I woke with tears streaming down my face, it was 5 am and I hadn’t the slightest idea what woke me, or why I was crying, all I knew was I felt right to the core of me as though I could cry for ever. I didn’t and don’t understand any of it, why on earth should I wake up in tears without any reason and why even now do I feel as though I could do so all over again. I know that for years my emotional controls have been screwed and that tears happen for little reason, if any at all, but this is such an alien feeling to find myself fighting the tears like this for over 2 hours, since the alarm sounded. When I woke in the night, I simply had to get up, lying there letting the tears flow was just stupid, so getting up, no matter how much I knew that it meant another night with true disturbance, not just a glance at the clock then back into sleep.
I sat in the kitchen on my perching stool, still searching for a reason as to what was going on and loosing the battle with the occasional tear. I knew that it may just have been a dream, I have never been good at remembering them, but neither have I ever woken in tears before so trying to remember didn’t seem such a daft thing to do, but there was nothing. The last thing my brain was holding onto was saying good night to Adam and climbing into bed, getting comfy and lying there cursing that I hadn’t put the electric blanket on for half an hour as the bed felt chilled, I only thing I remembered after that was being in a lot of pain, both from my diaphragm and around my left kidney. I often get pain in my kidneys when my diaphragm is really going for it big style, as it was last night, the pain was right around me and it was pain every inch of it’s length, not just pressure. I can only think that when it is that tight, it is putting other organs under pressure and it all knocks on somehow to my kidneys as they don’t normally hurt much on their own. Once I was focused on the pain and trying with every cell to relax it, I drifted off to sleep, something that my relaxation tricks are designed to do and fortunately still work well, after that I could remember nothing despite sitting there for two cigarettes, one lit from the other. There was as much point in sitting there as there was in racking a brain that clearly didn’t want to comply with yet another question, it sometimes feels as though I spend my entire life these days asking why or what. I know they say that there are no easy answers in life, well just occasionally I wish there was at least one.
I am glad to say though that I am not as tired as I was yesterday, apart from the pain in my guts that still hasn’t settled and a constant desire to cry, I feel about as normal as I ever get these days. Breakfast was a bit of a damp squid really, I was hungry enough, but once I started to eat once again the nausea appeared and I struggled to get about half way, another of one of the nasty tricks that PRMS like to play, making you hungry and nauseous at the same time, just about as cleaver as pain and numbness in the same place. How can nerve impulses get so screwed up? There I go again, questions. I have always been inquisitive and I have spent much of my life trying to sort out things like that, reading, researching and investigating, in my early twenties, when I actually read a lot, if you had asked me what my favourite book was, I would have proudly pointed to my collection of Caxton encyclopaedias. Yes, my then husband and I had been caught by their sales man and had bought them, unlike many people who did, we both actually used to use them, I would even spend time just opening one at random and reading what ever was there, some people would say that was sad, well hello, you are on the internet, for most that involves a great deal of random reading. In some way’s if there is a perfect condition for some with an enquiring mind, well PRMS would be it, as there are no answers to nearly any of it, it just is what it is, completely contradictory and nuts.
Over the years that I have lived with my advanced version of MS, I have grown used to crying when ever there was the slightest emotion out of kilter, get angry, cry, be too happy, cry, get totally confused, cry, feel a tiny bit sad or see something touching on TV, cry. Crying is almost as much part of my life as laughter is to most people, the unfortunate thing is though that in society laughter is accepted for what it is, crying is seen as weak, silly and rather odd. It caused me no end of issues when it came to work as it doesn’t matter how many times you tell someone that tears mean nothing, they still instantly make conclusions that are very hard to break or even to convince them they are wrong. MS of all forms can cause emotional controls to be lost, I am not sure what is worse, crying for nothing or laughing like a lunatic, actually I do, I will keep the tears, thank you. Laughing out loud and totally uncontrollably is seen as lunacy and I haven’t the slightest doubt that that is how those who are at that end of the spectrum, are all to often treated by those who know, not just those who don’t. Crying may be embarrassing, but it is also something that can normally be brushed away, if it is just the odd tear here or there, most assume you are dealing with some sort of trauma or lose and let you be.
Today isn’t the first time that I have found myself constantly fighting the tears, it’s happened many many times before and it isn’t as easy as just letting the tears flow and releasing it, there is nothing to release. This isn’t emotion, it is more a physical act, just like an itch or a pain, it just so happens it shows itself in a way that is perceived to be emotion, if I let the tears flow, all that happen is I get wet. Today has one difference though to any of the times this has happened in the past, I actually woke up due to tears, just as pain would wake me if it were bad. Physically I felt the tears and as I got wet, I woke, that to me is a day to mark as it is a first, just one I hope doesn’t happen to often.
Please Read my blog from 2 years ago today – 8/12/12 – Finding a gift.
Two Rooms Plus Utilities 