to me by saying things like this: when introducing me to people: "this is my ADOPTED sister, Kim", which made me feel less than a part of the family, or when he wanted to get his own way: "If you don't do _____, then Mom and Dad will send you away".  It didn't matter what was in that ______, I did it,because I believed him.  I've never really felt a part of that family, and it never made me feel as though I was enough.  To make matters worse, I also chose to push my parent's rules to see if they really WOULD send me away.  They never did, but pushing those boundaries,  caved a lot of judgement onto my head.  So, now, relating with my adopted family, I deal with a lot of judgement, and to this day, I still don't feel as though I do things well enough for them. 

What it also gave me was a huge fear of being abandoned.  In modern psychology, they call this ABANDONMENT ISSUES.  I have those in a HUGE way.  I've always been terrified that people will leave me.  Dr. Phil says it best when he says: "what we fear, we create".  So, I'm also wondering if I don't create situations that would make people want to leave me.  

I guess, that what I've always wanted was to be a quantity that satisfies a desire, in all of the relationships in my life.  I know that I am a great mom, and that I'm an excellent friend, but in the wife department, maybe not so much, because maybe, I create the issues that make my husbands want to leave me.  Maybe I get too comfortable in the relationship.  Maybe, I don't nurture those embers, that I love so much, in the way that I should.  Maybe, just maybe, I'm not enough...OUCH...that kind of hurts in a myriad of ways.  

Which brings me to the question of how to fix that.  How does one become "a quantity that satisfies a desire"?  What does that take?  Is it even POSSIBLE to do it?  I don't know.  I'm willing to look into it, and find out.  But then, if that's the case, then that puts the fault of both divorces on my head.  I'm willing to take the fault if it is truly on my head, but I'm not so sure of that either.  I think that it takes both parties to fan those flames into embers.  When a wife doesn't feel as though she is "ENOUGH" for her husband, said wife will soon give up.  Maybe that's been my issue.  I gave up, and in giving up, I stopped fanning those embers to make my marriage work.  But then again, I think, wait...it's not all on me.  When I told my husband that I needed for him to spend more time at home with me, and with the kids, he would tell me that work was more important.  How does a wife compete with her husband's job?  That's our income, it's what puts the roof over our heads and the food on our table, and the clothing on our backs.  I couldn't compete with it.  Plus, when your husband makes it perfectly clear to you that you will always play second fiddle to the job, then you just deal with it.  I guess that I didn't deal with it very well.  I went inside of myself.  I stopped fanning those flames, because it felt to me that it wasn't very important for him either.  He has never understood this...he thinks that I just gave up.  He doesn't want to believe that his actions, inactions, and his words weren't to hurt me, but to tell me how HE felt.  He didn't really care about how I felt.  I just wanted him to spend time with me...I wanted us to do things together....without worrying about his job, or if we'd be pulled away from whatever we were doing, so that we could just relax and have fun.  It was never relaxing or fun to go away...he always had that damned computer with him, so he could check in OFTEN...he wanted to be in contact with his job.  I'd see other people who he worked with that didn't take their computers on their anniversary trips with them, or on family trips...he was the only one.  No one else on that cruise ship went into emergency manager mode when some idiot tried to bomb some plane in CHICAGO, when we were in Key West....and by the way, plane bombings have nothing to do with my ex-husband's job.  He got angry with me, because once he went into JOB MODE, I just grabbed my book, and my cigarettes, and went out on the deck, to read, smoke, and drink a beer.  He could NOT understand why I was no longer in lovey-dovey mode, as HE was now ready to be that, after he talked to the security officer on the ship....REALLY?  Was that even necessary?  I didn't think so.  He didn't work for the Feds anymore, nor did he work for Homeland Security anymore...and we were in the CARIBBEAN OCEAN for goodness sakes!  It wasn't like he could have gotten OFF of the ship...and truly, I did ask myself why he didn't just get off the ship and fly home once we got to Cozumel, if it was so important for him to be at WORK for this incident.  

So, what this all leads me to, is this...I just want to be enough for someone else to love me, as I am, without trying to change who I am, and how I do things, without trying to criticize my every choice for myself.  I just want to be "a quantity that satisfies a desire. 

 

After the stress

After the past couple of days, I'm finding that today, I don't want to do a single thing.  I barely even want to post here on my blog, but since I'm thinking, I may as well type it out.


I woke up this morning with a small migraine, not a terrible one, but a migraine, nonetheless, which is frustrating.  I also woke up with my back all in knots, and pain was just everywhere.  I REALLY hate those mornings.  I am beginning to understand how all of this works, the correlation of pain and stress.  It seems that the more stress that I am under, the more that my back really hurts.  Today, however, there is no stress, as I am not allowing any...not today, and still, everything hurts...my neck, my shoulder, my back, my head, my hips...maybe we're supposed to get some rain...not sure...but either way, I'm having a lot of pain today.  


Today, is a do nothing day, not one thing, day.  I just want to relax on my heating pad, watch a couple of movies, and maybe just maybe, nap all day.  I think that after the past few days, I've earned a day in bed...and I like my bed...it's really comfy, has a feather-bed on it, it's big, and just comfy.  I may run a load of laundry....it's necessary....but if I want clean underwear, I'll have to run a load today....and YES, I always want clean underwear!