I must have been feeling particularly adventurous this morning as I decided to try and drive to the shops to do some grocery shopping.  Mind you I took Yale as a back up just in case you know.  So I pull out of my drive way and up onto Belmont Road, and manage to get about half way down Meadowlands Road (not even half way to my Mum’s) and am feeling so distressed about being behind the wheel that I had to get out and let Yale drive.   🙁   I feel like I am totally out of control – rising sensation of panic, inability to breathe properly (which is something we tend to place quite a bit of importance on whether one is driving or not), gripping the steering wheel for grim death and that horrible feeling of being aware of your own heartbeat.  The car feels like it’s moving to me even when it’s not…. like if I brake going down hill, I feel as though the whole car is floating all over the road and isn’t reacting in a measured and predictable manner.  Even when I’m in the passenger seat, whenever anything comes towards us from my peripheral vision, I am instantly shying away from it and fighting the urge to simultaneously cover my eyes, scream out and cry.

It’s positively ridiculous and it’s driving me crazy… or maybe it’s the being crazy that is causing the not driving… or perhaps I always was crazy and it’s only now I’m sane that I can’t drive.   Whatever the fuck it is … I AM GETTING TOTALLY FRUSTRATED WITH THIS SHIT.  I am singularly unhappy with my wash and I know not what to do about it.  I feel like I’ve lost my independence having to rely on others to ferry me around.  What on earth happened to that Borys who went prancing off to Pakistan on her own last year?!?!?  Where the hell has she gone  🙁

At the risk of making a sweeping generalization – this sort of nonsensical phobia is for the weak willed and feeble minded in my book – so what gives?  why is it happening to me?  And why now after accident number four?  Why not after accident number 2 which was high speed, higher impact and more damage?  And while I am on the subject of traffic phobia… isn’t the definition of a phobia  a ‘persistent irrational fear of something’…. and is it irrational (given my history)  that I’m increasingly alarmed in traffic?   Seems perfectly logical to me.  If someone had been bitten by snakes four times and then became exceedingly frightened and wary of them would we call that a phobia? 

I’ve been thinking about all this too much, and way too often and it’s consuming a far too much of my mental energy right now.  But I don’t know what to do from here.  The EMDR experiment was pointless, the distraction exercises that the psychologist gave me don’t appear to be overly effective either…. so what next?
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Pain Clinic ….. Day Nine (but who’s counting?)

Floor exercises.
Followed by Psychology session – Affect of Chronic Pain on Relationships
Followed by Gym
Followed by 2km stroll by the river
Followed by lunch break
Followed by Occupational Therapy
then home.

Somewhere in there – in this morning’s Psychology session to be precise – one of our fellow pain clinic participants decided to start hurling abuse at me across a room where I was having a quiet and private conversation that went something like this :

Uncle Frank:   I am tired of these sessions, I feel like everyone else is getting to air their issues, but as soon as I want to discuss something,  TrixieCyclist (the psychologist) cuts me off. 
Borys:   Yes, I know what you mean, we do have a couple of very demanding and vociferous people in the group who seem to dominate the sessions…. but she is doing what she can with what she’s got and she knows she has to focus her attention on those that are having the most difficulty adjusting blah, blah, blah ….

when unexpectedly from across the room in a unnecessarily loud and extremely accusatory tone we hear :

Tracey Shoulders:   Don’t you two talk about me!  I’ve had it up to here with you (this was pointedly directed to me) 
Borys:  (perplexed) Excuse me Tracey?  We were neither talking about you nor to you.
Tracey:  I know you were talking about me and I’m sick of it!   If you have a problem with me you can tell me to my face.
Borys:   I am sorry to disappoint you Tracey but not everything revolves around you.  We were not in fact discussing you, and you may be assured that if I did have a problem with you, I would certainly approach you about it, though I would do it privately in a calm and mature manner rather than inappropriately yelling across a room full of people!
Tracey:  Oh, I know you were talking about me!  I heard you saying ‘she’ , ‘she’, ‘she’ !!!
Borys:   Tracey, you’re not the only female around here and believe it or not some of us have concerns that have nothing to do with you.  None of us should have to tolerate this sort of disrespectful behaviour and I believe you owe both Frank and myself an apology for your rude and unwarranted intrusion.
Tracey:  I won’t be apologizing to YOU!!!

or roughly something to that effect.  At which point the less than cluey TrixieCyclist realized the situation was deteriorating rather rapidly and jumped in suggesting that we resolve our differences later.  No doubt this was because it was obvious that Tracey was about to start hurling expletives at me.  Which is a not uncommon reaction I tend to illicit from certain people when they pick a verbal fight with me….  sigh.

So fun for the whole group you know.  Tracey being barely three years my junior is about 15 years my junior in the maturity stakes.  She has been a disruptive, uncooperative, hypercritical, disgruntled, belligerent  high maintenance little malcontent (read: whiny little dumbass bitch) from the day we started the program.  I believe this has probably had a significantly detrimental effect on the rest of us given that the physios etc running the course have had to pull her kicking and screaming every step of the way throughout the last three weeks.

I am so pleased that I have only one day left and then I will not have to put up with her puerile and small minded behaviour ever again.   I’ve rarely encountered anyone so blatantly selfish and self centered.  We’ve all put up with her telling others to ‘shut up’ when people try to help her, we’ve had to put up with her objectionable fart jokes and constant twittering over the most infinitesimally asinine and banal things, and we’ve had to listen to her constant bellyaching about her woes… you’d swear she’s the only person on the course.

If I never hear her loud, nasal, whiny, grating aussie-shazza voice again – it’ll be too soon.
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Pain Clinic…. Day Six.

Please shoot me now.    😐

Is it not bad enough that I suffer daily with chronic and unabated back pain?  What on earth have I done to deserve being lumped into this program with these utter morons?  I know it’s not polite or politically correct to walk into a room and within half an hour make a judgment call that you’re surrounded by persons of lower intellect and lesser education…. but it happens and I think everyone does to some degree or other…. whether it be a conscious process or not, when we enter a new environment we tend to process pretty quickly who is around us and where we sit in the pecking order. 

In this pain clinic situation we’re supposedly all experiencing similar issues with chronic pain and therefore proceeding towards a common goal – to help us adjust to injury and learn to cope with the limitations that chronic pain causes.   But that is where the similarities end.  Our little group of 7 couldn’t be more diverse if we tried and I find myself in a position where I do not connect with any of them.  We (humans of independently thought) tend to rapidly assess what we have to gain from those around us as well as what we have to offer in any social group.  We work out who we might be able to learn from ?  who we might be wish to socialize with?  who shares a similar sense of humour to ourselves?  But we also pretty quickly make some less socially acceptable judgments as well – whose opinions carries more weight? Whether that is due to a persons qualifications or something as non-politically correct as someone’s educational or socioeconomic background is irrelevant.   We know instinctively who is more likely to act aggressively if challenged?  Who would be easily browbeaten in a debate?  Who are the haves and the have nots in the stakes of  in education or intelligence?  social standing?  common sense?  physical fitness?  wealth?  and a tonne of other things.

We make snap judgments about new people all the time.  Some of those judgments will serve us well, and others will be either happily or unhappily dispelled in due course.  I’ve been with this group of individuals for three weeks now, and my initial opinions of them haven’t altered one iota… either because my initial impressions were unusually perceptive in the beginning or because none of them have shown me anything on closer acquaintance to alter those early conclusions.  Probably a bit of Column A and a bit of Column B.  What I am certain of is this – I have nothing in common with any of them other than our joint ability to empathize with one another’s physical chronic pain condition….. and I’ve had enough of making polite with them thank you very much.

Uncle Frank has a handful of well trolled out anecdotes for every occasion – some of which I’ve heard as many as four times in less than three weeks.   Tracey Shoulders was palpably giving off a ‘I don’t want to be here’ vibe initially, and in the very first session of the first day was combattive, disruptive and argumentative – this has continued daily and in my opinion has been rather detrimental towards us gaining the most out of the curriculum.  The two of them delight in making fart jokes at one another, disrupting the group and have developed a very irritating conversational style which involves one talking over the top of the other in increasing volume until neither are comprehensible and no one can get a word in edgewise.  Alan Everything is having a hard time without his support network around him (his family are back in the Bay) and because he’s feeling a bit down he’s decided he just won’t try anymore and isn’t participating in many of the sessions.  Absent Peter is just as lackadaisical as before if not more so.  Brent Neck has latched onto one or two things that the Dr said to him last week and has been harping on and on and on about how unfairly done by he is – and it turns out he literally can’t read and that ‘I dunno’ act he was pulling on the first few days wasn’t an act at all. 

I have put most of them offside by now by politely requesting that we get back on topic during discussions and I do believe I may solidified a general prejudice towards me this afternoon when Tracey said to me “I just farted (twitter, twitter, twitter) can you smell it?”  to which I stared at her blankly and replied in decidedly unamused tone “Ask me one on Art History.” and walked away.

Three days remaining…. inhale… exhale.

PS – Happy Birthday Mum.
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He said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.”

Pain Clinic…. Day Five….  Ho Hum.

Hump day today… half way through the program.
Feels like everyone has tanked.
Tracey Shoulders is flatly refusing to participate and wants to go home.
Alan Everything has ‘done sumpfink’ to his neck so only half in.
Brent Neck fell over in gym so skives off for half the days work.
Anal Retentive Robyn couldn’t be bothered baking and brings lolly snakes instead.
Absent Peter is even more absent than usual.
Even Uncle Frank seems lacklustre with his dirty jokes today.

And Me?  Well I’ve just had it too – have cut the pain meds down to nearly nothing and am gritting my teeth atm to see if I can stay off them.  Strangest thing though is that I can take the medication and still be in pain or I can go without like today and still be in pain anyway (albeit worse but ever present).  So what is the point of taking all the analgesics if they dont seem to be doing much anyway.

No more flashy bums today,
One horror ride in the Rehab bus to the hydro pool
Borys freaks out in the traffic again  only this time has an audience 🙁
Half our happy group skives out of hydrotherapy.
So the water teemed with only half the living creatures.
The other half pike on going for a walk.
And all of us have just about had enough psycho-babble and occupational therapy to last for a while.

Hope the mood lifts by Friday.   :S  Cos being in pain around painful people aint my idea of a good time
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Pain Clinic….. Day Four…..

Arrive groggy thanks to o’night drugs  🙁
Arrive late thanks to morning traffic   🙁
Participate in discussion on psychology and physiological affects of stress.
Go to gym to develop strengthening and stabilizing program. 
Discovered neck spasms out of control when lifting weight greater than 3kgs  😐
Additionally discover can do squats until the cows come home… who knew?
Proceed to hydrotherapy pool at Montrose….
Via mini-bus with ‘Rehabilitation Program’ written on side… nice  😐
Hydrotherapy uneventful, exercises difficult but relaxing
Realize I need new togs cos boobs spilling out of current bathers.
My fleur-de-lys tattoo noticed – not ONE person in group knew what a fleur-de-lys is…
Get hair wet for five minutes of floating at end of hydro exercises…. grrrr.
Tracey Shoulders, wolf whistles out of spastic bus at men on worksite?!?!

Lunch break… hospital food and conversation with other pain(ful) people…

Lesson on Chronic Pain Cycle but  no concrete solutions to break said cycle.
Ask ten questions for every one posed by rest of group.
Discussions ensue that leave most of group behind.
Feel disheartened and depressed at  possible 50yrs pain to look forward to.
Physiotherapist video tapes every one walking.
Recording our gaits for later comparisons.
Tracey Shoulders flashes nekkid arse at camera for reasons unknown ?!?!
Do floor exercises unhappily situated in close proximity to flatulent Brent Neck.
Have headache and awful neck tension from wet hair in air con all day   🙁
Mess up plans and have both Yale and Mr K en route to collect me   :S
Feel stoopid as I am totally unable to recall making said arrangements this morning.

Collect Angel.  Come home. 
Gold thread arrived in mail for embroidery project.. yay 🙂
Collapse in heap from massive headache.
Heat pack, tea and Dexter for rest of evening.

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