Speak No Evil

Good Morning Bleeps.

Monday again, already? Where do the weekends go? Yesterday, as you may have read, I woke up feeling squiffy. My face was numb and my left arm had been taken over by aliens who were weighing it down and zapping it with electric currents, pins and needles. I decided to ignore it and just enjoy the day as much as possible.

I have mentioned that I am conscious of not talking about how I am feeling all of the time, that I am worried my family will get fed up with hearing it. The response I got from this was very supportive with comments (on Facebook) such as "I know the feeling of not wanting to talk about how you're feeling or wanting to harass others with it, but I do think it's the best thing you can do for your mental health. Anyone that truly loves you will understand that you need to vent and will deal with their own frustrations."

My sister also commented that "the people that love you will be here to support you and want you to vent to them. This is our journey together. You are never alone. Love you" (love you too sis). These comments and the support I have had from friends and family mean so much to me. I am not sure how other MSers feel about this? How do they balance the need to share and offload with not being a burden to their family and friends? Without making people want to say "we get it, now shut the heck up"?

Lately there have been times that I have mentioned not feeling well to the response of a blank stare, no response or a bog standard reply of "that's not good". At that point I feel like a jerk and slightly embarrassed and immediately wish I hadn't said anything. I don't blame anyone for this, how bloody boring must I sound and how many times do I have to let people know how tired I am or how much part a, b or c of my body is tingling, numb, hurting or heavy? What do I expect them to say? Do?

The reality is as much as feeling like this sucks, I have so much to be grateful for. I am in a happy relationship with a lovely man and my children are healthy and happy. I have a wonderful family and I have caring friends (some great new ones that I have met as a result of this invisible monster). We have a roof over our heads and food in the cupboard. I work for myself and I play by my own rules, I am blessed and I know this. I like to think of myself as a glass half full person and I guess this is why being stuck in this rut of negativity (and I do feel a bit stuck) isn't sitting well with me. I am not happy with who I am at the moment and I resent my body and the way I feel most days.

Take yesterday for example, even though I felt awful when I woke up, I was determined that I was just going to get on with it. I drove to collect my daughter from a friend's house, went to the store and bought food, came home and made bacon sandwiches and then went on to peel a billion vegetables (ok, maybe only a million) and cooked a roast.

Phil left at about four to take his daugher home (about 4.5 hour round trip) and I flaked on the sofa watching Friends re-runs with two of my girls. It got to about six o'clock and I completely hit a wall. I felt like I had been hit by a truck, I was exhausted.

I wondered if maybe I was tired because I had been sitting still too long. You hear all of the time people saying things like "I am so tired and yet I haven't done anything" and so I decided to do some housework to see if I could "perk" myself up. I cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed the carpets and basically made the house sparkly clean (with candles lit and everything). After an hour or so of playing Mrs Mopp I sat back down with a glass of wine and all of a sudden my legs started to burn like you wouldn't believe. They felt heavy as though filled with wet sand and the ants were back crawling up and down under my skin. I felt so nauseas that I thought I was going to throw up and I was just exhausted. I wanted to cry.

My body was letting me know that I had overdone it. Just regular household stuff is now over-doing it? That sucks. I vented on one of my MS support group message boards about how I was feeling, hoping that I would "get it all out" before Phil came home. Of course I did tell him how I was feeling but then felt pathetic and weak for not being able to keep it to myself.

Later on, as we cuddled up in bed, Phil commented that I was being a fidget and asked was I not comfortable? I told him I was fine but I wasn't fine at all. My arms were dead weights and my fingers were throbbing with intense tingles, like they each had an electrode attached to them and were being zapped in time with my pulse. I just didn't want to bore him (or myself) with saying it out loud.

Today my legs are KILLING me. Did you ever get "growing pains" as a kid? Imagine that times ten. They are throbbing and feel heavy. I have a lot to do today but luckily it is graphic design / brochure work so I don't have to get off the couch too much until the school run later (oh, and take a shower in there somewhere too).

So today I am venting about how I am feeling here (you can click off, my family can't) but I really am going to try to not burden my loved ones too much. Hopefully by the time they all get home I will be feeling better and so when I tell them that I am fine, I will mean it!

So enough about me, how are YOU?