Right now I am having a lot of inner conflict about not wanting to start taking a daily medication because I avoid medicating myself at all costs, and I don't even know if I really need it, and maybe I am making up a disorder, and how will I ever know when/if I can come off of it or if it's helping or if I'm just never having any spells again or what. (I guess I'll know it's *not* helping if I keep having spells).
And part of me would just really like to not almost throw up on Ashley anymore. (or you know, all of my friends who keep getting stuck with me when I'm sick)
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Serious thoughts:
But then I'm like... medicine. ew, gross. Yet somehow I am a nurse.
I'm definitely being such a hypocrite though, and really challenging a truth I say I believe but maybe don't in my heart- that they're nothing wrong with needing to take medicine on a regular basis, no matter what it's for, and that there is no shame in needed to take anti-depressants, or other mood stabilizing/neuroreceptor meds, because that's the thing- there ARE neurotransmitters and other receptors that control things in our bodies that get out of control or don't work right, and our bodies fall apart and fail us.
But part of me can't help feeling a little weak or ashamed that apparently I need some medicine to keep my body in check, and it's some weird, undefined, not much research known about it disorder, that seems to follow similar pathways as chronic migraines, and can be triggered by lots of things, environmental, physical, emotional, etc. but does seemed to be linked particularly with feelings of anxiety and excitement and I'm just like UGH I've handled intense emotions all my life, why am I suddenly not able to handle them so oddly. I feel like I should just be able to relax, calm down, chill out, breath, and be fine. But I just actually can't. I can't do it, especially when I'm in a spell, and my friends are like, um, Erin, breath slower, Erin, stop moving, Erin, relax, Erin, calm down, and I can't.
And I feel like I should be able to? Like that it should be something that I can just control, and I forget that it's not. But I think that even though I know that, I also worry that no one else will. That everyone else will look at me as weaker or something? Like "I feel bad for Erin, but if she could just figure out how to calm down, then probably she wouldn't keep having these vomiting spells"
Like, when I was in LA, and I felt it coming on, I did everything the opposite of when I was in Chicago. I ignored it. I said that I felt fine. I did take a nap, because I knew I was tired, but then I went out and just kept doing my plans, and said, no, no you are not going to lay down in your hotel room and let yourself get caught up in your mind and psych yourself into getting sick, you are not going to get sick again, you are fine, go out, have fun, relax, enjoy nature, friends, etc. and I did. I hiked up Runyon Canyon, and it was beautiful and I sat and enjoyed nature and friends. And then I walked down and threw up the two bites of noodles I had had for lunch hours before. That's when I took a nap, sleep it off, don't psych yourself out, it's not going to be like last time, just calm down. And then I went out again and made a fool of myself. And had to go to the ER AGAIN.
So it doesn't matter if I lay in bed from the moment I start to feel it coming on freaking out that I'm getting it again, or if I try to push through and ignore it and try to psych myself out of it... it just happens. and when it really gets going, I can't even move without throwing up. I try to sit up to sip on water, and throw up again. It's awful. And my potassium drops so low that my hands and feet go numb, and everything is just lame and bad and terrible and until I get some phenergan and ativan I just literally cannot stop throwing up.
And I just don't want that to happen again. So amitriptyline, I guess I'm going to give you a shot. (Also, I have high hopes the next spell I can stop before it comes on if I have my meds with me).
Sometimes I think I'm making this whole thing up, or making it bigger than it is. Then I realize even writing this post, and feeling all the anxious feelings I have about it happening again, my stomach is all tense and knotted and I feel slightly nauseous (not like I think I'd have an episode nauseous, just the "oh yeah, right, emotions make me nauseous, good and bad, RIGHT, my brain and gut IS linked and always has been, and apparently now I have a short in my wiring). Also, there's the 4 ER trips this year thing...
(If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I think I have something called Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome, I've had episodes of extreme episodes of nausea vomiting, with related ER and/or observation admissions for fluids, electrolytes, nausea meds, etc., the first in 2010 starting after the DH part 2, visiting my BF, going to a wedding, the second on the last day of leakycon12, and the third on a trip to LA this September to visit several various friends/peeps. It comes up out of nowhere and ruins all my fun. And seems to be connected to traveling, fatigue, excitement, especially anticipatory excitement, mixed with feelings of anxiety, particularly how people will perceive me, I think (wedding was going to be the first time my BF and I hung out IRL with friends who knew us both well since we'd been dating long distance, leaky I led a panel, and other things, LA the same). These seem to be the only common links I can find, but at the same time... it's not like I've never had these feelings before. I've had much more stressful, much more exciting, etc. events happen to me before, I've traveled my whole life, I spent a year and a half on nightshift being constantly jetlagged... and I've only had this happen three time. It's like all the sudden my body decided to stop working.)
