Trauma Dolls

On Moving, Keeping Moving, and Asking For Help

by Annie on January 18, 2013

So, as I revealed in the last post, I was forced to move last year.

I’m sure we can all agree on this point: Moving? Sucks. Regardless of the excitement of new digs, fresh start, all that jazz – it just sucks.

But when you’re living with chronic pain, moving is its own special brand of hell. Things that the normals take for granted – like, say, packing, cleaning, walking – we basically roll the dice on. Will we be able to move that box from the truck to the house? It’s a crap shoot.

Fortunately, I had a fair bit of advance warning. True, the former landlady started out giving me two weeks notice, but ultimately, she was very fair and I ended up having two months, give or take a few days, in which to get ready for the impending trauma.

Sounds perfectly reasonable, doesn’t it?

Two months. I mean – eight whole weeks! That’s plenty of time for us to get our crap together, weed out the stuff we didn’t want to move, arrange for a new place, line up help …

Yeah.

Here’s what actually happened.

Figuring It All Out

The biggest obstacle was the first one I had to face: figuring out everything I had to do in order to accomplish the big-picture goal of relocating.

Now, see, normals just go find a place, get some boxes, start packing, call some friends, order up pizza and beer, and they’re done.

But CP Dolls have additional hurdles they have to clear. Reduced physical capacity means reduced capacity to earn, which means reduced income – in my case, severely reduced income. So, job one was finding enough money to actually accomplish the move.

First month’s rent, deposits for the house and for the utilities, the actual costs of moving – I don’t have a car (I had to sell it a year ago to make rent), so I was going to have to rent a truck – all these expenses totaled up were well beyond my means.

I was incredibly fortunate, and my friends and loved ones were incredibly generous. My brother contributed the truck rental costs. Through a few friends who worked in the social aid community in my area, I found out about a new grant-funded program at our local Section 8 agency that was designed to help folks like me with relocation costs. That program ended up helping me with the deposit and first half-month’s rent on the house.

With a little careful juggling, friends who chipped in generously, and a last-minute website job that came in, I had just enough cash to cover the utilities deposits and hiring some folks to help with the physical labor.

Barely, mind you. But I had what I needed.

So then it was on to the next dragon I had to slay …

Finding Someone Who Was Willing to Rent to Me

Spoiler Alert: This one’s got a surprise ending. Well, it was a surprise to me, anyway.

Refer back to that whole “reduced earning capacity”/“reduced income” thing.

Another unpleasant side effect of living with chronic pain is the poverty that comes with it. And the poverty itself also increases the cost of living. In other words, it costs the poor more to live in many instances.

This particular project, then, would reflect one of those increased costs.

Normals can go out, look at apartments or houses, fill out an application, and generally go on with their lives while making their decision – get that, their decision – of which of the handful of suitable options they want to live in, because of course their applications will be approved.

Why wouldn’t they be? They’ve got healthy-ish bodies and the jobs and (relatively) solid credit scores that go with them.

But when you’ve been struggling with CP for years, and the last several of those years were of the self-employed, cobbling-a-living-together-from-all-your-random-skills variety, then you’ve got a whole different cobble-stoned, obstacle-laden road ahead of you. It looks more like this:

Call a bunch of places that advertise available space.
Find out which will accept Section 8 (which you anticipate getting in two to four months, since you’ve been on the waiting list for two years).
Plot out with military precision the bus routes you’ll need to take to go view the three or four units still on your list.
Cry, because you realize even with the bus routes you’ll end up walking three miles and you just cannot do it.
Cry more when the first landlord calls back and says that you took too long trying to arrange transportation and the unit is no longer available.
Talk to a friend – or more accurately, listen while friend talks you down off the ledge. Dig deep. Somehow, find your resolve again.
Start all over.
Find one possible apartment or house, then call the cab and go see it immediately (paying $12 for the one-way trip) and on the way, mentally pep-talk yourself up into your best, most positive, friendly, reliable persona so you can convince the landlord to rent to you despite the fact you’re self-employed and lost an apartment in eviction proceedings four years ago when the world fell in on you.
Which, by the way, is freakin’ exhausting, so after it’s over, collapse.

Rinse and repeat as needed.

But here’s where the universe surprised me big time: That first cab ride?

Ended in a signed lease.

For a beautiful 900 square foot 2-bedroom 1945-built cottage with hardwood floors.

And despite the lack of heat and the piss-poor water flow, I LOVE THIS PLACE SO MUCH.

(Although I do have to get wi-fi installed. This every-day-trek-to-the-coffee-shop is good for my body but bad for the wallet.)

So, the lesson I took from all that goes something like this: “Plan for the worst, but be open to the possibility that God might throw you a curve ball and really delight you with an unforeseen assist.”

Which left only the biggest, baddest dragon of all …

Actually Moving

“How many times have I moved in my life?”

The question occurs to me as I sit here struggling to come up with the words to describe what happened not even two months ago.

The answer, as near as my fibro-fogged brain can tell, is “24.”

Twenty-four moves.

Is that a lot? ‘Cause it seems like a lot.

I’m including in that tally a move from Chapel Hill back to my hometown when I was six years old, though I left out the move from hometown to Chapel Hill three years prior (because, hello, I was a toddler) and I probably shouldn’t even count this one at all since my contributions consisted exclusively of holding a doll and sitting well out of the way.

And it also includes all the times I moved into and out of a dorm in college – that’s eight moves right there.

That still leaves 13 moves. Yeah, that’s still a lot, isn’t it?

So, let’s go back to the “24.”

For the first 18 of them, I had help.

But the last six?

Out of mom’s mobile home and into the 100 square foot studio apartment
Out of that apartment and into a friend’s basement
Out of that basement and into a friend’s spare room two states away
Out of that room and up to another basement, in another (now ex-)friend’s house, in the city where I currently live
Out of that God-awful basement and into two rented rooms in someone’s home
Out of those rooms and into the rented basement (that’s three basements in three years, for those of you playing our home game)

Without help. All of ‘em. Each and every move was accomplished by yours truly.

And that leads us to this last move – out of that last rented basement and into this lovely cottage.

But here’s the difference between those six and this most recent move, and it’s a pretty damned big one: This time, in addition to clothing and books and toiletries and stuffed animals – little stuff even I can lift – this time, I was moving furniture and a whole kitchen-ful of … er, kitchen crap.

We’d lost all our furniture years before, in two separate waves. The first wave hit after the eviction, when I had to give away or abandon a lot of furniture I just couldn’t fit into that shoebox studio, and the second one crashed months later, when I couldn’t afford to keep up with the storage unit rent for the stuff I hadn’t been able to bear parting with.

But over the course of the last two years in that rented basement apartment, I’d accumulated a somewhat sparse collection: two couches, a loveseat, a table, three chairs, two beds … that’s it, and it all came from donations from other people and giveaways. It was all hard-used and definitely looked like what it was: second-hand crap. But it was my second-hand crap, damn it.

And now it was mine to move.

I called the few male friends I had made who were local, but they all were booked up solid for the Thanksgiving holiday, and couldn’t lend a hand.

Next, I called the contacts I’d made in the local social aid community – they said they’d get back to me but, since it was a holiday, they were all overworked taking care of the homeless population in town.

I even asked the cabdriver who drove me to look at the cottage that first day. He was 72 but, bless him, he said he’d be happy to help – but I’d have to find someone else to help him, and I’d have to do the move on the Tuesday before turkey day, which was two days before I could get in to the new digs.

Then, I got creative. I called the local homeless shelter on Thanksgiving Day and spoke to a very nice worker there named Matt.

And that’s how I ended up the morning after Thanksgiving, driving a seventeen-foot Ryder panel truck carefully through my city’s sketchier downtown area, a block from the homeless shelter, looking for a group of homeless men who would be standing near a dumpster, Matt had said.

They saw me before I saw them, and they all ran towards the truck, shouting enthusiastically, some in broken English, and smiling at me.

This was a new experience. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to proceed. Interview them? Ask for references? Draw straws? Fight club? A motherfucking walk-off?

I rolled down the window and held up two fingers.

“I just need two guys,” I said.

The first two guys that reached the truck hopped in and introduced themselves as Jorge and Luis.

Jorge spoke very good English – Luis understood me, but had trouble forming sentences of his own, so we slipped into an easy relay pattern where they’d converse in Spanish, then Jorge would relay a question to me, I’d answer, and Jorge would translate for Luis.

They had experience in moving; I could tell by the way they took a quick visual inventory and then started loading the heavy stuff – my second-hand mattresses (I know, ick) and the couches – into the truck first, and the efficient way they carried all the smaller stuff out and arranged it carefully.

And they were careful with my second-hand crap. Like they were all priceless antiques.

It took them three hours to empty the basement and unload it all into the cottage. It cost me $30 for each of those hours, plus an additional $10 tip to each of them at the end.

Parting with that $110 was the best fucking feeling I’d had in months.

The Aftermath

The day still took a crapload out of me, despite Jorge and Luis doing all the heavy lifting.

There were floors to be swept, trash to be picked up, bagged, and emptied, and last-minute packing of all the stuff we’d forgotten. In the new place, there were beds to be made, clothes to be unpacked, food to be arranged …

By the end of the day, I was hurting like I hadn’t hurt in a long, long time. Every muscle screamed, and my left leg was so nearly numb and useless that all I could manage were short, cane-assisted hobbles to the fridge and the bed.

And I continued to pay those dues the next day, too. All that Saturday, the pain throbbed in my neck and shoulders, and spread down to my calves and ankles. My back was one twisted, spasming knot of angry muscles.

But then something odd happened. The next day – Sunday – I felt better.

That’s two days after the massive, unusually strenuous exertion.

See, before the move, I expected to be bed-ridden for four days or more.

But there I was, Sunday morning. I was still hobbling and gingerly favoring a very sore back and leg, but I was up. And cooking breakfast. And unpacking.

I was functional.

Two. Days. Later.

I’m not sure mere words can describe how overwhelming that sudden infusion of hope felt to me.

For the first time in – well, years, I guess – I felt something other than resigned acceptance or bull-headed “I’m gonna have a good life despite the chronic pain” optimism in regards to my chronic pain experience.

It was the first time I felt it might be possible for me to heal.

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Happy New Year! Can It Be…? Is It Possible…?

by Annie on January 3, 2013

YES.

Trauma Dolls is back in business. (So to speak. Y’all know this site has always been a labor of love for me, my big dreams for it notwithstanding.)

What Happened Back There?!

As you may have guessed, given the wide gap in dates between this post and the previous one, I … er …. took a little break.

OK, a half-year-plus break.

The reason why is a convoluted one, but it basically boils down to this: I was consumed by one thought –

I have no idea anymore how to write about pain in a way that won’t bore me silly.

God’s honest truth, y’all. That’s what I kept thinking, over and over:

I am boring myself to tears.

And I convinced myself this was the problem. (Spoiler alert! It wasn’t the problem at all. Read on.)

Let’s face it: talking/writing about pain is just flippin’ hard. I think this is true for many reasons.

First and foremost, there’s the fact that chronic bodily pain is, at some level, totally subjective. Each of us experiences our chronic pain in different ways. There’s no way for us to know with any certainty that we’re talking about the “same thing” when we talk about our pain.

And those numerical scales we’re supposed to use to describe our pain to medical professionals? In my opinion, they’re just marginally better than useless. Your “five out of ten” might be my “eight out of ten” and someone else’s “three.”

There’s also the fact that we’re just hard-wired not to want to talk about it at any length. Our own pain, or anyone else’s. We get burned out on feeling it, and on talking about feeling it. And on listening to someone else talk about it.

Or – in this case – writing and reading about it.

For the last six-plus months, I just could not dredge up one single angle for any pain-related topic that didn’t strike me as trite, tired, already-done-to-death, or just plain boring as hell.

So, I followed my mom’s advice: I had nothing useful and/or helpful to say, so I kept my trap shut.

Or the blog unpublished, as you will.

But Wait! There’s MORE …

That existential writer’s crisis is not the sole reason I didn’t write for such a long time.

Other crap happened. Big crap. In point of fact, a huge, steaming, stinking pile of crap.

Namely, I had to move.

In late September, my then-landlord – a sweet and kind young woman with a habit of making every sentence sound like a question, whom I’d come to consider on par with a younger sister – dropped this bombshell on me:

Sooooo … I’m going to have to ask you to move? Because I’m going to sell the house? The downstairs needs to be redone, y’know? So, fifteen days?

Yeah, that actually happened.

It ended up being two months, not fifteen days (crikey, y’all! I mean, can you imagine? Could YOU move in two weeks?!), during which I was all panic and anger and fear.

Digression: Oddly, this turned out to be one of the best things that could possibly have happened. It ended up with my daughter and I safely ensconced into a home of our own – a charming little post-World-War-2 cottage that we share with nobody, which is the first time that’s been true since ’09.

NOTE: I’m going to be writing in more detail about this move in the next post, because this whole experience has, in a way, reshaped my relationship to my body and my chronic pain.

So, all that happened. And I let it keep me away from writing a new post or working on the site at all.

The Twist At the End of the Story

Now, all this seems rational, right? If not entirely reasonable. At least, you can see how this belief that I couldn’t write because I was suddenly, mysteriously struck with the Boring Writing virus coupled with the physical trauma and extreme stress of moving conspired together to keep me off the blog for several months.

Here’s the catch though: all that was basically bullshit, I’ve decided.

It finally occurred to me that I was deluding myself into thinking that my opinion mattered at all. Because, at the end of the day, this isn’t for me. It’s for you, the readers. The only opinion that matters here is yours. If you’re getting something valuable from my boring writing about chronic pain, whether it’s a helpful tip, the knowledge that you’re not alone, or just a good hearty laugh from time to time, then we’re all good and I should keep my big fat ego the hell out of it.

And then, too, there’s this: a lot of what I perceived as “boredom” was just dressed-up resistance.

I didn’t want to be that person ~~coping~~ thriving with chronic pain.

I didn’t want to feel that pain, to be sure. But that’s true of most of us (except the masochistic among us).

But this was more than that. It was more a feeling of not wanting to carry that label – of dealing with its consequences – of being That Person, the one with chronic pain.

I was tired of carrying it around and having it define me.

So, making up this “it’s booooooring” excuse was just that – an excuse, to get me out of the responsibility of writing about it.

Now, here’s the part where I tell you all about how I came to grips with my chronic pain – AGAIN – and learned to treasure its gifts, how it’s the Best Thing Ever to happen to me, how I’ve learned sooooo much from its many blessings, yadda yadda, etc.

Pardon me, but – PUKE.

Also: I could make some shit up here along those lines, truthfully (and it would probably pass muster with at least half of you – I’m a gifted liar, at least in writing).

But it would just be nonsense. And false.

And more than anything, I believe, this kind of writing – the kind of writing I want to do, and excel at – requires honesty. Even when it’s the pain-in-the-ass variety.

So here’s the unvarnished truth:

I still fucking hate my chronic pain.

I’d give just about anything to have my old body back.

Blessings? BAH. You can have ‘em, as long as I get my high-kicking, fully functional legs back.

That’s not to say I always feel this way. Sometimes, I do feel some personal growth that’s taken place over the last 13 years because of this mad dance with pain. Every now and again, I might even feel grateful for the experience, in light of what it’s taught me about myself.

But most days?

Nah, I’d kick chronic pain’s ass to the curb so hard – harder than a perpetually drunk boyfriend who called me by his ex’s name in bed.

So there you have it. My continued inability to accept the fact of my chronically pained existence kept me off this blog for months.

What can I say? I’m working on it.

And that may be the answer, I’ve decided.

I’ll work on it … in these posts.

‘Cause the way I figure it, if it’s happening to me, chances are pretty good at least a few of you out there feel the same way.

So, let’s work on it together.

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Be a Take-Charge Patient: Interview with Martine Ehrenclou, Author & Patient Advocate

May 15, 2012

This? This post right here? Will be one of the most important pieces I ever publish on this site. This post might even save your life. No hyperbole there, Dolls. Martine Ehrenclou has that much to teach us about taking charge of our own medical care. And for us chronically pained peeps, being a Take-Charge [...]

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Why I Added a Tip Jar to the Trauma Dolls Site

April 26, 2012

I thought about this long and hard. I really, really did. When I started the site that preceded this one (The Tramadol Diaries), my intention was to use it to build a community and ultimately write a book about coping with chronic pain. Then the whole “Google hates the ‘T’ word” thing happened, and life [...]

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Did Sexism Kill These Two Women?

March 31, 2012

Be warned: I’m about to make you very, very angry. Possibly enraged. Still with me? OK, deep breath in, let it out s-l-o-w-l-y … and let’s dive in to this effed-up quagmire of outrage. Last September, Anna Brown died in a jail cell in Missouri, alone and in agonizing pain. We know this because we [...]

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Feeling Overwhelmed By Your Illness? Don’t Play Dead

March 29, 2012

I can’t say it any better than Amy Clover did at her fabulous site Strong Inside Out. I strongly urge each and every chronically pained doll to go read “Deal With Your Life: Refuse to Play Dead.”

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Have You Checked the Children? Pediatric Chronic Pain More Prevalent Than Previously Thought

February 16, 2012

Bad news, parents: chronic pain in kids turns out to be more prevalent than was previously assumed Worse yet? The numbers of kids reporting chronic pain are increasing. A recent study was published in the December 2011 journal Pain by Dr. Carl L. von Baeyer of the University of Saskatchewan’s Department of Psychology that looked at several [...]

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Does It Hurt to Do Your Hair?

February 13, 2012

Adrienne Dellwo, at About.com’s fibro and chronic fatigue site, recently wrote about her frustrations with her hair: The picture of me on this page (which is badly in need of updating) shows what I call my “too sick to do my hair” hairstyle. As my functionality improved, I changed it to something that takes a [...]

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Fibromyalgia Symptoms Worse? Check Your Scales

February 9, 2012

A recent article, “Obesity Linked to Worse Fibromyalgia Symptoms,” caught my attention. The article covers the findings of Mayo Clinic researcher Dr. Terry Oh, who discovered a link between obesity and increased severity of fibromyalgia symptoms. “We see an association between body mass index with symptom severity and quality of life in patients with fibromyalgia,” [...]

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Does Pain Make Us Scared to Go to the Doctor?

February 1, 2012

So I was speaking with a friend the other day. This is a friend who has recurrent acute pain, not chronic pain, just to be clear. But it’s still relevant to the discussion we started here the other day about how the war on drugs has created this adversarial relationship between doctors and patients. She’s [...]