the mechanics of physical pain

There are times that I don't want to be touched, not even by my cat, because the pressure that he applies by climbing on me with his paws causes so much pain when he walks on me that it is very near to unbearable, and as a result, I push him away. It is not that I don't love my cat, because I do, very much, it's just that I don't want him to hurt me.

I have fibromyalgia, which is a disorder that causes pain and weakness of my nerves and muscles. I have rheumatoid arthritis, which makes my joints be inflamed and painful and sometimes makes it hard to breathe. Fun, huh? Sucks for my cat, and anyone else that happens to try to touch me, or hug me if I'm having a bad day, because it can cause a lot of pain for me, even if they aren't applying a whole lot of pressure. If they accidentally applied serious pressure? You can multiply the pain quotient by about a billion.

The trouble is that I don't *look* sick, or injured, or anything else that makes me stand out for it being dangerous to touch me. I walk with a cane only sometimes, and even then, I don't exactly use it as a weapon to keep people away, and unfortunately, a lot of people see a cane and think they should try to assist someone by grabbing their arm or whatever...and in my case, that causes more harm than good. *sigh*

And on some days, I'm perfectly fine, pressure-wise. You can shake my hand, hug me, and I don't even flinch. But there's no way to gauge that, and I'm not willing to tell people "today is a good or a bad day" every second of the day. My bones won't break, that isn't the problem, but for the people who actually spend a lot of time with me, it makes me sad when they forget routinely how very much pain simple things can cause, and how irritated they get at me, because I flinch away.

I don't mean to hurt someone's feelings, because I'm hurting. I really don't. But for me, it feels like someone is hitting my body with a hammer when they use me to push themselves up, or to try and help me up. Most of the time it hurts more than helps, and I don't quite no how to make anyone understand.

When I get a migraine that appears out of nowhere, and I have to hide from the lights, and take medications, I don't mean to be no fun. I don't mean to be always cold, and have joint pain. I don't want to be sick. I never asked for it, and I don't quite no how to make it any better, aside from what I'm doing. All the doctors can tell me is that I need to keep my stress to a minimum, avoid getting sick, take my medications, and keep doing what I'm doing. Nothing is said about how to improve my quality of life in any of that. Nobody says anything about how to make the pain stop long enough to be cuddled to feel better when people get mad when you flinch because it hurts.

Holidays

Last year, during the holidays last year, I was my general grinchy self. I bah-humbuged in everybody's direction, and didn't want anything to do with holiday cheer, and was just grouchy. That's generally how I am around the holidays, and I know it. Even now, I'm not exactly brimming with the holiday spirit, and am not going looking for Rudolph or anything, but I feel kind of like a jerk, as I read the messages that people I know who post things about how badly their lives are sucking, and I think about the fact that even last year, I didn't blame everyone else for the fact that I was pissy and alone. I was pissy about the holidays, but I wasn't blaming anyone for it. I'm *always* anti-Christmas, because I don't like the whole commercialism associated with it. But you can occasionally catch me humming a holiday tune, if you're around often enough.

I feel equally a jerk these days, because when I look around at my life...sure, there are still some things that aren't just brimming with sunshine and roses. Whose isn't? But on the whole? Everything that I was so damned miserable and wanted so badly to have? I have it now. Lock, stock, barrel...I believe the term is something along the lines of 'the whole caboodle' or some such garbage like that.

And I see other people who are unhappy, and I spend a lot of time trying *not* to emphasize the fact that I'm happy, because I don't want to rub anybody's nose in it. I remember wanting to smack people for what felt to me as though everybody else in the world got to be happy, and I was miserable, so what the hell? And while I *knew* that was crap, and didn't actually say or do things to that effect, it was still how it felt. And as a result, I just don't talk about how I'm doing, because it seems as though that would be somewhat crass.

But by the same token, I wasn't constantly sitting around talking about how miserable I was, and how unfair life was, constantly. And some of the people I know, they're doing precisely that. And that leaves me torn. Yes, the holidays, especially if you're alone, they suck. They really, really do. But you can't exactly expect for everyone to walk around on eggshells because you're unhappy, and cater to you, or blast them for attempting to cheer you up. When you do that, pretty soon you have no friends at all, which also sucks. There isn't really a good end result any way you look at it.

Woe is me only lasts so long, whining about it. At a certain point, you have to actually *do* something about it, because no one can actually do it for you. And everyone gets tired of hearing about it. You can *think* it all you like, but after a certain amount of time, you sort of have to suck it up, and deal. And around the holidays, you either need to fake it, or...you know, you just kind of have to fake it. There really aren't a lot of other options, because nobody really wants to listen to a huge list of complaints, especially if you've been singing the same tune for years.

Which probably makes me callous and cruel, or any other choice phrases. Nothing new there. And yes, I'm surely a hypocrite at the moment, because I *am* happy, and my life is full of joy or whatever, which actually isn't always the case, but I'm sure it looks that way to everybody else. But it's the case often enough for people to be jealous and to object to me telling anyone else to stop complaining about how bad their lives are.

The amusing part being, that the fact that I'm finally content with my life? It hasn't changed any of my other circumstances. My life is still hard, and I still don't spend all my time complaining about any of that, which is rarely taken into consideration by the peanut gallery when I point out that a lot of people have it a lot better and easier than I do, or ever will have.

I guess people should be grateful for what they have, and take a good long look at just what that is, before they sit around and complain about what they don't. That they should see how good they've got it, and how easy they've got, and be appreciative of those things, because I know very much how hard it can be, even though I don't spend all my time whining 'woe is me', because there's no point to it.

Happy Holidays. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Merry Yule. Happy Saturnalia. I hope everyone had a good Bodhi Day. Shabe-Yalda.