Re-launch

I've been thinking lately that what I'm doing just isn't enough.  I gave this blog a rest for a while because I didn't think it was helping, but I don't think I gave myself enough time.

I'm not going to try to update on a schedule, I think that was my problem, and life just isn't that predictable. So you will now get updates when you get them. If that means I don't post for an entire semester because I just don't have time, well so be it, that's just the way it is.

I'd like to expand the topic to include coping with chronic pain and illness, as well, since ultimately, these things really do accumulate into the mess that is my life.

I'm starting to come to terms with my limitations, being not entirely-abled. I've been broken almost as long as I can remember, but I was in denial. Chronic health problems are surprisingly like death (no this isn't going to be morbid, bare with me). We in pain have lost ourselves. The person I used to be is gone. I look the same,  know all the same things, but I don't have the same capabilities I used to; I'm not who I was.

For me, this started so long ago that I don't remember who she was, only that she's gone. I'm still in mourning; she was very close to my heart.

It's true that chronic illness leads to the stages of loss; how could it not?

Either way, I'm trying something new; admitting when I can't do things. I'm also trying really hard not to let that change the way I see myself.. I didn't ask for this condition, nor the limitations and hardships that come with it. I got saddled with it, and there's nothing I can do about it. That doesn't mean I have to like it, and that doesn't mean I have to give up. Inability has always been merely the marker of a challenge, and I don't see that changing, but I'm not going to beat myself up when I can't get out of bed to wash the dishes, and I'm certainly not going to hold it against myself if I can't go out with friends (not that that ever comes up, since none of my friends are local, but that is entirely beside the point)

It sucks but... such is life.

So I'm moving on from denial.. Maybe that explains why I've been so angry lately.. about everything.. stupid shit.. Even I've noticed it, without being told, so it's pretty bad.
I think I'm going to skip a few steps of grieving.. I don't see any application for bargaining.. I guess I might try to make deals with myself, but I already know I'm too fickle to follow through, so probably not.

I did already take care of depression, though... boy did I.. a suicidal period around the time my mom died and I got away from psycho abusive stalker ex BF who said I was making up my pain... my shrink is confident I have PTSD now, so that's cool... Managed not to do anything in the service that would cause it, and then bam, couple years after discharge.. figures..

It's all good, now. I still have bad days, of course, and I doubt that will ever end, since my doctors don't hold much hope of full recovery (they don't even know what's causing my pain), but it doesn't define me anymore, and I can enjoy things.

Maybe I'll be done with this grieving sooner than expected.

Either way, I'll be posting again.. It might help, me or you. Both are good.