Pain versus pain

It’s been two weeks today since I took my last painkiller. Technically I am still allowed to take some – I could have taken up to four last week, and up until Sunday this week I am able to take three – but I haven’t needed to.

The last painkillers I took were on my flight over to Melbourne. I haven’t taken any since. This is a HUGE thing. Because remember that chronic, daily, never-goes-away-ever migraine? The one I’ve had for over six years? I take painkillers for that.

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Chronic hope

In my photos you see me smile all the time – and that’s because I’m happy. I love being photographed, I like blogging, and I delight in the wonderful comments of my readers.

But being happy isn’t an easy thing. I am happy, yes, but it is in spite of a whole fuckton lot of things. Of those, three are the biggies, and they are depression, grief, and pain.

None of them are things you can see when you look at me, and see me smiling. But they’re all there, all the time.

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Libido a-go-go

My libido has disappeared. Again. Has anyone seen it?

I like my libido – I like it a lot! So I make sure I take very good care of it – I pet it and feed it and treat it well and ensure that it gets all the attention it wants. So I am very sad that it’s gone missing.

Yes, I miss my libido. It’s kept me great company for the past 11 years, although there was a whole year before that when it was AWOL. I thought I was the only one that had ever lost their libido before – until I went to Family Planning and was told by a kindly nurse that it happens to most of us at one time or another, and that it would eventually come back. Which was small consolation at the time (for me, or for my boyfriend)… but ultimately it was true.

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Who am I?

Over the course of the various journals, columns and blogs I’ve written online, I’ve written more than a few biographies for myself. Some have been wordy, others brief. Some have detailed joys and disasters, while others are instead descriptive views of myself. Often, depending on the intended readers, it’s full of identifying details. In other places, they’re only identifying if you know me rather intimately offline.

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Life is pain, Highness*

I have a funny relationship with pain. As a migraineur, I live with it every day – it pulses behind one eye, or burrows down through my fontanelle, or ice-picks me in the forehead. The variegated tortures it can present are horrible, and I detest it. I spent a long time trying to bury it with pain-killers, didn’t work for quite some time (and only work part-time now), and I take a lot of preventatives (both prescription and herbal, vitamin and mineral) to help minimise what I live with.**

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