Getting By.

I'm slowly rebuilding my strength. I've spent almost a whole year doing as little as possible - except for one thing - focusing on myself.


About this time last year I had so much going on in my life - blogs, reviews, websites - building and maintaining my own as well as developing new sites for friends and family, research, product reviews, contractual obligations, reading, maintaining the FibroMen site, trying to build the FibroMates site and their associated Facebook, Google+ and Twitter accounts - and all the while feeling worse and worse, suffering from agonising pain that not even morphine could counter and sinking further and further into depression and at the same time holding down a physically demanding job and trying to cope with a disabled wife and a disabled daughter, it all just became too much and one day I sought refuge in the form of a little too much medication - cocodamol, morphine, fluoxetine (Prozac) and alcohol. Not an overdose, merely a combination that was too much for my fragile state of mind to handle. I imploded.


The meltdown was so swift and my mood so dark that I shut out everything and everyone - including my wife and, to a lesser degree, my daughter - quite literally overnight. I became obnoxious. My marriage crumbled.


Apparently my whole persona changed. At work I maintained my old jovial, friendly and helpful state, but at home I was rude, indifferent and bullying. I was simply awful. I didn't want to be around my family and I tried my best, it would seem, to make them dislike me so that I could have a valid reason for leaving - there was a deeper issue going on which I can't/won't explain here, but those of you who know me personally are aware of what this issue was. All I will say is that many years, many decades, of pent up emotions and past grievances came bubbling to the surface. I hated myself, my life and everything/everyone in it. I painted on my smile and went to work for sixteen hours a week.


Now I'm getting by. My pain levels are at an all time high because I dare not take morphine again, but I'm getting by without it. I started going to a gym in late summer last year and, whilst this may be adding to my pain, or at least perpetuating it, I have fixed in my mind that the pain is a good sign instead of coming from the unknown like fibromyalgia, and I'm finding it beneficial to improving my strength so I can still work sixteen hours a week in a busy retail role. I look better too, so to hell with the pain!!


As for my marriage - well, I'm still at home. We still row, and my wife is keen to remind me how awful I was, but we're getting by.....

My Mid-Life Rebirth

I've been absent from most social media and websites for a period of some seven months.

I apologise if my disappearance caused anyone any concerns.

The truth of the matter is that I suffered some kind of meltdown. Years of pain coupled with months of depression finally caught up with me and I decided, for my own sake and the sake of my family, to shut down everything!

I avoided my computer. I left contractual obligations unmet and projects unfinished, I stopped responding to emails and, eventually, gave up even opening my email client on my phone or tablet.

I sought help from my doctor, who prescribed Prozac. The prozac kicked in after three weeks and for a few weeks I felt bouyant enough to concentrate on getting myself fully better. I had some hope of beating the negativity I'd been feeling for months. But within a few weeks the Prozac had stopped working - or had worked too well - because I suddenly found that my whole personality had been transformed, and not in a good way. My wife and daughter bore the brunt of this new "personality." I became unemotional, withdrawn, spiteful, argumentative and downright bad-tempered.

My life, in just a few weeks, had irrevocably changed. My marriage suffered (beyond repair) and we are now still living in the same house, but only because we cant afford to divorce or sell the home we had made for our daughter's future. If this situation continues to work for us both then at least Emily will always have a home once the mortgage is paid off - but it's far from ideal for either of us.

I became a different person - in so many ways I'm not going to describe here - I changed, and not in a good way.

At the time of writing this- it is now January 14th 2017 - I have reached a point where I feel I can function. To me I'm back to my old self - but it seems, that to my family, and in particular my wife, I am still the person I became in early summer last year.

Being in constant pain meant I was prescribed many different drugs - all of which played a part in my downfall. Most notably I was prescribed Prozac - which, when combined with morphine, amitriptyline, cocodamol and copious quantities of alcohol, completely altered my personality in the way already stated.

I am still in constant pain - despite the drugs. Despite the drinking. Despite everything.

Pain is now my life - emotionally as well as physically. Pain rules. I no longer take Prozac. I no longer drink to excess, I limit my morphine intake to days when I'm not working. Yet still - pain rules.

PAIN RULES as it has done for the past fourteen years.

It reached a peak in early summer 2016. I took prescribed medication to help. It didn't help.

I took advantage of the breakdown of my marriage to indulge in a different way of life - in the hopes that being true to myself would somehow heal my pains- it didn't.

I undertook a course of psychological counselling to try to beat my depression. It didn't work, but it did force me to take a good look at myself, and the overriding facts became clear (so in that way I suppose the counselling did work.) Pain was ruling and ruining my life because I was letting it take over. From waking to going to sleep pain was in my every thought and action. Pain, pain, pain. More pain and a little pain added for good measure. I was encased in pain. Not merely physical pain, but mental pain too.

I forced myself to join a gym. I turned the mental pain into more physical pain - but there was a reason for this pain. A cause to my suffering that I could identify - I was exercising my aching muscles and now they ached because I was working out - not because of the fibro - I was causing the pain and, in this way, it became more acceptable psychologically.

Being able to identify the cause of at least some of my pain made it a whole lot easier to accept - plus this pain has added benefits in that I look much better, physically, than I've ever looked. I have muscles - the guys at work now compare themselves to me rather than the other way of me comparing myself to them (and feeling inadequate like I always did) I'm fifty one, but I feel so much better than I did when I was twenty one.

Some might call it a mid-life crisis. I call it my mid-life rebirth.

Time for a Time Out to Tame the Black Dog

It's fair to say that, over the past few weeks, I've become disinterested in being ill, or at least I've become disinterested in writing about my illness.

Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy writing and maintaining this blog, it's just that I've reached the point in my illness where I want to focus less on it and more on myself. Is this a common feeling among the chronically ill? Is it just a phase I have to get through in order to reach the next level?

I don't know.

I feel like I've written all I can about being ill - regardless of the never ending array of new and strange symptoms - I can only write so much about sleep deprivation, back pain, restless legs, brain fog, headaches, irritable bowel syndrome. Nothing is new. Nothing inspires me to write.

This could, of course, be a symptom of that other invisible illness which is hounding me at the moment -  that big black dog depression (for which I have now been prescribed Prozac, as I couldn't tolerate Duloxetine, and some counselling - we'll see where that takes me!)

In short, what I think I'm saying is: "I need a break from focusing on how ill I am!"

In short, I'm saying au revoir for a while. It could be a short while or a long while - it depends on when and where I find inspiration (so I may be back next week!!)

I have a post scheduled for Monday morning - a sponsored post about a product I think you'll find worthwhile - and then I'm going to focus on taming that black dog!