I've had a little time to think today about how intense the last 8 days got, especially after another brief breakout last night that has me in another 2-day holter. This is old hat, I've done overnight, 2-day, 7-day, and month fairly regularly over the last 2 1/2 decades, and every time it happens there is a settling into new med dose period where I have little minor breakout burps after an initial big one. Except this last big one took 2 days to wrestle back down out of emergency status range. Kinda like with diabetes, there is a set of ranges they consider imminent even if the patient isn't aware it is, blood pressure has its own ranges of 'anything could happen without warning' when you get above or below a certain range.
Over the years I've heard it all about panic response (out of a dead sleep, that's hilarious), acute anxiety (without warning while I'm having a good day?), pain response (we do watch that, and it's not logically consistent or predictable), and of course they check for anything physical going on, too. My blood work is pretty great for someone my age, I pass all kinds of tests with flying colors, and still I get these outrageous break out blood pressure binges after months of good control.
But. I do have to look at what I've been doing lately. I have been deeper tissue restructuring on top of finally dealing with one of the biggest PTSD trauma events in my life, which basically boils down to medically condoned self harm during a mental crisis, and it dawned on me during another ER run last night this is what it really looks like. Is it much of a stretch to connect that to the worst uncontrollable blood pressure break out I've ever had? The timing is exquisite.
Something to talk about with my primary doctor during follow up tomorrow and my psychologist next week.
I DVR'd the Patrick Melrose mini series on Showtime, but didn't start watching it until the first episode today. I was alone in the house, and every nuance triggered the hell out of me from the very start. I've never done hard drugs like that, and I've never been abused like that character was, but I have been through other abuses and spent many years on very addicting medications, and my life started out being treated for withdrawal as a baby. I have never not known pain in all the forms it takes in humans, physical, psychological, spiritual, emotional, medical, mental, traumas in my own experiences and all around me both hidden and ignored, and I felt so synced to Patrick Melrose split into pieces while barely maintaining a false cover of normalcy. All those people around him who knew he'd been miserable but had never ventured into finding out why, glossing it off for clichéd reasons, and especially an old girlfriend winding up shoving him off like a freak instead of really noticing or listening, and he was even begging for help.
I grew up self medicating, but it wasn't alcohol because we never had any. I didn't know that a lot of kids were doing that all around me in school, getting into medications and liquor cabinets. Did they start at three years old? I OD'd when I was around 3. No one even knows what to say to that. I was on phenobarbital since babyhood, found the love of my life in codeine around 12, and graduated into round the clock drinking and chain smoking after a divorce. I rarely bring up the brandy bongs because people get the wrong picture. I was a workaholic without a real emotional connection to anyone, and I moved along from one addiction to another to another to another, and part of that migration has included pain addiction. I am very, very good at pain addiction. I have literally used it to get off med addictions. I have used therapies as a coping mechanism because they focus pain. I get high while I heal, the more bruising, the better. I noticed this last week that I was craving the needles. I had so many people putting needles in me. My left hand is half black and blue, my stomach has a very bright purple circle as big as a silver dollar. My arms are tracked up and bruised in half a dozen places. Not one needle was used to administer a pain med or muscle relaxer or anything relieving like that.
I love pain. They started noticing this in physical therapy about 3 years ago. It's become a topic of interest with my psychologist. Lately I can't help noticing that the more emotional pain I feel, the more physical pain I crave. Funny I never noticed that before. I can look back on my life and see years of it now.
I have no idea if that dynamic can trigger such a horrible blood pressure breakout. I spent the last two months rolling out scheduled blog posts about dealing with some horrible stuff in my life, creating a survival narrative, and right as the last of it was ending, and my mind finally started feeling more free than it has ever felt, my blood pressure exploded and my life diverted into more than a dozen needles and a lot of tests. During that time, the deep tissue area we've been working on in physical therapy for 6 weeks also exploded into searing pain along nerve pathways and referred into muscle strings and bundles. The pain was severe, and I laid there loving that I was feeling it and feeling lots of needles all over and mandatory fasting for almost 24 hours, and I never once felt sorry for myself.
This song won't stop running through my mind.
I think I still have a lot of healing to do.
