My specialist appointment to schedule surgery was this morning.
Consent forms signed, all stations go, now all we are waiting for (frustratingly) is a set date.
I'll be running to the letterbox every day until that letter arrives.
So there we go. It's all happening.
With a bit of luck, we're on our way to a pain free existence (even if that is aiming a little too high).
The reality is, who the fuck knows what lay ahead of me. All I can do is smile whenever possible, put on the brave face and keep every crossable extremity crossed for a positive outcome.
Physically? Pain. Yeah, cool. Whatever... It is what it is - I'll deal with it, I've learned to live with it, and whilst it sucks, that's just what I've got to put up with. Fine.
Mentally and emotionally? I cannot do it anymore. I just can't. Or at least, that's certainly how it feels.
I am completely and utterly worn down from it all, and I guess that was one of the biggest considering factors when it came to agreeing to the hysterectomy.
It was also one of the biggest factors working against me.
If I still suffer pain like I am currently experiencing, even despite surgery, am I going to cope with that?
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| No, but seriously. This is the most stable relationship I've ever had |
As I mentioned in my previous post, I've undergone a lot (and I do mean a lot) of therapy sessions with both guidance counsellors and clinical psychologists alike.
For a while there, the clinical psychologist assigned to me by the Pain Management Team through the hospital really became my life line.
Being the perceptive, intuitive being that I am, in the past I've been able to manipulate counsellors by giving them the answers they wanted to hear.
Because I have a reasonably clear understanding as to where a lot of my issues come from and how they effect me, I could (and would) play on that and they'd be satisfied that their job was done.
Wrong.
However, it meant I was out of their offices quick smart, "equipped with the tools necessary to cope" with my stressors.
Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
So fucking wrong.
But I was arrogant and ignorant and didn't give two shits.
Then I met the clinical psychologist, and I swear to God that man was a Brain Ninja of the highest ranking.
Within the first session he had humoured me enough to let me think I knew what I was talking about before swiftly going in for a kill shot with his proverbial ninjatÅ, straight to my cerebral cortex.
I didn't see it coming, and just like that, he completely broke down my walls.
We did - and continue to do - an extensive amount of work together, a lot of which was met with a certain amount of cynicism.
I can say with hand on heart that there was more than one occasion where I was close to telling him he was barking up the wrong tree and to go fuck himself because I wasn't having a bar of it anymore.
Discomfort will do that to a girl, apparently.
When he first approached me with the idea of embarking on EMDR (not a dance party like I'd hoped), I swear I nearly threw him out his 10th floor window.
As far as I could tell, from what he was saying, this was just glorified hypnosis, and I wasn't particularly keen on the risk of hearing my "safe word" in public and winding up catatonic.
More so than that, it was going to require talking in great depth about traumatic experiences in my life, exploring the feelings associated with them in order to 'unlock, rearrange and reprocess' those experiences so that they no longer had the physiological and psychological impact that they had been having up until that point.
The theory is that, by doing so, whenever the feelings start rising to the surface - for arguments sake, the feelings of self loathing, despair and helplessness experienced during a pain flare - you are able to reach for your 'safe word' and it will trigger a positive reaction/response as opposed to the expected negative.
There is one particular life event which, for all intents and purposes, I am fairly open about.
It's something that makes a lot of people uncomfortable, and for that reason it's not something that ever really gets discussed in any great amount of detail.
For that reason, I had (and still do, to an extent) dealt with it the only way I knew how.
Pushed it to the back of my mind, brushed it off and claimed that it didn't bother me, because if I let it bother me, then I was letting him win all over again.
I don't share this story lightly, nor do I share it for sympathy or any other kind of support, and if you find this upsetting then I apologise in advance.
At the age of 12, I was molested by a trusted male of great influence in my life.
For a long, long time I kept it to myself, choosing only to tell my best friend so that it wasn't my burden to carry on my own.
The fear of the potential consequences suffered by myself and/or anyone else who dare confront the perpetrator was enough for me to vow I would never breath a word of it.
Navigating your way around your abuser on a daily basis is hard, but I never let on that anything happened, and I suppose that was when I really learned how to act - my first foray into martyrdom.
It was my cross to bear. I obviously did something to deserve it, and nobody else should suffer for something I did.
Had things not played out the way that they did, I have no doubt that I would still be carrying that secret with me to this day.
That being said, there came a time where I needed to do whatever I could to protect my loved ones from the risk of falling victim themselves, and thus I made my admission on the proviso that it didn't go as far as police because I was fearful that nearly 4 years later, there would still be a huge amount of fall out and that those closest to me would wind up hurt.
Well, police were involved - obviously and understandaby - and the case wound up going to trial, which was dismissed almost as soon as I got down off the stand.
After four years, a simple 'He-said/She-said' doesn't quite cut it in the court room.
Insufficient evidence and an inability to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was guilty meant that the case was thrown out and there would be no further investigation.
Needless to say, this scared the shit out of me.
I felt like I had let everybody down. But worse than that, this disgustingly volatile man was free to roam and had now been tarnished with the 'Pedophile' brush, a label which - conviction or no - would linger like a bad smell.
Not only that, add an aggressive family to the mix, I was pretty terrified of what the implications were going to be.
... I digress.
The reason I share this story in particular is because there have been several studies which support a direct correlation between chronic pelvic pain and sexual abuse victims.
With this knowledge, my psychologist set out to use the EMDR treatment method (most commonly used in PTSD sufferers) to 'unlock' that memory, release it, and disassociate the negative affect.
It's hard to say specifically whether it's had any impact on my feelings associated with that particular incident, as it's not something I do or have paid much mind to.
However, when the same treatment was applied to the thoughts and feelings associated with pain, I can say with absolute certainty that there was a noticeable shift in the way I handle my pain and the feelings I have towards it.
Chronic pain is an insidious beast.
It changes everything about a person.
But, with the right tools and the right support, there is hope.
So Hold On, Pain Ends.
And on that disgustingly cheesy note,
Ovary and out!
S
xx
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