It’s been awhile since I’ve written anything on the website (about 8 months), and a lot has happened since then. With the help of medication, I’ve battled my way back from deep depression and severe anxiety, returning to a more stable mindset. Of course, due to one of my medications, I now can’t take any NSAIDs, so my back has been in absolute agony for the past three months (not that the NSAIDs were doing that much- I mean, a constant pain level of 5 out of 10, isn’t what I’d call pain management). Of course, now that the pain is around 7-9 every waking moment of every bloody day, so maybe they helped a little.

I’m due to start with the Pain Clinic on the 20th, and I’m hoping that we can get this sorted sooner, rather than later. To be honest, even though my mood is stable, and I’m not suffering from suicidal ideation, I don’t know how much longer I can keep dealing with this. I’ll give it until January, but that’s basically it. I can’t keep living with this level of pain, and I simply WON’T anymore beyond that. I’m not depressed, and I’m in my right mind, I simply have no more patience for all of this.

I would say that I would pull the plug on all of this sooner, but one of my best friends is taking me to Hawaii for my birthday, and I don’t want to let him down. So I wait, hoping that the Pain Team will be able to actually help me, after I’ve been kicked around from department to department, but not until seven years had passed. Yeah, my GP is kind of useless.

I understand that doctors are hesitant to prescribe pain medications that actually work, a full 180 from ten years ago, but when the pain was really bad after I started my new medication, I went to the ER on the advice of my Psychiatric Team, and got a very small prescription of Norco. Pain went from a 10 down to a 2, and I have to say that my mood increased. Amazing what pain relief can do.

But now, on to happier updates: During my depression, I found that one of the root causes of my nervous breakdown was that I had let atrophy the dream which I once had when I was seven, of being an author. The same friend who’s taking me to Hawaii offered up an idea of what to do. He said that I should write something where I save my seven-year-old self. From there, I took it and ran with it. Once I started writing, it only took about a month to finish the first draft.

I put off editing for awhile, because I was just so emotionally drained (especially after adding in an entirely unexpected fourth part to the story. About a month after that, I tore it all apart and rewrote it for the second draft. It’s been a couple of months since then, but I haven’t really started the second edit. I know I should try, but the 200+ pages are a little intimidating. I guess, going forward, I’ll try to take it one chapter at a time.

Additionally, I finally compiled my collection of poetry. I’ve been wanting to do that for the past quarter century. Shit, I probably shouldn’t date myself so blatantly. Well, it is what it is. The collection is almost 200 pages as well. It’s got poetry from the vaults dating from 1996-2025. I’m hoping that I can try to get it published as well.

One last thing.: I don’t know when all of this will happen. Since my breakdown I have been on psychiatric disability, which just ended on the 2nd. I’ve been looking for work, but no one has called me back yet. Additionally, I know that I’m limited in what I can do right now, due to my severe back pain. I keep getting offers for restaurant manager gigs, but I physically can’t go back to restaurants, and I psychologically can’t go back into management. Hell, I’m not even sure that I can work full time anymore.

So that’s where I am. Just inches from my dream, but so much further to go. I’ll try to be better about writing on the blog, but even now, it’s still hard to get back into.