With Dreams So Powerful

I woke up this morning from a dream not with a yawn or a stretch, but with tears running down my face. The dream made me angry, sad, hurt, and confused. When you have dreams as powerful as that, there's no way to avoid your emotions.

Last night, I struggled to actually sleep. I tossed and turned, awoken every hour due to pain. A customer jokingly said to me yesterday that he didn't want to live beyond forty, that it's all downhill from there. I didn't want to tell him that I haven't reached thirty yet, and my last year of my twenties has been awful health wise. This is probably why you should never joke about their being an age where things start to go wrong, because on the surface level, I look healthy. I feel healthy, mentally. That's saying something, because I battled anxiety and depression for a long time.

The dream I had right before I woke up for what felt like the tenth time was one where I was struggling to walk. All of the muscles in my back had tightened again, leaving me helpless. It was the same pain I had that made me go to the hospital, and here I was, reliving it again in a dream. I was walking on the road, determined to make it to the doctor's office, when I collapsed. It was so icy that I slid into a snowbank, freezing, cold, and angry. I started to cry as people stopped and tried to help me.

Those tears followed me into real life, along with some tension pain in my back.

I believe this is a dream about my pent up feelings. I've been putting on a show, much like Michael C. Hall's character in the first episode of Six Feet Under, which I just started watching. I've been frustrated and angry with my body, but I've also been frustrated with not being able to get proper care. I haven't voiced it. I haven't gotten angry. I've been calm and said, "Oh, you know, I'm in pain. It's cool." I've been playing it of like it's no big deal, but really, I'm screaming inside.

When I went to the ER in so much pain that I couldn't stand or sit without assistance, I was given pain killers, a shot of ibuprofen, and sat around for six hours. It's not the hospital's fault that I was one of many people who needed care that day. But I ended up leaving, getting discharged without seeing a doctor or getting X-rays. For all I know, there could still be something wrong with my spine.

Since my primary care doctor recently left my network and my health insurance is switching to a new network on January 1, there was no point in seeing a primary care doctor now to have the X-ray ordered, to bring to a new PCP in January. So I've been waiting.

And waiting on a health issue because of this sucks. We should have never privatized the healthcare system.

So yeah, I'm screaming on the inside.

I say, however, that I am mentally healthy, because I'm also keeping it together better than I did when I was younger. I'm trying to smile despite the pain. I've either been socially trained to have more poise, or I just gained it over time.

Instead of wallowing, I've been making a bullet journal, planning for the future, and getting excited about next year. I have publishing plans, I have blogging plans, I have long-term goals I'm working toward. There's plenty of awesome things on the horizon. I just need to get through a few more days, and then I can get everything properly evaluated.

While I might be screaming on the inside, I'm transferring that anger and aggression into something good. I'm creating a planner for things to come. I'm being as creative as I can be while taking my health into consideration. And at this particular moment, Munster is sitting in my lap keeping my warm. I can't possibly complain about that.