Working around my pain

Sometimes I wonder what is crippling me the most, my asperger or my headache. Sometimes they're competing with each other in odd ways.

Slowly, gradually, I'm finding words to describe good things and not just bad things. It feels a bit like learning a new language or two, one new in Swedish and one new in English. It's now been around 1,5 months since I started feeling better and I still feel really good. I know my headache hitting the roof can't make me hate my life or myself. Physical pain never really affected my mental state in a bad or undesirable way. It makes me suffer physically, but it doesn't make me suffer mentally. No matter how bad it is. And I guess that's the one major difference between physical and mental pain for me. Mental pain has always been so much harder for me to endure.

And yeah, I have felt physical pain that can easily be considered extreme, so bad that I was just a heartbeat away from passing out from it. I do remember especially one day in late June or if it was early July 2013 when my headache was so bad I was in delirium and literally couldn't speak, just crying and making random noises. I could barely even move or gently sip water through a straw as I lied down in my bed at my parents' place. It went on for hours, but I can't remember just how many. Maybe four or five, before it gradually got better again.

I don't know exactly what triggered it to get that bad that day. I had just gotten back out from the psychiatric ward in Visby and visited my family over my sister's birthday. My uncle and his girlfriend at the time visited too. I had some wine but not a lot, I think it was just one or two glasses. I'm glad that extreme pain only lasted for hours though, cause had it been longer I would have likely had to go to a hospital about it. But I didn't need to.

With painkillers, they only work if my pain is medium strong and not if it's extreme. Usually my headache is mild, it's always there, always crippling me with its presence, but it is mild. Like an even pressure constantly on my head/forehead, uncomfortable but manageable. I don't always think of it, but when I do I always feel it. I have to try and not think about it, or else I would not be able to live my life. I have to ignore it as much as I can, cause I can't be dependent on painkillers for a constant pain that I can live with without painkillers. If I do take them constantly, they do lose their effect pretty quickly anyway. So that would be useless. Unless I would just keep increasing the dosage until I'm addicted.

That's not a solution for me. But I do know, that I've taken much more painkillers in my life than most 27 year old's have in their lives. Treo, Alvedon, Aspirin, Citodon and so on. During my worst periods or what to say, I've taken 3 Treo a day for weeks at an end, or up to 6 Citodon a day for two months. Treo is not a prescription drug and anyone can get it, it's an effervescent tablet that you put in a glass of water, let it dissolve in there and then drink it. It tastes a bit like very concentrated mineral water and it's very salty. Most people hate that taste but I kinda like it. Citodon is regular tablets that you just swallow and they are a prescription drug which contains codeine which turns into morphine inside your body. It also contains the same stuff as Treo so it's like a combination of two different substances that relieves pain. Citodon is addictive and I did get addicted to it for a short time before I decided to stop taking it.

Stress always makes my headache worse, and during my most extreme pill popping periods I was also under a lot of stress which increased my headache. It was an endless battle between the stress that caused the pain and the pills that were trying their best to relieve it. I noticed, rather late, but still, that I need to not stress myself in order to be able to cope with my headache at all. I'm never entirely stress free, as my own thoughts and feelings more often than not cause the constant tension that runs through my entire body. But like, for example, going to school 5 days a week would cause me to go into overdrive and increase my headache vastly. Now I have no idea what to do with my sort of half planned future when it comes to this. I can't ignore my stress tolerance level.

The thing is that I sort of planned with my main teacher at school, my mother and my case worker to continue the class/course I'm going to now, next term as well, but to increase my presence there to the maximum of 4 days a week. I don't think I can do it. I mean, yes I can technically, but it would most likely cause me to go into overdrive. It has always been that way in my past, since I got my headache. I don't know if I should just tell them that I'm pretty damn sure I will never be able to study full time because of this. I'm not just tackling my asperger, borderline, eating disorder and what not, but I do have a crippling headache to consider as well.

Also I think it's gotten even harder with age to push myself beyond my limits. I'm not saying I'm old or anything, but I'm not a teen anymore either and I think it might be related to that, cause now if I feel I can't get my ass to school a certain day, it's like I literally and physically can't. No matter what I try to do. My body no responds with simply falling asleep when it's too much, and I can't go anywhere if I'm asleep. Before, I could push myself to go to school even when I was way past exhausted and keep going until it got so bad that I shut down. I can't do that anymore, although I almost kinda wish I could.

Would I take the risk of shutting down just to prove them all of what I'm not capable of? Show them that it has nothing to do with me giving up or lacking motivation? My body doesn't care about my wishes or wantings, it shuts down when it becomes too much for it.

For me, I wouldn't take it so hard if it turns out there simply is no solution to help me get my grades up. If it turns out I can't study at all. I have my minimum wage allowance and I have my creativity. Life wouldn't be meaningless for me without a decent education and eventually a job. No, I don't think I'll ever be rid of my headache. I think it's gonna stay for the rest of my life. But to be perfectly honest, I'm pretty sure society is a lot more bothered by that than I am. It's my handicap but it's society's burden, cause it loses a productive member, it makes me useless for society, but it doesn't make my life useless for me.

Cause there's so much more to life than education and having a job. One of the pros of being disabled is that you do get a lot of free time to spend however you want to the degree you can, and I've never really felt that I owe society a damn thing. I think it owes me more. I've never felt bad for not being a productive member of society, and I don't think I ever will. It's been 11 years now, I'm pretty damn used to it and I do think I know now, that life can be lived, valuable and even good despite the constant pain. My pain doesn't rule me, we just have to work together a bit.

I do see my future will be bright, even though I'll have my pain with me. It might sound a bit cliché or something, but I'm not letting my pain ruin my life. It can be there, yes it will and does affect me, and I do know my limits, but I can still make my life worth living. As long as I can live at least somewhat on my own terms and not have that stupid society trying to decide what I should or shouldn't do. But knowing myself, which I do, I don't think that will be too much of a problem. I'm slowly learning how to stand on my own feet and not take shit from others. Starting with my mother. Because she's a person who still has the most power over me, who is very important to me and who I love a lot, and who is the hardest for me to say no to.

Isn't it a bit ironical, that "no" is the most difficult word for me to say, when it was the first word I ever said in this life? Yeah, it wasn't "mom" or "dad", it was "no". And I've been wondering about my keyboard here, which has two buttons on it that are the most damaged and I'm thinking you could guess which two letters those are... N and O. I think it's trying to send me a message or something.

I don't know if you noticed, but during our conversation last night I did dare to talk a little bit more than usually, and I don't think it was quite as one-sided as it usually tends to be? I did make an effort however but then as I was getting more tired it was more difficult for me to keep the conversation going. I will keep working on it but I do think it might have been a good start. Thing is that sometimes it's hard for me to stay on topic as my mind tends to wander around in various directions until I'm suddenly thinking about three or four completely different things at the same time, even though I want to stay on topic. I'm not really good at steering my mind, but I'm trying to.