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I adore that Dimension 20 is doing a Vampire: the Masquerade campaign in my birthday month. I feel personally blessed. And in Oregon, where I grew up! That being said! nothing could have prepared me for the whiplash of learning that the "small town" in Oregon they're inventing is.... more than twice the size of the actual small town I grew up in.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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TL;DR- please interact/let me know if you experience chronic pain and also sensory overload (in situations unrelated to the chronic pain)
posting bc I need to come back to this idea. I have chronic pain but I don't feel it all the time even when it's there. I have to do a head-to-toe check-in to identify where I'm in pain (unless it's acute or severe pain). I had a nerve block at one point and the whole world "felt quiet" and I started crying bc I realized I had been in pain my whole life, I had never *felt* like that before.
ANYWAY big thing, I can't always identify pain. It's like how you can't tell if something is wet, it's just by temperature. So if you touch metal unexpectedly, sometimes your brain will register it as something wet, just because it's cold. When the nurses ask me about [specific medical procedure I go through], they ask me to let them know when it hurts. I can't, because I can't tell if I'm just hyperaware of that area/sensation, or if it's discomfort or if it's actual pain (btw ppl typically have like a clear line before discomfort and pain? or is pain just "louder"?)
Anyway I realized my brain is only going based off of the strength of the signal related to the sensation. Which would explain the physical overwhelm and pain and sometimes triggering experience of bright lights, loud sounds, or some complex textures. Sensory issues. I don't struggle with lotion or anything like that and I'm missing some other ones that are common.
I'm super curious if this is common and maybe even if the sensory issues are a direct result of chronic pain needing to be numbed/quieted/dissociated from. Any and all thoughts are appreciated!! thank u!!!!
Took me a long time to realize, but the main reason Jayce's speech to Viktor didn't resonate with me, that it felt so hollow is because it's not the message I needed.
I don't know about other disabled people, or even specifically chronically ill folks... but for me, I haven't needed "you're beautiful/there's nothing wrong with you" regardless of how nice it would be to hear.
The message I feel is so sorely lacking from this media and things like it is "you're worth it." Viktor was suffering, in pain, dealing with the grief of death in so many ways. It wasn't about having something "wrong" with him; these things were objectively hurting him and it's normal/valid to feel negative about them. Specifically anger, which is so often suppressed because it's considered an unpalatable part of grief.
It takes a lot to care about someone with circumstances like that. You have to deal with the concepts of death, pain, uncertainty. You have to see your loved one suffer. They'll snap sometimes, behave emotionally, regardless of how much they control their feelings.
I never wanted to be told there's nothing bad about my disabilities. I wanted to know that if the bad bled over, I'd still be worth it.
I had... a lot of medical trauma that I could tell was building up but I wasn't feeling. Compartmentalizing and all. New song about Viktor released and uhhhh I found where I had stashed those feelings.
(Might spend an hour or two sobbing). Holy fuck the subject matter has ended up coinciding with my medical stuff so often.
Really feeling Viktor's storyline a lot more after the whole almost dying (multiple times) thing.
So much I need to explore in journaling about :
Fear of being a 'bad' person at the worst of my symptoms
Fear over letting other people decide to stay or leave
The realization that it's not actually all fine and okay for me to go through all my medical stuff alone (especially when I have a long-term partner)
What my body means to me (positive, negative, expression, pain, others' perceptions, etc.)
The grief over things other than death in disability. New fears, experiences others might not share, new perspectives on taboo topics
What it means that I've become a different person as my disability has shaped my experiences, my identity, my social circle... everything.
In illness, it is true- that one must face the trials alone. Though others may walk with us, they cannot move the weight. The boulder rolls back over us, though no sins it will atone. One must imagine one’s self happy, and the unholy consecrate. The pain must be made ethereal, one finds ichor in one’s veins. The sleepless nights must be meaningful, a matter of control. One must resolve to see the dawn, for there will come soft rains. Eventually, one finds the truth, that one must render one’s self whole. So if I am one, and you are too, and still we walk unaided, Why do your words, so gentle, warm my somber spirit? More than you or I are we, an understanding cultivated. divinity within one’s grasp, and one’s death it is to fear it. I know not who I am, nor who I was before. So tell me who I am, and simply make me more.
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my illness has taken a lot of things from me. I talk about this constantly. However. One thing has somehow managed to slip by me until now. Something truly crucial.
Y'all, I can't go on carnival/amusement park rides. The EPITOME of freedom and joy. The CENTERPIECE of the beloved thrillville (on PS2). The heart and soul of the American end-of-summer experience.
Please forgive my absence if I must spend some time grieving alone.
Something that no one told me about getting sick is that you don't build a tolerance to stressors. If you feel safe, you can essentially use exposure therapy. But you have to feel safe and prove you are safe until your body believes you.
Getting poked with needles? Feeling like your body is going cold from the inside? Being alone (no friends/family) in a medical facility for a few hours at a time? Even just trying not to shift your arm for a few hours... Your body will not trust that you're safe while this is happening.
When you're continuously putting yourself in a 'dangerous' situation without any attempt to prevent it in the future, you will develop fear and anxiety.
I wasn't ever afraid of needles before I had to get regular IV infusions. I still wouldn't say I'm scared. It's just that as my appointments get closer, when I think about it, I feel like I'm gonna start sobbing until I can't breathe anymore. I do my best to make myself feel okay. I bring a plushie, I request a warm blanket for the IV so it's not so cold, and I'm hoping to remember my headphones this time. But its genuinely so difficult. It's so important. It's keeping me from having to go to the ER. It's why I can walk. It's why I can work. I am so lucky that my provider agreed I need these infusions and set them up at the cancer center so I don't have to go to the ER anymore. But they're still contributing to my medical trauma and that's painful.
[CW/TW: infusion/medical/vomiting ment.]
pictures under the cut do NOT include needles, emesis, or blood.
Medical updates below, as well as photos from the infusion center and photos of plushies.
