Road Back On Track

"When my bipolar is starting to show the signs of depression, it makes me think I'm less worthy than others. Because I have an illness, a lifetime illness that requires lifetime medication. Even when everything is going well."  From the outside, depression might be seen as laziness, sadness, and unproductivity. Usually, you can't even see someone having depression, or depressive episode going on. Because we usually keep smiling and keep going as long as we can. Often we keep on going too long. But from the inside , there are so many feelings, actions, and ways to see life at that moment. Exhausted, not being able to get up from bed and shower.  Feeling nothing. Nothing at all. Or everything at once.  Crying out loud or not being able to cry at all.  Want to sleep all day long. Waking up in the middle of the night or sleeping around the clock with no problem at all.  Lack of self-care. As said, showering makes you tired but also it loses the importance of doing...

How exactly I ended up working at the school, in a place I used to say I would never work at? When I was still in Australia, I started to think I actually want to work in something that has a meaning. Even though I absolutely loved my job over there, I realized it is not exactly what I wanted. I helped and guided in my job every kind of people, including kids, teens, and adults with special needs. I also found a guy who was a personal trainer for special needs, kids, from Instagram, and I started following him.  Something just clicked and I knew that what I really want is to work with people with any kind of special needs. Best, if they would be kids or teens. Suddenly all the hard work with tourism was flushed away. I realized I had studied tourism for 7 years, and it was a field that I didn't actually want to work in.  I thought I am crazy, how could I want something else just out of nowhere? Tourism has always been close to my heart, already in primary school, I knew what I...

It's been a year. Year since I experienced frightening moments. Year since I lost the ability to use 1st my left leg and then my right one.  Year since I started long and tough rehabilitation to get back on track. Year since my life truly changed. WTF is happening? A year ago I was at home, minding my own business. Going to sleep. And then, suddenly, I realized my left leg wasn't working right. I couldn't move it on my bed, I couldn't lift it up, and all the toe and heel walking was just impossible. Due to having permanent problems on my back, I knew it could be something serious. Let me say, I didn't get much sleep that night. All I could think was: "WTF is happening?!" I felt like there was something really wrong, but I didn't know what to do. But that was just a start. "You have lost all your reflexes on your left leg, and the other one is weaker as well." In total, I was in the hospital for 2 weeks. In two different hospitals, first in an...

You think mental illness is all about sleeping 24/7? Crying for no reason? Just being negative and unhappy? You think it is about not having the energy to do anything and just laying on the bed, miserable. It is not. Mental illness(es) is a wide concept, where symptoms vary from person to person. Some people, someone like me, actually gets emotion spikes, where one week I have super energetic days (not in a good way), those days when I do not really care about anything, I just need to move all the time. Cannot stop, it is just something I must do, going from place a to b, and from b to c, and from there maybe from c to d before I can get back to the place a. Going for a run middle of the night? Yeah, why not. Or going to run when it is raining and dark? Yeah, what would be a better time to do so? Getting to the gym at 4am and being out somewhere until 10pm with no sleep? Yeah, no problem at all. Speeding on the road and doing so risking your own life? Yeah, who car...

"I never thought, that one day I would reach out for mental health struggles.  But the same way, I never thought, that I would one day have chronic pain." I think that sentence describes everything perfectly. Right now, right at this moment. Living with constant pain is not only about pain. The longer there is a pain, sooner or later, it will start to affect everything else as well. Mental health as number one. There are thousands, or even millions (who even knows the actual number) who have even ended their own life because of chronic pain and the lack of proper pain management. A thing not to joke about. Mental health struggles are becoming more and more acceptable around the world, but still, it is a taboo. It should not be a taboo, people should not be afraid of telling they are struggling mentally. We have to be able to talk about it, share information and be more accepting. The best way to do this is through the people who are middle of everything. The on...

M51.1 Lumbar Disc Disorder with Radiculopathy. That is my final diagnose. That is something that I cannot hide, or try to hide with thinking something else. That is in my medical files and records. I can see it all the time, as well as the doctors who are treating me with any other issues. It is there, and it will not just go away. Right now I have given 3-4 months time frame. If my pain will not improve, my doctor is ready to take the risk and try if surgery could give me some relief. At this point, right now, it is too risky to try it. My issue is small, in a medical point of view, and surgery could even make my pain worse. So my doctor wants to be sure, that before seriously considering surgery, we have tried absolutely everything else. I have been told, that if during those months, at any time, I feel my pain will get worse than this, I must see my doctor again.  What does that diagnose basically mean? I was told the same by my doctor as well as the d...

Explaining what chronic pain means to me is not an easy task. It is not easy to share things like this, not even with other chronic pain sufferers, and even harder with those who do not have chronic pain. If you are one of those lucky ones without chronic pain or chronic illness, please stay with me, I am trying to open up here (and people who know me knows, that I do not open up easily). And as said before, it is not an easy thing to do, so if something does not make sense - do not even bother Googling it, because you will not find my feelings from there - read it again, think more deeply, and if it still does not make sense, just skip it. Or send me a message, throw me a comment or whatever. You can even try to send me smoke signals - might take a couple of times to find the right wind direction, etc, but never give up, right? ;) #throwback I did not born with chronic pain. I think that is not even possible. I was a healthy baby. And I was a healthy kid until I started trac...