Hello Everyone.   I have not been able to face comments and using my reasoning part of my brain today after I read that story of the abused kids.  But let me backtrack a few days.

My back has been really bad since Friday and I didn’t do anything to hurt it more, it is just gotten to a point where my medication is not covering the damage that keeps growing in my spine and the increasing muscle spasms.  The steroid injections are / have worn off.   I have been trying to walk (and Ron goes with me and then when I stop at home he keeps walking) in the morning around phase 1 of our development.  

So far on days I can I have worked myself up to this route.  We leave our home at 39 and walk to Jackson, then down to Geronimo to No Name, turn up Sam Houston, then down Jim Bowie back to No Name, going up to Church Drive, head back to Andrew Jackson to our home.   Here is the entire park, which after making sure I am in the house Ron goes further into get his exercise.  The map is not quite accurate as the church is directly behind our home.

I have better more detailed maps but this was the first one in my saved files that came up.   So as I said Ron goes on after he makes sure I am in the house.   So on Friday my back total went in to super bitch mode from normal bitch mode, and I was in extreme pain.   My back has been really bad since I tried to carry those bags of soda three months ago.   And so as the pain built higher and higher I needed more medication and my thinking got harder and harder.   So I missed the comments.  

Then I was wakened on Saturday morning by my Apple watch going off on my wrist crazy with a big red screen which had a heart on it saying my heart rate was dangerous at a sustained 133 and had been up and down all night.   Ron said I had been upset in my sleep and rather active as I get when I am having a flashback nightmare.   

So Saturday I felt like crap, Ron wouldn’t let me walk but we worked at getting my heart rate down which we did.   But I was not feeling up to handling much.   Sunday I was feeling better and during / after the Sunday News Shows I was answering comments and doing posts.   Then came today where the vortex found me.  

The Vortex.   Some of the long time readers know what the vortex is for me and how scary it can be.   The vortex is the thing that takes me to the void, the place my memories suck me into and take me that I struggle to leave, mostly losing for long period of time, sometimes weeks or more.   It takes over my mind and body, I can not function, I cannot deal with life, I can not shut off my mind or the memories that are on a constant loop complete with all the feelings of pain / anger / despair & hopelessness / and deep frustrations.    All the emotions and feelings that I felt when the bad stuff was happening to me as I relive it all over and over and over …  The vortex in my mind is a huge tornado that catches me and tries to suck me in, I can feel / hear it coming and I am terrified of the place it will take me if it can …

Sorry had to take a break. 

 So with therapy and help I have learned to form in my mind handles to grab onto when the vortex starts to draw me in.  Those handles can save me depending on how bad the shock / memories are in my mind.  One of those handles was Randy.   Back in 2014 when I started self harming again Randy my wonderful online brother who while working 12 hour shifts would watch my posts carefully for any signs of distress and either call me or take calls and talk to me for hours trying to fight off the vortex / memories.  He lost a lot of sleep back in those years, but he kept me from a lot of new scars and possible suicide.   I admire and love him far more than I can ever say. 

That was when Ron set up the candle making stuff in my bedroom and I would stay in the bedroom for weeks make candles day and night.   I never knew until later that Ron would box them up and store them because the doctor had told him to keep me focused on making the candles.  Our bedroom has a bathroom and Ron would bring me stuff to eat and I just stayed in there making candles and sleeping.  It was a dark time in my life, I was desperate to avoid / stop the memories.

So I have learned to develop handles to grab onto, to hold my mind / emotions from being sucked into the vortex.  That is what I used today.   Ron seen my distress after I read that article and he knew I was upset and struggling.   So we went for our morning walk even though he was worried about my heart rate.   James set my phone to contact his phone if my heart rate gets too crazy.  After our walk I forced myself to stay busy which helps, I helped Ron with our 4th of July lunch which was typical hamburgers, hot dogs, and french fries.   I even managed to eat well which is hard for me to do when the vortex takes me too far into the void.  Then all day I immersed myself in videos and laundry.  Ron asked me to lay down for a while with him as I was getting a bit manic and over wrought.   I tried but it was a no go and making things worse for me so I got up.  

Between loads of laundry I watched videos and read news sites while posting like there was a reward for the most posts.  I had to do that to keep my mind focused on anything but the vortex and the kids I read about this morning.   I watched, read, posted with all my mind, and when I went to deal with the laundry I kept my computer headphones on or my phone earbuds in.   Ron understood.  But by about 4 PM after even two early sets of medications my back gave out entirely.   I could hardly walk yet still felt driven to move or I would jump out of my skin.   So Ron seeing I was still agitated and getting worse tried to distract me, tried to keep my mind on computer stuff, even recommended I take one of the mood stabilizer meds I hate so much.  I don’t react well on them, I have had several doctors try to put me on them.  Now Valium is called Diazepam and it is one the doctors have tried to put me on and I refuse to let any doctor  prescribe them to me.    I disassociate while on them.

The problem is they make me slow down to where I can not function. Now as an adult everything moves too fast when I am on them.   It is like I am in a deep fog, moving so slow like I am wading through chest high water, and everyone is talking too fast for me to understand or deal with.   I hate it, I am like in super slow motion while the world seems on speed.   

 In my childhood I was put on heavy doses of Valium to keep me compliant with my abuse because the adoptive parents insisted and the doctors complied, no one looked into the medical history of abuse I had, the broken bones or other things.    I would be given the first dose in the morning, go to school and after an hour or two I would either fall asleep at my desk or tell the teacher I needed to lay down.   There was a cot setup behind the library shelves where I would go and sleep, at lunch time I would be wakened if still sleeping and taken to lunch then be given my pills by a teacher after eating, and after a hour or two I would go back to lay down behind the shelves.   I spent most of my 2rd to 6th grade school years that way.   I missed so much schooling.   It was accepted but I still don’t know why.   Only one person tried to get me to tell them what was going on at home and help me.   He even befriend my adoptive parents to do as much for me as he could.   But in those days a school employee did not have the authority they do now.    On days the police picked me up to take me the ordered medical people I wouldn’t be given my pills so I would be awake and active, even hyperactive so they wouldn’t  suspect abuse or blame the bruises on normal hyperactive child behavior.   But my mind was still confused and even with what I could hazily remember I knew not to tell.   Oh shit, Crap.

Sorry see I told you about the vortex, it sucks you in and keeps your mind and memories lock in the past, in the bad times.   I only realized where I was in my mind and what I was writing when I got up to get another soda.   Damn, it is insidious.  I don’t want to think of those days, I don’t want to go back there, I did not want to write about it.   Yet I did because that is where my mind is.    Shit, I have to reread this to see where I was in my writing on what I wanted to say.    The meds are starting to take effect and things are starting to move faster than I can deal / function with them.   

So I have kept myself busy and as focused as possible, and another day has gone by without me answering the comments.    Sorry I like the comments, but when I am as upset as I have been I just can not focus enough to reply to them, if I try to do them my mind wanders too much.   But now with my mind slowing down I am going to try to get to some of the older ones.   

Sorry to bring everyone down on a holiday weekend.   I hope everyone has had a great 4th of July and remembers all the great things in their life.   I wanted to tell everyone something else but I can not remember what it is.    Hugs and loves.    Scottie

Sorry but I just realized at least 2 hours have gone by since I wrote this and proofread it.   I have been sitting here at my desk staring at my other monitor and it just went off.   I have no idea what it was showing let me look.   Oh it is something I want to post.  I have to watch it again, I don’t remember much of it.  Hugs