Self care is not easy

One thing that survivors of long-term abuse are not good at is self-care, when you have been repeatedly given the message that you are not worthy of being taken care of you tend to believe that this is true. I have already written about how it took an inordinately long time for me to actually get to see a dentist (here) and this was due to a combination of things – I feared what might happen if the dental chair triggered another flashback as I was acutely aware of the fact that the situation was a trigger for flashbacks and that I had NO idea what I was doing when dissociating during flashbacks. A good part was also due to the plain and simple fact that I suck at self care.

My most recent, and most difficult, battle with this has been in relation to pain management. I have suffered with chronic pain for many years – some of this is related to injuries I sustained when I was beaten up; I have tinnitus and hearing loss in my left ear following the pretty bad kick in the head I received. Some of my pain is related to the physiological effects of complex PTSD – being in a hyper vigilant state all the time puts a big strain on the body and I often suffer from tension headaches and bouts of stress-induced eczema as well as acid reflux.

I have become so used to the pain that it is often just a “white noise” so much so that it once took me 3 weeks to realise that I had broken my wrist after a fall. I was in a lot of pain but felt it couldn’t be broken as that was meant to be really painful whereas this pain, in the grand scheme of things, was bearable. It was only when I continued to have difficulty with motion that I eventually went to see my GP (Family Doctor) and was told that it was broken.

So when I have come across “niggles” during my running I have generally ignored them as each ache is added to the ever growing catalogue of background pain that makes up my daily life. This changed when I developed a common running injury – bursitis of the hip; the pain was so great that every time I put my foot on the floor it felt like someone was stabbing me in the hip; I tried the usual prescription of rest and pain meds but the bursitis recurred whenever I tried to resume running. Another unfortunate side-effect was that my back pain was much worse due to inactivity and my mental health was once again declining as I slipped into a depression.

I finally decided to see my GP for advice and they told me that the only way to treat it would be a course of Physiotherapy which I would need to pay for*. My first reaction was to give up running as I couldn’t pay for treatment – why couldn’t I? Because it meant spending money on myself, money to alleviate pain which I deserved – I deserve to be in pain because I am a bad person.

At least that’s what the voice in my head says to me, it says I am a bad, person who deserves to suffer because I didn`t speak out to raise the alarm about what my abusers were doing when I knew it was wrong it led to a whole load of other kids falling victim to those predators. Even when they were brought to justice I turned my back on the victims all over again by walking away and letting someone else take the stress of giving evidence, stress that led to many of them taking their own lives or dying from substance misuse as they sought solace for their pain in drugs and alcohol. For those reasons I feel like the pain I suffer is like my penance. I know the voice of reason would say otherwise; I too was a victim, I was young and scared but that doesn`t ease my conscience in any way – I can`t let myself off the hook, it`s like a form of “survivor guilt.”

However things are starting to change; when I told my partner what the GP had told me his first reaction was, “So when are you going to see a Physiotherapist?” I mumbled something about expense and he replied, “It’s not expensive if it gets you out of pain.” At that moment the inner voice started to creep in again but this time it was outnumbered – I was starting to listen to the voice of reason instead.

I spoke to a few people I knew through my running group and made an appointment to see a Physiotherapist, yes that`s right I actively sought out someone to help me get out of pain.

The appointment was a revelation – they asked me about my history and how I got the injury then stated that they would make a plan for me to return to running as soon as possible. They did not judge me or tell me that I deserved to be in pain and when the voice of doom tried to creep in I found it was quieter – almost meek, I felt like I had raised an army against it and it was no longer the loudest voice in my head.

The voice of doom in my head has kicked back big style since that first appointment and I am still struggling with the idea of being kind to myself but I am starting to believe that I don`t deserve to be in pain and that it is ok to do something about it. It`s a pretty major milestone though, I now have regular dental appointments and take care of my teeth and am finally beginning to address the rest of my body – in time I hope I can address the brain too.

*For those wondering why I was told I had to pay when we have the wonderful National Health Service (NHS) here in the UK. The truth is that although we have an amazing NHS system the Physiotherapy service where I live is under tremendous pressure with a minimum 6-8 month waiting list. The Therapists are also only able to allocate 15 minute sessions to each patient which I was told would not be sufficient to treat my injury hence I would need to seek out a private practitioner to treat it thoroughly.

Fear is fleeting, regret lasts forever

I do seem to have a recurring theme of regret in my life;  there are many things I wish I hadn’t done but the worst regrets of all are the times when I should have taken action but failed to and in doing so I let people down.

The one thing holding me back each time has been fear, it has held me frozen in it’s grasp time and again but things have been changing recently and I am learning to overcome my fears; albeit in some instances I have been too late to right the wrongs of the past.

Most recently I have started  working on overcoming my fear of having Dental work done and I finally made it into a Dental Surgery last June (2015) after a 20+ year absence. Since then I have had a number of deep cleans and a broken filling replaced. My one overwhelming regret about this is that I didn’t take action much earlier, if I had then I wouldn’t have ruined what was our last chance to get a family portrait done.

About 7 years ago I was at a dinner party with friends when I bit into an olive and felt something break in my mouth, I felt around with my tongue and sure enough there was a gaping hole in one of my front teeth. I was overwhelmed with panic and felt sick, most normal people would have contacted a Dentist and got it sorted out but not me!

Although I could feel that there was a bit of tooth missing I couldn’t bring myself to even look at it for a number of months, I avoided mirrors when brushing my teeth in case I caught sight of it, I started to press my lips together when smiling and putting my hand in front of my face when laughing in case anyone else noticed it. No one seemed to notice, or if they did they didn’t mention it. Eventually I decided I had to face up to it and one day I took a deep breath and looked in the mirror, it was horrific, not only could you clearly see that the tooth was chipped it was also turning black. Despite this I still didn’t take any action, I knew it would only get worse and I was well aware that there was every danger that the rest of the tooth could fall out but that somehow seemed more preferential than visiting a Dentist.

About 2 years later my Grandmother decided that she would like a family portrait as her Christmas present. I was mortified by the idea as I knew the black tooth would show up on the pictures, I tried to think of every excuse I could to delay the photo shoot but it only served to annoy my Grandmother.

In the end it was my Grandad that twigged what the problem was – he had noticed the tooth (there wasn’t much that he missed) and guessed that this was the real reason I was trying to avoid getting the portrait done. I admitted that I hadn’t seen a Dentist for some time but I lied and told him that I hadn’t been due to being short of money rather than admit that my phobia had returned. I felt awful about lying to him, more so when he gave me an envelope and told me that I was to use the money in it to pay for the tooth to be fixed. He also offered to accompany me to the appointment and hold my hand as he had done all those years ago.

I was on the verge of tears as I left my Grandparents house that night;  knowing I had lied to my Grandad and was letting down my Grandmother once again, at a time when we had barely begun to get back on an even keel following my divorce. As I left I promised my Grandad that I would keep the envelope and only use it to pay my Dental bill, that I would get it done as soon as I could after the Christmas holidays and when he saw me again I would have got the necessary dental work done.

In my defence I did try to do something about it, I got in touch with the Dental Practice I had walked out of years ago following my meltdown (I wrote about that here) to see if my old Dentist was still there but he had moved on and they wouldn’t tell me where he had gone. I tried to search for him using the internet but I could only remember his first name and so I got nowhere fast. I then tried to look at some Dental Practices nearby but I couldn’t bring myself to go near them – what would I even say? I tried to search for a Dentist that would use general anaesthetic as I thought that would be the only safe way I could be treated but no one offered such a service.

A few weeks later I took a call from my Mother, she told me that my Grandad had suffered a stroke and was in hospital, he was unlikely to regain consciousness again. My Grandad passed away about two weeks later, he died peacefully having never regained consciousness. I was devastated, not just because I knew that I would never see my beloved Grandad again but also because I had let everyone down thanks to my inability to act like a normal person. I put the envelope away without opening it, swearing to myself that no matter how bad things got I would never open the envelope unless it was to pay a Dentist to fix the tooth.

I finally opened the envelope last September (2015) when I used the money to pay for the tooth to be fixed. By pure coincidence I had the procedure performed on what would have been my Grandad’s 90th Birthday; I hadn’t realised the significance of the date until a few days beforehand when I was once again feeling like running away and giving up on my attempts to overcome my Dental Phobia. I had been on the brink of cancelling the appointment but when I realised the significance of the date I had been booked in for I went ahead with it. I know it doesn’t change the mistakes I made but my Grandad was very fond of reminding me that, “Now is as good a time as any to start” and although I sometimes think that it might be too late to start  I know that I owe it to myself to at least try.