I feel so stupid. So more damaged at this moment. I was noting down the immediate pain issues in my pain journal; which works out to every two hours throughout the day I write down everything that hurts above the 'meh, it's annoying but it doesn't impair me' level. I look back and see that my feet have been a real issue the past several days. And it's a logical assumption, I think, that the doc will say why not try the cream on them. It's being very effective in major trouble spots in my body already, stuff that very few meds have ever been able to touch on.
The short answer is that my feet are a touchy issue with me. As in, nobody gets to touch them. Ever. Except for very few instances, during medical exams, when there is a specific need for them to be examined. Nobody touches my feet. My kids, when they were babies and toddlers, explored my feet as they explored everything else, and I wouldn't hurt them for anything but it took every bit of my concentrated will not to lash out physically when they did.
I'm touchy about my back too. I've got so many triggers in my back it's almost laughable. I don't know how there could be so many. Somebody touches my back and I immediately tense up and lock solid. I have no idea why.
Except that I do. I feel that it's absurd to have that sort of reaction from such a tiny thing. Which, okay, didn't feel so tiny at the time. But I only connected that thing to this violent trigger reaction a year or two ago, and I think that I've only mentioned it in passing once or twice as an offhanded comment. Never in therapy.
I'm avoiding writing about my feet. That's the whole point of my post, and I'm actually avoiding making it. (self directed sigh). yeah...
So the reason that I'm touchy about my feet is that when I was six and had cancer, and the docs ran out of veins in my hands that they could run the chemo through, they had to run it in my feet. And I could usually manage to hold still enough for the needles in my hands, as long as I could watch what they were doing. My feet, not so much. I remember the most vividly one day when it took six adults to hold me to the table while they got it in.
I can say that, and it's understandable, and I don't get emotional about it. I don't need to. Except that just now I was looking back at my notes for this week and saying that the next thing the doc would recommend is to try the cream on my feet, and I know in my head that it makes perfect sense and I should do just that; and the next thing I knew I was bent over trying not to break down into gasping sobs. My throat is still tight and I'm fighting back the tears to do this post. I'm not just remembering it. I'm reliving being on that table again. I'm on that table, and I'm laying in a hospital bed on my stomach while they're doing percussion, and I'm screaming and screaming and it doesn't matter how much I'm screaming because it has to be done and it's going to be done and I can't say no. I'm not allowed to say no.
why am I feeling it this way? why now? why is all this extra crap coming up now? is it really possible that I've got medical trauma flashbacks going on, on top of and around all the abuse ones? How am I ever going to be sane through this? I know I can't really decide to not have this by sheer force of will. I think I'm still trying to do it anyway.
Aren't I damaged enough? I don't know how I've ever going to be able to address those things in therapy. I don't know how I'll ever be able to tell another living soul face to face that they've happened. And isn't that a bitch? I can confess to my abuse history. I can deal with how that's affected me, and how it still does, and how the recent emotionally reliving it is screwing with my head. I just want to know... is this really normal? normalish? Should I have expected these things to be effecting me so much later in my life? Because it wasn't that bad, the cancer, not so bad...
Laughable, that I can look back at the things that occurred then and say "not that bad" and expect it to be believed. I believe it. It was my reality. It was normal for me. I didn't know anything else.
The short answer is that my feet are a touchy issue with me. As in, nobody gets to touch them. Ever. Except for very few instances, during medical exams, when there is a specific need for them to be examined. Nobody touches my feet. My kids, when they were babies and toddlers, explored my feet as they explored everything else, and I wouldn't hurt them for anything but it took every bit of my concentrated will not to lash out physically when they did.
I'm touchy about my back too. I've got so many triggers in my back it's almost laughable. I don't know how there could be so many. Somebody touches my back and I immediately tense up and lock solid. I have no idea why.
Except that I do. I feel that it's absurd to have that sort of reaction from such a tiny thing. Which, okay, didn't feel so tiny at the time. But I only connected that thing to this violent trigger reaction a year or two ago, and I think that I've only mentioned it in passing once or twice as an offhanded comment. Never in therapy.
I'm avoiding writing about my feet. That's the whole point of my post, and I'm actually avoiding making it. (self directed sigh). yeah...
So the reason that I'm touchy about my feet is that when I was six and had cancer, and the docs ran out of veins in my hands that they could run the chemo through, they had to run it in my feet. And I could usually manage to hold still enough for the needles in my hands, as long as I could watch what they were doing. My feet, not so much. I remember the most vividly one day when it took six adults to hold me to the table while they got it in.
I can say that, and it's understandable, and I don't get emotional about it. I don't need to. Except that just now I was looking back at my notes for this week and saying that the next thing the doc would recommend is to try the cream on my feet, and I know in my head that it makes perfect sense and I should do just that; and the next thing I knew I was bent over trying not to break down into gasping sobs. My throat is still tight and I'm fighting back the tears to do this post. I'm not just remembering it. I'm reliving being on that table again. I'm on that table, and I'm laying in a hospital bed on my stomach while they're doing percussion, and I'm screaming and screaming and it doesn't matter how much I'm screaming because it has to be done and it's going to be done and I can't say no. I'm not allowed to say no.
why am I feeling it this way? why now? why is all this extra crap coming up now? is it really possible that I've got medical trauma flashbacks going on, on top of and around all the abuse ones? How am I ever going to be sane through this? I know I can't really decide to not have this by sheer force of will. I think I'm still trying to do it anyway.
Aren't I damaged enough? I don't know how I've ever going to be able to address those things in therapy. I don't know how I'll ever be able to tell another living soul face to face that they've happened. And isn't that a bitch? I can confess to my abuse history. I can deal with how that's affected me, and how it still does, and how the recent emotionally reliving it is screwing with my head. I just want to know... is this really normal? normalish? Should I have expected these things to be effecting me so much later in my life? Because it wasn't that bad, the cancer, not so bad...
Laughable, that I can look back at the things that occurred then and say "not that bad" and expect it to be believed. I believe it. It was my reality. It was normal for me. I didn't know anything else.
