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| The Titanic Signature building in the centre and Harland and Wolfe (the yellow crane is one of the two used to make ships. They are called Samson and Goliath) |
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| The Titanic Signature Building. The Titanic sign at the front there weighs the same as one of the anchors on the Titanic. |
Normally I write my posts with ease but get stuck on the titles. Anyone else find titles of posts really hard to come up with? It's just not my forte. Today however the title has been written before a word of this post was started and I'm struggling to know what to say. I guess that's because my title says it all. I am detached from my feelings and finding reflection difficult.
I thought things were improving for me a bit physically as I had a few weeks where I had more energy and fewer episodes of exhaustion. Last weekend I had some kind of stomach upset though and it seems to have knocked me back a bit. Last night I slept for thirteen hours! Well, I did need to get up about five times to pee and was awake for a bit during the night feeling anxious, but that's normal with an eight hour night so I must have really needed that sleep. I only woke up when Adam woke me after midday. I have been feeling rough today. Headachey, achey, faint, tired etc. That's how I had gotten used to feeling over the past year or so. I hope things will improve again.
I've been having a lot of urinary symptoms like the getting up to pee all the time in the night and some pain when I pee. I've also had a pain on and off on the right side of my back about half way up, which I was worried was my kidney. My doctor tells me it is unlikely to be my kidney, even though I do have a kidney problem which I am waiting to get seen for at the hospital. I've also been told the problem with getting up to pee all the time is because of anxiety. Who knows? It's annoying though. I find it triggering too. I was told the damage in my kidney could be from recurrent UTIs in childhood. I don't remember having any UTIs and my mum says I didn't either. It's hard to explain why this triggers me. I think I wonder what all was going on in my body as a child that could have caused damage and well, you know...
Moving on. My new psychologist asked me to keep a record for a week of what I was doing each hour with a rating of my stress, dissociation and fatigue on scales of one to ten. She wants to analyse it to see if she can find any association between my fatigue and psychological stress. It was quite a labour intensive task for me and it's surprisingly difficult to rate 'dissociation' especially since it's not just one thing. Dissociation includes alterations in senses in a number of ways and is variable in how it affects me. Feeling detached is a kind of dissociation, but so is visual disturbance, like tunnel vision and it's hard to rate everything on one scale. Sometimes I'm so separate from myself I don't know how dissociated I feel, if that makes ANY sense! I did my best anyway. I gave it to her last week and I guess we might talk over it this week. I wonder what her observations will be.
Today I went to the cinema with Adam and then for a walk around the Titanic Quarter in Belfast. It's starting to look really good with the new Titanic Signature Building which is due to open at the end of March, just in time for the 100 year anniversary of the Titanic, which as we all should know, was built in Belfast at Harland and Wolfe. These are a few pictures I took on my phone.
4 comments:
I understand the title and the rest of the post makes sense. It is hard to tell someone else how you feel if you don't know how you feel. Hopefully the analysis will be helpful. I have noticed that when my anxiety goes up so does my need to go to the bathroom. The body/emotion connect is amazing. I learned to use my bodies reaction is a clue to how I am feeling. My body doesn't lie, just sends me coded messages that are hard to figure out. The pictures are very cool.
Hi Candycan
I would find the task of rating dissociation really hard too! Seems a tricky thing to do if alters are around that don't easily accept that they are part of a system.
It's so hard being detached isn't it? Knowing there are other things there but not being able to feel them. Sometimes it's a blessing though and i suppose is inevitable given the very hard times we have to live through. the body and mind needs a break.
I hope you can feel better phsycically soon.
Archi
Wow, rating yourself every hour would be a challenge. For me, one type of dissociation is always accompanied by enormous fatigue as well. Luckily it doesn't happen all the time. I also need to pee a lot with anxiety...
I also get confused whether things are body or emotion. I'm going to the doctor next week because the other night I had a spasm that caused such severe pain I fainted....I know I was also having anxiety, so I don't know if there's something really wrong or if it's the anxiety. Digestive related, and that's where a lot of the stress chemicals go, so I'm suspicious. Very confusing.
Very pretty buildings you have in Belfast!
Ruth, thanks for your comment. It's true, sometimes the physical things can be much better information about how things are mentally than thoughts and emotions are.
Archi, you're right that it can be difficult with alters who don't communicate with other alters. NP asked my system that everyone would cooperate with the task, but i don't know if it really helped.
Hi Ellen, you're right to go to the doctors. I do believe that the body can be hugely affected by trauma and stress but it's never prudent to assume that symptoms are psychosomatic without ruling out other conditions. I'm glad I have a good doctor who did tests and didn't just assume my fatigue was about my depression, because she discovered a serious genetic condition which if untreated leads onto cancer and heart failure, to name a few. So it's always worth getting checked out. I hope it isn't anything serious and that you aren't affected by such pains again. It must have been awful to make you pass out. Take care.
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