RobbyRobot

Hi peeps

I had a great day today with Melissa and our boys. We didn't go boating because of weather but it later cleared enough the boys went swimming in our pool. Too cold for us older ones, lol.

Had to do some paper work today too. I don't like paperwork, lol.

I'm also discovering deeper levels of anger towards God as in the story of Job. Melissa and I had a good cry together tonight.

I'm getting some annoying pains which will have me seeing a doctor next week if they don't subside. We knew this would eventually come to be sooner or later. Meh.

I'm liking the conversations on closure. We all have our ways, eh? Closures for me have become more urgent and time limited. I'm getting there. Like others here, I'm free to have closure with or without the other respective parties participation.

I'm thinking its time to say good night, so good night it is dear friends one and all.

Dee74

Night Rob and Melissa

I think I'm doing ok on the 3 things Courage

D

Jeni26

Good morning all. We are set for a mini heatwave this week. We Brits are delicate little flowers and don't do well in strong sunshine...plus it gives us something to moan about.

I hadn't realised until I read the recent discussion on closure how much I have moved on. I have been diagnosed with PTSD and a dissociative disorder, but I only get triggered now during times of great stress. With the physical symptoms of nightmares and flashbacks gone for the most part, it has become easier to put the horrors of the past behind me. I was scared for so long that I didn't know there was another way to feel. I have built a safe and secure world now, and feeling free of fear has become the norm.

Have a great day guys. Love to you all. Rob, I hope they can sort out your pain, I hate to think of you hurting. Big hugs ❤️❤️❤️

Gilmer

Have a fruitful day, everyone!

Della1968

Good morning. Glad your visit with the boys is going well. I am sure it's bittersweet all around. I hope your pain doesn't get worse before you go to the Dr. Maybe they could get you in this week?

EndGameNYC

Good morning all.

Closure, eh?

The first word I think of is 'bittersweet'. "You can't always get the closure you want, but..."

Running on fumes here. Had a long but tension-filled weekend. Met up with a friend, and we ate Spanish food and talked about stuff. Also went to an anniversary meeting because it was an anniversary meeting. Two women were celebrating, one around fifty-ish, the other closing in on seventy. It was the first year for both of them. There was time for people to share, so I piped up. Had an extra session with my therapist last night.

I'll probably post this comment again somewhere along the line, but if you're new and afraid of going to an AA meeting for any reason, go to an anniversary meeting. You'll be able to see what's possible, regardless of who you are, how old you are and where you're at in life. Lives dramatically turned around, families brought back together and hope for what's to come.

Speaking of which...I'm feeling more myself than I have in some time.

As my favorite bus driver likes to say, "Be careful out there."

RobbyRobot

Hi all y'all.

I'd like a heat wave here! Damn rain. Really sunny this early morn and more rain few hours later....

Thanks for the concerns for my physical pains. I've got to set the record straight, it's not the pain management team (doesn't exist as yet because I haven't requested) which is the difficulty - its me. I'm really not liking the idea of where my pain is taking me. I've not used pain meds as a regular daily therapy. I've nothing against it, I've just mitigated my pains personally. For me, I don't really make sharp distinctions between physical and emotional pains, and so I've learned how to manage both as one. It's complicated like this since I've always had "both" pains ever since I can remember. They were not handing out much pain killers to children back in the late '50's and early '60's. Certainly not to some kid in Ottawa's east end. So I learned to push my pains away until they dulled out. Pushing away though wasn't and isn't always the smart choice...

I could see a doctor today. I won't though since its just one more freedom I'll have to turnover so as to be comfortable. It's inevitable of course, but there I am nonetheless. I will when forced by my failure to sustain my comfort levels, and I was saying its looking like I'm soon going to "get there" as expected.

I will do what I have to do to be comfortable. I'm okay with taking pain meds when other choices no longer are workable. I've such a long medical history and I'm slow to change my ways is all.

Anyways! It's still a beautiful day to be alive raining or not! Enjoy!

ArtFriend

'mornin everyone.

Rob, have you explored managing your pain with other methods? Like acupuncture or acupressure? Or deep tissue massage? Another one is Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation or TENS. I really understand you not wanting to start loading up on drugs.

You mentioned kids not getting pain meds in the late 50s early 60s. You and I are the same age (you have 5 months on me) and I too cannot remember taking any form of medication for pain. Even when I fell out of a tree! You just kind of sucked it up I guess. That formed my own attitude toward pain to this day. I will not take any pain relievers until it is critical.

We had big time storms last night (why do they always come at 2 in the morning???) and part of my fence was blown down. Just another annoyance. I have a home owners association that is right out of the 3rd Reich! Achtung! You vill fix das fence immediately or you vill pay!

Hope you have a good day Rob and Melissa (and everyone else).

Aellyce

(((Robby)))

I'll start with saying that your going through physical pain will make me very uncomfortable and perhaps in "made up" pain myself... but I want to take this as an opportunity to get more conditioned for it. I am very sensitive physically, eg. even as an adult, I still need to cut out tags from new clothes, for example... and many other things, because I'm not conditioned for physical discomfort beyond what my alcoholism brought or, more likely, because I refuse to experience it as far as possible. Very low threshold. I'm quite comfortable in the dentist's chair though, because I've had so much work done in that department But nothing else.

I think I'm very strongly conditioned for mental/emotional pain, and can take almost infinite amounts of these... but not physical pain. I have been gifted with great physical health, and I've never even taken an opiate type painkiller in my life. Actually this helped me quit drinking also, I got very paranoid about physical issues due to it.

I have no subjective experience about how that sort of pain management feels, at all. I've tried probably every drug on Earth, but opiates. I only know it from my professional experience analyzing other people's experience.

(((Robby))) I just wanted to put this out there, that I dread physical pain, and I know you are not as chicken as myself due to your life experience, and also that no matter what, I'll stay here with you and with all of us.

RobbyRobot

Hi ArtFriend.

I've considered and dismissed, without trying, anything else. I've always used exercise and my own self to mitigate my pains as a rule. Surgeries of course I have always taken meds to get me through. It's just I need to be overwhelmed with actual physical pain for me to "feel comfortable" with medications since I do not much make distinctions between my physical and my emotional pains.

For my pains now I still make use of dilaudid (hydromorphone). I take as needed. I've tried going all day without, no joy not comfortable. So I'm seeing the writing on the wall. I just don't like where I'm being forced to go, you know?

Thanks.

Yeah, I've fallen out of many a tree too!!

Wholesome

I agree with you about the damn rain Rob. Enough already.... bring on the summer!

Your position on taking pain meds is reminding me of my grandfather and his cane. He was given the cane by his doctor when he was in his mid 80's but always refused to use it..... he always said he would when he got a bit older LOL. Used to crack me up! Don't think he ever ended up using it. He was a tough old guy.

Hope you can get your pain under control though.

RobbyRobot

Hi Zen

Thanks.

Just to let people know - my pain IS under control and managed. I'm not sitting here and suffering my good friends. I'm taking and doing what I need to be comfortable. No worries.

What I'm saying is my pains are going to get a lot worse, its inevitable with death by cancer, and I'm just venting I'm not liking where that is taking me with respect to pain meds.

Wholesome

Must be scary for you.

courage2

Me, I loved the aspirin. I was prone to tension headaches even when I was very small & took aspirin by the handful -- none of that low-dose baby stuff for me! When I was a little kid in nursery school 3-4 years old, I got in trouble & was sent to sit on the stairs (the woman had us in her basement, like victims, which we were). I snuck up & got into her medicine cabinet. I always thought that my best bet came in a bottle -- a little plastic pharmaceutical one, or a pretty glass one with a thin neck and a tax stamp label.

Do you folks remember tax stamp labels? Whatever happened to them?

RobbyRobot

(((haennie)))
Thanks for caring about me and while you yourself are being pained by my pains. Extraordinary.

RobbyRobot

Yup. In spades.

ArtFriend

I've never heard of them. Maybe it's a NYC thing?

ArtFriend

I am sorry Rob. Big hugs!

Wholesome

When my mom's bf passed from cancer the pain meds were one of the things they found the hardest. The morphine made him so out of it. She accused the doctors of turning him into a junkie. She was just livid at times! I totally get where you're coming from. But the alternative? My heart goes out to you.

ScottFromWI

Hard to fathom. Whatever you have in your mind that allows you to generate peace and acceptance in the midst of all this must be a powerful force indeed. Its even more fascinating that the mind of an addict ( as we all have ) can change and grow to what yours has become today. I am constantly amazed at the strength within those in situations like yours and have the utmost respect for it.