Well, today was a good day, for me anyway. As my boyfriend is suffering through new pain (off the meds, going for second mri next week, then neurologist in a couple of weeks), I joined a company outing after work. We get out early on Fridays and usually I like to rush right home like a good little co-dependent but today, I didn't. I admit, I didn't volunteer to join this fundraiser event but one of my bosses urged me. I swear, when she looks at me sometimes, she can see my pain even though I try so hard to hide it. Anyway, I was nervous - I've kept to myself so much lately that I wasn't sure how I'd be around so many people. But I found myself enjoying it and I networked a bit, got to knowa couple of co-workers more, and wasn't the first one to leave. Normally, I would have called my bf on the way home but I didn't and when i got home, I could see he was really hurting. But I didn't coddle him like I usually do. I just let him be, let him experience what he was experiencing, and I'm not curled up on the couch in a pity party right now.
This is only one small step in a long journey ahead of me but it's a start. I found myself starting to feel a little guilty knowing that what he was feeling, at least in his head, was real. But I didn't give in to it. We even talked briefly about it, I'm starting to throw out the new me in bits and pieces. When I told him I was educating myself and talking to people about what pain meds do to the brain receptors when youhave an addiction, he didn't correct me or get irritated by my mentioning "addiction" and finished the sentence saying he realizes that the pain he's feeling may not all be real. There's something going on (based on all the stuff written up from his first mri, I mean, it's every other T (disc?) that has the word bulge or protusion) but at least our conversations are transparent and not argumentative.
This week has beenliberating for me. It took him admitting to all his lies to get me to this point. Prior to that, I kept telling myself it was just a "problem". anyway, I feel some progress and tonight, I think I will sleep a little better.