A New Beginning, I Hope

I live with chronic pain due to issues with my lower back, sciatic nerve, and a failed fusion of the left sacroiliac joint (which means I live with a permanent compound fracture of the joint to the left of my sacrum, in my pelvis). This pain exists every single moment of every day of my life for the past 13 years. Before that the pain was more intermittent. I take medication for my pain on a daily basis, without these medications I would not be able to function at all.

The injuries to my back and pelvis affect my mobility and what I can physically do or not do. They affect every aspect of my life from my relationships, to my moods, to doing simple chores, to dealing with stress, and everything in between.

Right now I am struggling (and failing) to overcome the depression that has become so much worse over the last year. I find myself having no desire to do anything or go anywhere. This is not good and I have to accept that my anti-depressent medication has stopped working. Until today I did not want to accept that and refused to even think about it. I get so tired of having medical issues all the time. I just want it all to go away! But, it won't, and the time has come to get off my ass and deal with it rather than continue trying to hide from it. So when I see my doctor again on Tuesday I am going to request a change in my medicine and hope it helps.

I will be using this blog in many different ways.

• Motivation to get on a schedule and stick with it
• A place to vent my feelings
• A release for all the thoughts and emotions that run through my head all the time
• A way to reach out and connect with others in a similar situation to mine

I don't really know if this blog will do any good, but it can't hurt. I used to keep a journal (many notebooks that I still have) and it used to be a major help for me when I was dealing with other major problems. As my back got worse and my pain got worse, I stopped using journals as much and now I almost never write in one. I thought maybe doing a blog might work.

I will write whatever comes to my mind on this blog so be forwarned, cursing will occur, as will adult topics such as how chronic pain affects my libido; this is why I listed it as adult content. I'm not going to post porn or anything like that, but I may post about how fear of increased pain and deep depression have caused me to lose desire for sex and even fear it if that happens to be the topic that is bothering me.

I hope to use this blog as a way of helping me get into a schedule, to motivate me back into some kind of a real life, rather than just existing and vegging all the time. I miss going places, doing things, being active, taking care of things..all things I have stopped doing because my pain levels got so bad and went improperly treated for so long. I'm going to start off real slow. It may seem silly to others but its not silly to me. I am going to start out trying to do the following every day

• shower
• do laundry (at least 2 loads washed, dried and folded)
• take niece for a walk or play outside for a little while

It doesn't seem like much, but considering I have little to no desire to do any of that at all (or anything else for that matter) it is a lot. I will add more things as it gets better. I don't expect this to be easy. I expect this to be very difficult and I expect to backslide, get angry, etc. But I will try real hard to stop letting depression and pain rule my life.

I want my life back.