It felt like a strong flare up was starting last night. It might have just been side effects of the Lyrica. I’ve never had that before. Lyrica is treating me completely differently this time around. I felt better when I went to bed. I felt better this morning. Then I took the morning dose of Lyrica, then I felt bad again. I’m still kind of struggling to get through. It’s not like a full blow fibro flare, but it’s not good. It feels like a failure to launch kind of day, which I’m OK with if the pain and fibro are both low and the day is enjoyable somehow, but that’s not the case. So more muddling through. No end to this madness in sight.
Very drowsy today. I think I can safely attribute that to the Lyrica dose increase. Not easy, but that’s fine. I zonked out for a while on my futon. I only slept for a couple minutes, but I was totally zoned out for a good half hour. That state when you wake up on a day off and don’t fall back to sleep, but you’re not awake. It took me another hour to get myself fully awake and on my feet again. I have a family dinner tonight. Not looking forward to that. The last one was not good for me.
Well, that family dinner was a disaster. I didn’t know what I was walking into. There were 25 people at the table, crowded restaurant, a fucking BAND 4 feet away from us. It was so loud and everything was so overwhelming. They couldn’t decide how to order. I was there 45 minutes and nobody ordered anything. It would have been another hour and a half until food came out for that many people. It was pure sensory overload. It instantly flared me up. Here’s a word of advice: Never invite a fibromyalgic to an event like that. Let them know about it, let them know it’s going to be a zoo and it will be overwhelming, and tell them it’s not going to be something appropriate for them. I don’t know what it takes for people to understand what a disability is. Nobody seems to learn, and nobody gets it. That was downright rude to invite me into that kind of situation. I’ve never been flared up so quickly before. I’m right on the edge right now. I don’t see how this doesn’t turn into a full blown flare up. I can feel the pain pulsing through my whole body, and I don’t have any way to calm it down. Ice packs won’t touch this. I’m actually pissed.
I’ve been curled up in a ball on the floor for the last hour with my eyes closed. Trying to stay calm. Trying to control the pain. To keep it from overwhelming me. That’s always a losing battle. I realized though that this thing is not getting better, it’s not going to get better, and it is uncontrollable. I need to make plans to get out of this apartment. I can’t afford to live like this anymore. I can’t afford to have some sort of false hope that this will get better. It won’t. My reality now is that I need to move back into a van. The one thing I desperately tried to avoid is here. I need help getting a van and building it. I don’t know how I’ll be able to build it out. I had some ideas of how to simplify things. As long as there are a few key things, I’ll survive. It doesn’t have to look nice.