#i am worried about getting restless legs again. last SNRI i took caused that and it was excruciating

[bulldagger-bait]

LONG ramble ahead. Feel free to skip. (Also this stuff is probably a bit too personal but i dont really care tumblr is my diary and i just have to get these thoughts out)

I had my first almost completely pain free day today and... It was fucking magical. Like, I still had pain in all of the niggling areas i always do: muscle tension, joint pain.

But my nerve pain. My nerve pain! For a good while it just wasnt there. And because the pain wasnt there, the FND couldnt kick up a fuss. I felt strong. I could stand. I wasnt hurting.

When i woke up after my surgery nearly a decade ago, i was in the worst pain of my life. I was writhing and screaming and begging to die. 10 out of 10 out of 10. And over the course of my hospital stay it diminished. Went from 10 to 9 to 8. And then 8 is where it stayed. It became my new normal.

I forced my way through the first year of recovery waiting for it to get better... But it never did.

I tried to push through and not let anything hold me back. I dont know how many times i sobbed to myself quietly about how unbearable it was. I tried to take my life twice, and the pain was a significant reason why.

Eventually i got on meds that knocked it down to a 7, and a 7 is where ive been for the last 5 years. Every day.

Eventually i just kinda resigned myself to it. I couldnt think about the future because whenever i did, all i could feel was: "every moment of the rest of my life is going to feel like this". I accepted it, and i tried to move on. I found someone that i loved enough to stick around for. Someone who made living with the pain worth it.

And now, with this new cocktail of drugs... That burning pain is gone. Or at least, its no longer an electric, burning, blistering, grinding pain. Its tempered to what feels like a candle flame. And for a few rare moments here or there it goes away.

I dont know what to do with that. All of my other pain pales in comparison. They're their own little burning pains, but it doesn't feel like it matters. i can live with them.

And im finally hopeful about my future. Because for a few minutes last week i felt nothing. Blissful nothing. I was so shocked i couldnt even believe it.

When the pain came back i didnt even care or feel cheated, because all ive wanted for so long was just a few seconds pain free, and i got it. I didnt have to be drugged out of my mind (well ... Excluding the cocktail of drugs i was on). I just was. And when it was gone i wasnt upset because i knew if it could happen once, it could happen again. and i had a reason to be excited for my future; my long term future.

Im not just sticking around for other people anymore. Im sticking around for myself too. Because i deserve another five minutes without pain.

(sidenote: do i feel insanely guilty about having a break from my pain; and that its not fair; and that other people deserve it more than me; and that i shouldnt talk about it because its just rubbing it in everyones faces; and that i must have just been exaggerating the pain; and i dont deserve to even call myself disabled anymore; and that im scum; and that i should instead continue to suffer in pain because its all i know, and i dont know how to be myself without pain because its become such an integral part of who i am; and because its who ive been for near as makes no difference a decade; and that im just waiting for the other shoe to drop and somehow prove that im a fraud; and that the pain i had was never real, nor is the pain i have that the meds havent affected; and that im lying about everything; and that I dont deserve help; and that everyone in my life who has pain and hears me talk about this hates me, resents me; and that im terrified of losing the pain because it knows me intimately, and i know it, and that this severing is making me question who i am; and that the answer im getting in my head is: no one; you are no one without this.... Yeah, maybe. Maybe i am thinking that)