Useless Ramblings

The existential crises I've been facing lately are all about what I DO. Or what's been taken away. I've lost art (even if it's temporarily), I've lost dancing, I've lost working, driving.

But I've not lost ME.

It's something I need to remind myself of a lot. I am a force in and of myself, without having to DO a damn thing. I have the heart and soul of a fighter, a warrior, a Valkyrie. Everything is set against me, trying to stop me? It's only stopping activities. It's stopping things. It's not stopping ME.

Keep trying, pain. Keep trying, disability. Some days I'll feel like you're winning. But those are just small little battles, little skirmishes where you look to be the victor. In the long run, the war is mine. I own this battlefield and I'll never let you forget that again.

This is my last week of physical therapy. I have a check-up on Friday to sort of test my progress but I'll probably ask for a range of motion test sometime this week with the folks in the physical therapy section of things, since the doctor might not do that. I know a couple of weeks ago they said it was already improving. And the pain has lessened immensely, while my upper back has gotten a lot stronger (which has done wonders for my posture as well)

I've learned so much. How to use muscles correctly, how to properly stretch and work them, even some tips on how to handle my hips' scar tissue pain (which, since it was unrelated to the accident, they didn't need to do for me but wanted to)

I might ask them on Friday to check my insurance, see if I can be covered to come back at LEAST once a month just to keep learning, keep growing, keep shaping myself like a sculpture. I can see a difference in the mirror. I can feel the difference, and not just physically. There's a change in my demeanor, and I'm not the only one noticing it. I'm more confident, I'm less stressed. I mean, I'm still stressed, but... it's not nearly so bad.

Skipping two appointments last week to spend some time in Houston with the boyfriend may not look smart from the outside, but that was necessary too. I needed a change of scenery, and a few days of nothing but peace and a lack of worry. I didn't have my scanner and wacom pen within eyesight, mocking me daily. I didn't have unfinished work looming over my head. Boyfriend happily paid for things this time around (whereas I normally grab the check before he can get to it when we go out to eat)

There was a noticeable difference when I got home. Less tense, less angry, less... everything negative. I'm still tired. Well, that might not be related to much of anything, I started shark week like the DAY I left Houston. So this last week of PT I'm playing in hard mode. ;)

Will bought me some simple headphones so I'm bringing the ipad with me to PT to listen to music while I do the cardio part in the beginning. I know myself... get the right music going and I will work up a sweat and have my heartrate right where they want it in no time xD

Maybe once I get some better income I can get a bathing suit that fits and come back to try their aquatic exercises too, to get more of the legs and hips moving.

I don't know. This whole experience may have started out shitty. I mean, who WANTS a car accident? But... it's changing how I look at myself. How I look at my body. Slowly I'm beginning to see my body as mine a little better. It's become such a separate entity in my mind that I was beginning to blame it, hate it, see it as an enemy. I always referred to my body and pain as something I was fighting all the time. Which worked for coping for a while, but... I need to work on not doing it as much. Because it's part of me, and something I need to relearn how to love and work on instead of hating and fighting.

I'm already excited for October. On the 1st is my anniversary, also the second-to-last PT appointment, and Will and I have reservations to a lovely restaurant in Denton. I wish to hell I had some spending money so I could grab a nice dress at a thrift store for the occasion. It's not a huge anniversary or anything, but it's been a while since he and I really celebrated it beyond a small gift or card or something.

<3 A lot of crappy stuff has gone down this month. "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is usually bullshit, but this time... this time it's been true.

So, I'll be frank. I wouldn't be crippled right now, ten years after the fact, if it wasn't for physical therapy utterly ruining me. Yes there were other factors, but physical therapy blatantly ignoring where my pain ACTUALLY was and "treating" an injury that wasn't there tore my muscles to shreds and has left me a pain-ridden useless blob covered hip to feet in muscle scar tissue.

Tomorrow I start physical therapy for something else entirely... my neck, upper back, and shoulders. These pains from the car wreck have been keeping me from drawing, chores, basically anything with the upper body. Considering I'm already fucked out of my LOWER body... well let's say I'm stressed.

And fucking terrified.

I've had nightmares about this place for ten years. Terrified of talking about it, like saying it out loud would be some kind of bloody mary/beetlejuice bullshit and suddenly they'll magically find paperwork that they messed up and they'll force me to go back and I'll be stuck there forever, breaking more and more every day as they force physical punishments I can't endure, "therapy" that makes it worse, etc. It's illogical but that's pretty much what ptsd does to you, folks. This was a traumatic 6 months that's not left me for 10 years.

So even though the therapists I'm meeting tomorrow are civilians, in a really good facility with good reviews, and for an area of my body that ISN'T the crippled part... I'm still scared. Terrified. Worried. It might not make sense, logically. I'm arguing with myself so much. But it's there. I'm scared that they'll have no empathy, no kindness. I'm scared they'll ignore me and force me to do things that harm me permanently. I'm scared... I'm scared to lose the biggest thing I have left. Art.

I predict that none of this will be happen. These next four weeks of therapy will make my neck/back/shoulders stronger than ever. I'll be confident and I'll grow from it so much. I'll be back to drawing in no time.

But it doesn't erase the terror. It doesn't make it so I can name the place that broke me, because I still fear the name.

... It's okay that I'm scared. Fear doesn't make me weak. But tomorrow afternoon that fear won't stop me. I'll walk into that office and I'll meet who I'm working with and we'll fight this new pain together and it will be an entirely different experience. I'll be wiser from my old experience... if they turn out to be assholes, I'll leave. Cancel my appointments. Find another office... because I can. I'm allowed to do that.

I control the next four weeks. I'm not trapped. I'm not forced. I'm not threatened and abused and mocked and alone.

I'm terrified, but that's not going to stop me. I can't lose art too. I can't. But even if I did, I'll find something else. I'll survive, and thrive, no matter what the world throws at me. That place... the one that tried to destroy me from the inside out. I'm not there anymore. They can't hurt me. I don't ever need to go back.

I'll win this.

PSA: Kids, sometimes you will say something to me. Something innocent, something that is not meant to hurt me. Please know that I KNOW you do not mean this. Know that I probably won't be angry that you said it. But sometimes your foot just ends up in your mouth. It doesn't mean we're suddenly not friends. It's just that, every so often, a topic is a sore one. If you talk to me about your walking-intensive vacations, your dancing, your exercising... every so often, especially if I'm having a rough pain day, it will hurt to hear. I will struggle with the loss and the pain and the jealousy and I might get upset. Not always. For the most part I'm pretty good about not hearing details about my loved ones' lives and making it all about me, me, me. It's just on the hard days, in the rougher moments. Moments where I'd kill to go on that vacation, where I miss dancing, the times I'd give anything to be able to bitch about how rough my two mile run was that day.

I'm not asking you to stop talking about your lives. Just know that sometimes this will be my reaction. I'm not angry, just... very broken. If it's a problem and I want the subject to be changed, I'll ask or I'll remove myself from the conversation. You're not actively the one hurting me, it isn't your fault, and it isn't about you. I just don't always handle the pain very well and for that I'm sorry.

Carry on.