For the wonderful people worried about my health / happiness especially since I wrote about being triggered. TLDR version I am so happy

Hi everyone. I really am so grateful for all of you and the support that you give me and others here. After I posted about the trigger event I think an important part got missed and today with all going on my wonderful husband offered to help me finish the dishes I was doing even though I knew he wanted to get on to other things. So I want to share this post with all of you.

I am happier than I can remember being in a long time.

For starters the triggering event was because Ron my husband who struggles to have the sexual desire I do was offering happily for us to … well have sex. But he was so wonderful with the way he handled it and when he got back up and made sure I was OK, he offered again. I said later.

Ron got home on the evening of the 2nd of March. Since then he has watched carefully to make sure I was not harming myself by taking on too much, instead softly forcing me to rest as he took over. On the personal side he has made it a daily routine and returned to the old normal of touching each other during the day and giving kisses and hugs. If he sees me struggling he intervenes right away.

But it goes both ways. Ron loves my cooking and with him home I have really been doing my best and in fact loving it. It gets to hurt so bad sitting in my desk chair and when we talk about what’s for supper and I provide a suggestion he asks if I would like to do it and I really want to. He does the chopping of vegetables and meats and I do the cooking / seasoning and set up the serving area.

Remember how I grew up. When I went out on my own I had no cooking skill at all. When Ron moved into my home I had eggs and hot dogs in the refrigerator. I simply had no clue how to make food. Ron first made food I fell in love with and started teaching me seasonings. I took to it like a fish to water and now he lets me take the lead on joint meal projects. And that is what the meals are, we work together on the idea and what we would like the outcome to be. He does any chopping because my eye sight is so bad and I have cut my self so badly at times. But then he lets me do my thing and comes to taste or add suggestions as I ask. He always does the cleanup as he understands how tired I am by then.

But it is more than meals. At night I struggle to sleep, and Tupac presses as hard to me as he can most of the time. Ron will reach out and touch me on the shoulder, arm, or back just to let me know he is there. If he knows or thinks I am struggling he will talk to me. If he knows I am awake he will ask if we can cuddle some more. I so love that but the issue there is Tupac. During the three months Ron was gone Tupac got very attached to me. He sleeps as close to me as he can get often laying his head on my folded arm. Ron says as long as I am able to sleep like that Tupac will stay asleep right there. If I shift he will move lower towards my belly and again push against me. If he doesn’t have paws touching me or himself he will lie with his head pointed at me and looking either up or down and his tail to Ron.

The few times I have moved him and set his stuff up so he was on the other side of us so Ron and I could cuddle he got very upset. So now I only do it if I have responded to his middle of the night need for food and while he is gone change the places of his sleep towels and blanket. He still doesn’t like it. The first night we did it in the morning Ron went to pet him and Tupac swatted at him.

I am sorry this is rambling, I guess I did not do a good job ordering my thoughts. I am just so happy which is an emotion I so rarely get to enjoy I wanted to share it all with everyone. Things seem so good, clear, wonderful, and grand, and Ron and I are more in tune with each other than we have been in a long time. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. I don’t know, but the way he looks at me, the way his arms encircle me, and the way he gives me quick kisses are like it was half a decade ago and so wonderful. My body responds to him like in the old days and he enjoys it. That is new and I love it.

As for the bad events / the vortex. It has not been as bad since Ron has been home. I have had minor ones and have retreated to my “pink palace office” to cry quietly and try to deal. But the horrid nightmares reliving the events of my past have not happened since he came home. I have not needed to desperately cry out for help or in pain as I relive the things done to me. I know they will, but I also know he will be there. Listening and ready to help me face the demons and hurts that I will never totally make go away. I have noticed he is careful to not overload me mentally, emotionally, or physically. He will often tell me it is time for a break or that he would like to take over, or his favorite trick… I need a break do you mind if we rest for a while? I know he is doing it for me. But it still is grand. OK I don’t have a real ending here other than he just came into the office as I was writing this , leaned over me and gave me a kiss. I asked if he needed help with anything and his reply was not yet, I will let you know when. Maybe just possibly what they say about love is true, it can heal the wounds if you let it. Just know that now I am so very happy an emotion I have not felt in a long time. Hugs

It has been a good day but a long day and it just turned sour but I am fighting back.

It has been a good day, let me explain. Ron set our folding dining room table up to go through all the large filing cabinet, as he ran out of room for new files and some of our files are over 30 years old. As he worked on that I had made breakfast of thick bacon and scrambled eggs with Ron having muffins and me white toast. After breakfast we worked together on a really great now that it is cooking smelling recipe for pork chops using two packages of ranch dressing mix, can of cream of mushroom soup, and some seasonings I helped adjust.

I was on my way earlier to take my shower and a painful testorne shot when the water was shut down because the phase of the development we are in is hooked to the same water supply as the RV section and when an RVer forgets to unhook their water line and pulls out ripping the pipe apart or they back over and break the water pipe connection for their lot, it shuts down the water supply for both the RV section and the phase 1 homeowner section.

No real problem, as Ron was doing the filing, and I was doing tomorrow’s roundup post and my shower and the dishes could wait. But then Ron decided to go take a nap. I was joined him to help him into bed. As he got undressed I started to flirt and rub him. We had flirted and been sexually suggestive with each other all day. I am hypersexual and that is normal for a person who was abused in childhood as I was. Sex and the function of it are super important to me and mean far more emotionally than the act should. Ron understands that. He accepts that. But he is 71 yrs old and was put on a medication a decade or more ago that we did not know would kill his libido, his desire. He has since gotten off the medication but the damage has been done. He is trying to get over the effects of the drug but it is hard. He struggles to have sexual desires, while I am over sexual desire needing. He tries to meet my needs when ever he can or I need, which is all the time, but I try to control it. We do a lot of touching and at night in bed we cuddle for hours at a time. We simply cuddle pushing our bodies as tight as possible with each other and sleep that way. It makes the cat jealous though.

As he was getting ready for his nap without clothing my desire was going close to out of control even as I understood it as not appropriate or the right time. Ron realized my need and offered and I had a flashback. I was taken over by a memory from my childhood. It was painful and shook me. I started to shake instead of replying. Ron realized what was happening and instead of peppering me with questions moved back while assuring me it was all OK. He got into the bed covering himself while continuing to talk to me calmly and reassuringly. He kept using my name that is different from what my abusers called me. He asked me if he needed to get up and I said no, that was not good. I mumbled some sleep well stuff and went to my Pink Palace office and started to cry.

I gradually got my self undercontrol. I post this to try to explain how triggers work and the minefield my life is even with a loving wonderful husband. We were on the same wavelength for what I was desiring… but then the memories hit shattering everything. If this had happened on a first date or such it could have gone really badly and maybe violently. Ron has lived with me a long time, he understands some of my abuse and he knows how to deal with me to not make things worse. The fact is I basically have to have two minds / people of me. The outfacing person who appears normal and has no issues and who cares for everyone. The second one I try to keep hidden in public life except for here on the blog. A badly damaged person struggling to deal with day to day stuff and trying some how to understand the issues of what is happening with out letting it tear me apart while my memories struggle to constantly surge to the front of my mind.

I don’t know if posting this will have the effect I want it to have which is not pity but understanding the minefield I walk daily in life. It is not just the news about abused kids, it is not the survivor site where people discuss things similar to what I lived through and is still in my mind today. It is not even when my husband sees my needs and wishes the same that a memory or many memories can sabotage and ruin everything. I don’t know if any of you have ever needed to retreat to a “safe space”. It is not a weak person who does that, it is a strong person who knows they are close to breaking. I don’t care if the right calls it woke, I call it needed emotional health care. I often get overwhelmed and sometimes share that with you. But each of you I would think some times reach a point where enough is enough and you need to back off or change what you are doing.

Very few people are an island. I am not and don’t want to be. I love being part of a community and being part of the world I live in. However, I do admit it becomes difficult for me sometimes. I struggle and I stumble in ways that the maga would make fun of me for. I am human. I get it and have been hurt. I still stand up for others. And now I am calm enough that I will go get my shower and take my painful shot. Thank you for letting me express this part of my life and I welcome your comments. Hugs

The diagnosis of my pain doctors and it was worse than I thought.

I have been promising this post since monday. But I have always been too tired or in too much pain to write it or post it. I am going to start this tonight but it is late for me and I may go to bed before finishing so it may take several days.

The fact is before I even went to my pain doctor to tell me the result I knew things were bad. In the morning I can only sit in my chair for at most two hours before I have to get up and do something that helps relieve the pain. Mostly that is going to bed. I don’t sleep just lay their reading news or telling my self stories I create hoping to fall asleep. Randy sent me a headband with speakers but that just interferes with my own thoughts and keeps me awake. It was a good try and I bought one for Ron and he loved it. I will give this one to him. I go to bed and lie there only to get up and sit for a couple of hours to have the pain again overtake me. Once the pain gets that bad it is 10 to 15 minutes at most before I have to leave the desk and simply walk around or do something because the pain gets so bad so fast.

Also Tupac is on the desk being as close to me as he can. He is not lying on the towel I leave down for him but as close to the keyboard as possible even at time placeing his paws on the on the keybord hitting random keys. He wants to be as close to me as possible since Ron has been away so long. He feels he lost another human. I will be exciteed t0 see him react when Ron gets home on monday night.

So before the doctor told me the damage I knew something was badly wrong. So remember that even before I talked to the doctor I knew something had gone drasticly wrong. Sadly the MRI showed that.

Yup figured that would happen the pain levels are too high so I am going to bed. It is 8 PM my time.

It is now Saturday and I am trying hard to get this post done and out. But today my pain levels are very high and it is difficult to focus but I will do my best.

One of the things that the doctor told me was that my spine is no longer aligned; the disks are not lined up with each other but shifted to different degrees. Remember this was only the lower spine now they are going to MRI the upper spine. Second my spine has curved wrong. Then we got to the serious stuff. Degenerative discs, bulging discs, and discs so damaged that the nerves are outside the spinal channel. The arthritis is so advanced it is deep / spread in each vertebra. She tried to explain all the medical terms. At one point she excused herself to go speak to the surgeon I see for spine shots. When she came back it was with bad news. He no longer thinks epidurals will help me in my lower spine and I need nuero surgeon to do back surgery. Crap I cannot afford that. I am losing my sight, Ron has to have eye surgery right away, and the van needs 2 grand in repairs. That doesn’t even include my eye surgery and the repairs on our home.

While I did not understand everything she said I so desperately wished Ron had been there as he often explained these things to me later, and I have forgotten some of it, the situation is I need an MRI of the upper spine as well, she has refered me to her prefered spianl nueraal surgenon. Then I will need spinal surgery as the state and federal government won’t let them increase my pain medication because I can’t take the fentanyl patches with my skin allergies. I am being squeezed into a surgery I cannot afford or seeking illegal drugs for relief to be able to function.

I remember when I started in this clinic in 2009. They looked at my MRI of my spine and gave me 75 gm of morphine twice a day. I asked it to be reduced to half that amount and it was and I could live normally. But after the opioid “crisis” the states started to inject non-medical legislators into the medical field to show they were tough on abuse and misuse of drugs. It got ever more crazy until my life went from normal and even being able to work for a few years to not even getting enough pain relief to sit in my desk chair and blog for an hour. Now the federal government is demanding it be restricted even further, as RFK Jr. taking steroids can work out in jeans. On the restrictions I can’t get enough relief to blog for any extended time of the day. I spend half of my awake time in bed instead of at my desk. I struggle to stand to do dishes. I just told Ron that I cannot clean the floors before he gets home as I tried and it left me in tears. Even with our lightweight, easy to use cleaning devices. The damage to my spine and the lack of medical relief have gotten that bad. This makes no sense to me. Why deny me the pain blocking medications that allow me to fuction semi normally. It simply makes no sense to me. Why put me in this state what is the goal?

Do you see my point? Why put me and people like me through this? Do they want us to use illegal means for relief, or do they want us to suffer to death and go away? Do they care about us at all as they make these rules? There is more things my pain doctor told me about my spine I did not list yet, things like protrusions, spikes hooking nerves, some thing she kept say stenoisis, and nerves being pinched between vertebrae. At one point she mentioned I have advance degerneritive disc, I so wish Ron was there as I understood so little of it, then came the but you need a neurosurgeon and back surgery to help you because the state and federal government won’t let us give you enough medical relief to have any life. I hate this regressive holier than thou republican elected officials that swallow all the illegal drugs they can get from their providers while denying us poor people relief for bigoted racist reasons and their personal gains.

I am sure I left things out. I had to take after talking to Ron a saved 30 miligarm instant relief morphine because I was going out of my mind. I try desperately to save extras so when the pain is so off the chart I can get relief. But with the new restrictions, how do I do that? Why do the people in power who have access to pill mills and who have no pain and want to just make a name for themselves while doing the very thing they legislate against try to hard to make the live so people like me so hard? And I am poor and scared. Hugs

My live in a totality. Hugs

Image from REVELNATION

In keeping with my promise to try to eat more I made a salad. As always the size got away from me but I did eat the entire thing. Hugs

In keeping with my promise to the blog community and to Ron I started supper early

I decided I wanted grilled cheese sandwiches. So at four PM I started supper. And yes I made far too many as I can only eat one or one and half. But here are the steps I go through to make good cheesy thick grilled cheese and ham sandwiches.

I start with getting all the ingrediance out and ready.

If you notice I have already buttered the bread. I is important to use real butter and not a substitute as the substitutes burn before the bread is toasted, the cheese melted, and the ham hot. Now to build the sandwiches.

First the cheese on the bread.

I used two different cheeses on on each side of the bread. Swiss and the other side colby Jack. Then two slices of ham.

Then the rest of the cheese.

Then grill to perfection.

But again I made too many. I ate 1 and a half sandwiches. I wish Ron was here he would eat the rest. Hugs

It is only 6:15 and I worn out

OK, people may be getting tired of doing these posts and I am sorry for that. I got up at 4 am and that was after being awakened by Tupac smacking my hand repeatedly. Ron reminded me when I cry out or growl in my sleep Tupac gets upset. I have felt tired all day. I forced myself to eat a brunch of three thick bacon strips cooked extra crispy, two sausages, three toasts, and four fried eggs. But that was all I ate all day. I have no hunger. Plus it is early and I have cued up so much to post. But I am struggling to stay awake and function to do it. Taking the advice of so many here I am going to go to bed a bit early. I hope being as tired as I am, I can sleep. But as many of you keep telling me the news will wait and I am not the only news source. Tupac has already gone to bed and I need to join him. Hugs

A post I dont want to make but something is wrong with me.

So yesterday I posted about being disconnected from reality. I am sorry I did not get to any comments today I will do it tomorrow I promise. Last night I tossed and turned and got up and simply walked the house. I did not have a plan nor go online. I simply paced every room in the house mindlessly. Let me explain it is worse than that.

I went to bed feeling exhausted, too tired to stay up, after making sure the cat got his medications and food, and then after an hour I was awake. I tried every mind trick to keep my emotions at bay but nothing was working and I couldn’t sleep. But then something strange happened, not normal to me.

I got up and went to the computers … and couldn’t focus on them. I did not put ear buds in to listen to anything. It was like my mind shut down and my body was on autopilot. For hours I walked the house, room to room to room. At 2:30 am my time Ron texted me a bit worried I had not responded to his texts, but I did not respond, I just paced around the house. It would have been normal for me if I had had my ear buds in and sounds in my head, but I did not. I simply walked the house and every room in it over and over and over again for several hours. Then I sat at the computer, tried to do something, gave up and went to bed. As close as I can figure I got two or maybe three hours of sleep.

But the lack of sleep is not the point. What was happening in my mind that caused me to walk like that? I normally cannot go 20 seconds or more without exsternal imput into my mind. But last night I had none of that and I don’t know why. Looking back it was like I was possessed. When I got up I knew I did it, but not why. My mind was blank.

Ron has often in the last decade forced me awake because I was crying out or struggling in my sleep. Some of those he said sounded so strangled like I was trying to cry out while my throat was being closed off. Ron was not here last night. I was alone. My queston is did my mind force me out of the bed and walk because there was no other way to help me from what I was remembering in my sleep?

All day today I have been off trying to get my normal posts done. I have failed. No other way to put it, I am failing at my posting job. But I would love to hear what you guys think happened to me last night. Because it is terrifying if I am just going to mind shut down and walk around. What else might I do? Hugs

I feel detached from reality

This morning I had an MRI on my lower back. It all went well and was quick. The reason for it is my right leg feels as if it is being tased and it makes it difficult and challenging to stand on the leg. I took an extra dose of instant morphine and a muscle relaxer before the MRI, as those tend to be very painful for me to lie on the table in one position for that length of time.

Since I got home I have felt more and more disconnected from reality My pain levels in my back have increased so I struggle to sit in my desk chair and have had to take even more more pain relievers of all kinds. But I still struggle, I am feeling lost like debrie in the wind of a storm. Ron has contacted me three times to forcefully tell me he loves me. But I feel lost, ungrounded, I find myself relieaziing I am simply staring into space or have not heard a word of what is playing on the video computer.

Plus, Sam Seder is talking to someone about the abuse of Palestinians in Gaza such as how their lands are being torn from them and they are being terrorized, yet I find I am not registering large parts of the video. I simply am missing large segments of the video and have to rewind to watch so much of it again. I am zoning out. I have seriously thought of going to bed. So much pain and abuse toward people who have no way to fight back or protect themselves. If I let my mind focus I am instantly thrown back to my own childhood situation as a child unable to fight back against all the abuse from much more powerful people who seemed to have all the authority behind them.

But it is more than the normal remember, be very upset, cry, sob, and try to find a way to deal. Currently I simply am lost like I am moving in slow motion as I struggle to focus on what I need to do. I feel like I am on go …

I just realized that for some time, I am not sure how long I have had my head down on my folded arms on my desk. I was not crying, I was not sleeping, I simply checked out. This seems much scarier than when I sob and cry out of control. For an unknown part of time I just checked out of reality. This is not normal. I am going to go lie down for a few minutes. Hugs

I went to lie down. I had texted Ron with my situation. I was just lying there not thinking, no intrusive thoughts which is strange enough, just checked out when he called all upset. He offered to start for home right away. I explained to him that was not needed. I am not feeling upset. Just lost. Just like I don’t comprehend what is happening within my eye sight and hearing. My mind was not registering what the inputs were. I admit it feels a bit like when I had my stroke, everything stopped making sense for a while. Anyway while I was laying down the medication started working and I feel a bit more connected to reality. I am not writing this to upset or concern anyone but to try to explain what is happening to me in my life. Thank you for letting me have a place to explain my feelings and for all of you who are willing to listen. I appreciate it, it means a lot to me. I can’t explain how important it is for me to have this space to exspress my feelings / life and know the people reading care about me. Hugs.

I need your help looking up a meme / cartoon story.

Hello everyone. I am looking for a meme / cartoon story I had a few years ago and can’t find again. It is of a kid going out in the morning with a sign hanging from their neck down to their chest. The sign said something like I am good and I am happy. Then through the day every insult and attack on the kid tore pieces of the sign off so when the kid got home the sign was destroyed being just a bit of what they started out with. I really want to find it again but every search I try to do fails to give me what I am looking for. Thanks. Hugs