Rellacafa

Dear Audy,

Complex Regional Pain Syndrome can be such a big meanie. When I am doing well, it’s easy to forget just how bad the pain can get. Unfortunately, a fiery flare up usually comes along to remind me.

Wednesday morning I woke up in crazy amounts of pain. All over. Everywhere. The type of pain that infects my sleep and pulls me out before I am recharged and coherent enough to deal with it. The type of pain that makes tears pour out involuntary and every second breath a sob. The type of pain that is so intense that it confuses every thought and all I can see is the blinding red of agony and frustration.

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My prince was there to help me through the mind-blocked stage. It can take a while for me to calm down when I wake up in this sort of panic, the pain feels so intense that I go into a little bit of shock at all of the signals suddenly rushing to my brain. A heatpack, some painkillers and a comfy spot amongst my cushions on the couch were the first things in order. As my brain began to adjust to its pain inflamed state, I was slowly able to get my thinker going again.

At first, I felt weak, I felt so broken and beaten. When a flare strikes with sudden force it can make everything that I have done to improve my condition in recent times seem silly and futile. The negative thought patterns kick in when the pain does, confusing me with a jumble of worries and stressors that my mind convincingly elevates to a seemingly incurable level of despair. It can make me feel so tiny and the world so tall and terrifying, the fear is like an army of clamps all over my skin and I have trouble remembering how to let this unfathomably violating feeling leave me.

A couple of hours after waking, I was beginning to feel less afraid and ready to take on the pain using the Feldenkrais techniques that I have learnt. I felt ashamed for breaking, for allowing myself to be consumed by the sobs and sorrow. Logically, I understand that there are going to be setbacks, plateaus and pitfalls on the way to recovery, however this doesn’t always mean I can stay in control when the pain is pulling out its most mighty artillery.

I had to let that guilt go, just let it float away, out of my body and to wherever things go when they are gone. I had to assess my situation as it was, not how I expected it to be when I lay down to rest the night before, not how it was the day or the week before, but to honestly assess what I felt capable of and how I could most effectively cope with the nightmare playing out in my nervous system. I felt bruised to the bone all over and not functional enough to focus on being productive. Instead, I focused on remembering how much Feldenkrais has been helping me, I remembered that I wasn’t just learning these techniques to learn them, or to feel the effects during a lesson. The point of me practising this method of pain relief is for exactly that, to be able to relieve my own pain when I need to.


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I spent the next two hours moving as slowly and easily as I could through some Feldy tracks that I was already familiar with, this helped to ease my anxiety about making the pain worse if I were to accidentally move incorrectly whilst attempting a new one. I followed the instructions on the audio tracks so gently that a spectator would hardly have been able to see me move. At first, it was still incredibly painful and I had to trust in my faith that these movements would leave me feeling better. The increase in pain heightened my internal physical awareness, allowing me to find ways of following the instructions in a lighter and gentler way than ever before. I began with a track focused on my neck and shoulders, then switched to a lower back track, followed by a gentle routine for the neck and eyes and then another track specified for creating softness in the hands and forearms.

My faith proved factually founded. By the end of my longest, solo, Feldenkrais session ever, I felt a million times better. I was able to move around feeling relief in many areas and a dulling of the pain in others. I was able to shower, dress, prepare breakfast and even do some light cleaning before I was father-chauffeured to an afternoon appointment. It was an amazingly unbelievable turn-around from my condition upon waking that morning. I could finally see my thoughts clearly again. As well as physically relieving pain, Feldy also seems to help my mind face forward and function more clearly.

The appointment was to hear the results of a recent MRI taken of my jaw. Apparently, I have a significant amount of arthritic-type damage in the left joint, the cartilage disc is shifted, the bone is worn down in the joint and I have even grown myself some nice little boney deposits in places that they really don’t need to be. The good news is that that sounds a whole lot worse than it actually is. For years, since this happened, my jaw pain as been attributed by my doctors to my CRPS, turns out, there is real damage in there that is really stimulating nerves that would rather not be jammed into the joint. It was nice to have a problem that could actually be seen for once. No wonder I have long had trouble sitting my jaw into its socket, there is a silly cartilage mound in the way! My oral medicine specialist explained that by continuing to wear my splint to stop me clenching and grinding my teeth at night, along with all the work I do to keep the area relaxed and by keeping a careful eye out for potential jaw hurting situations, I should be able to allow the joint to heal. The nerves that are currently causing me so much pain should eventually scar and form cartilage themselves, leaving me to go back to life of normal jaw function. Hurrah!

When I got home from the appointment, I figured that I would go flop. I felt so tired and it is quite usual for me to need to rest in the afternoons when I have been sleeping badly (a common occurrence). Instead, I felt empowered. I felt such a difference from the crippling pain that I had been in that morning that I felt like I could do just about anything – as long as I found a gentle and easy way to do it. Rather than going flop, I used my excess excitement (generated by further evidence that my condition is improvable and pride in having personally halted the pain along its path to total Caf domination) to clean. Yep, I slowly and steadily vacuumed and mopped a significant portion of my house. This helped to ease the anxiety that was still hanging around and trying to convince me that I was trapped and couldn’t even care for myself in my own home. Satisfied with that fresh feeling that clean floors create, I hit the rug for some more Feldenkrais.

Yep, even more. On Wednesday, I did close to three hours of Feldy. It was worth every second. I stopped the flare before it could consume me for days, weeks or months. I did that, and if i did it once then that means I have the power to do it again.

On Thursday I was able to be productive, run errands and generally deal with things that needed dealing with. By Thursday evening, my jaw was quite sore again but I was able to relax, not panic and still sleep reasonably well. Today I saw my Feldenkrais practitioner for a one on one session that has helped to settle this crazy, crazy jaw and afterward spent a couple of hours napping. I am sore now, but I am not scared. I can alleviate this pain and I choose to put no limits on my belief as to what extent. There truly is no better feeling than that of being empowered to alter my own situation, regardless of what any person or textbook says is possible for a person with CRPS. I might have to deal with plenty more setbacks, but the future doesn’t seem so bleak anymore, it feels like there is a way to regain control of my body and get back to living, instead of just surviving.

Love & Empowerment,
Caf

Dear Audy,

I have a confession to make, I have gotten hooked on fake reality. Well, not in the drop acid and wander around in a fantasyland way, but in the staring mindlessly at the screen and into the deliciously plastic worlds of The Hills and The City.

The Hills debuted in 2006 and ever since then and a couple of months ago, I have thought it sounded like a stupid show to watch. I didn’t understand the fake reality thing. Was I supposed to pretend it was real life when it was clearly scripted? I didn’t understaaand…but now I do.

Lauren, Heidi, Audrina and Whitney are (fake) living the lives that my teenage self dreamed about. There they are, in L.A., the home of Hollywood, rampant gangs and ludicrously luxurious living. Ok, so the gangs don’t exactly make an appearance, that would be a blot on the beauty of the (fake) world we’re looking into, right? Don’t want that. Oh no, because in The (fake) Hills, life is sunshine, lollipops and lipstick! That is exactly how it wormed its way through my (fake) high brow snobbery defense system. That, and the weakening of said brow battalion that occurs when I am sore and dopey.

The Hills follows four (fake) successful, beauties, making their way in the world after high school.

Firstly, we have Lauren. Lauren is our central, girl-next-doorish, generally nice, unwittingly super self righteous, yet somehow rather relatable heroine. Next up is her best friend, Heidi, seemingly fresh-faced, funny and friendly, but a little forlorn at the idea of actually working for a living. As the show progresses, so does Heidi. From sweet country girl to self important, Spencer schmoozing, plastic-morph barbie. It’s hard not to pity her whilst watching her transform – plastic surgery in young people always seems to me like they’re almost cementing their insecurities, which is likely the opposite of what they’re trying to achieve. The stars don’t mention her transformation on the show at all, which is just weird. Have her (fake) friends not noticed that she’s starting to resemble Cher?

Lauren Conrad & Heidi Montag (click for source)

Thrown in to the (fake) friendship mix, is Audrina, an icon for grungey wannabes everywhere. Audrina is a completely different personality type to Lauren and Heidi, I mean, if this isn’t obvious enough by the fact that she is brunette, whereas they are blonde (huge difference, duh), then there is always her icky biker kinda boyfriend, Justin Bobby, to nail home just how alternative she is. Audrina wears a lot of black (so baaad), eyeliner and slightly hurt expressions. Like Heidi (face it, like a lot of girls), Audrina has trouble navigating her (fake) love life, suffers from ‘never been in love before’ naivety and entertains greatly by becoming increasingly more daft as her bra size goes (mysteriously) up.


Audrina Patridge (click for source)

Rounding out our group of hot, young, ladies is Lauren’s co-worker at Teen Vogue (dream job, anyone’s inner teenage self?) is Whitney. Whitney is our sweet, dignified, understatedly coquettish Cali-girl with a heart of gold and the figure of a supermodel. She’s there so that Lauren has someone to bitch to about her other (fake) friends and for us to envy as she goes about her life being charming and successful, despite any obviously apparent actual talent. Whitney is so charming in fact, that she went off to New York and got her very own (fake) reality show, The City, which I am currently enjoying immensely.


Whitney Port (click for source)

Working in the fashion industry has Whitney showing off a lot of pretty clothes and accessories, it’s kind of like sitting on the couch and watching an issue of Cosmopolitan. All pretty colours, consumption and distractingly bright, bright, bright. Even Whitney’s new (fake) nemesis, Olivia, is pretty, in spite of her strange tendency to colour her cheeks in orange, it’s always interesting to see what she’s wearing and to watch her acting like a fantastical bitch to everyone she meets. The City seems to have embraced its position of fictional construct in the disguise of reality and this also makes me happy. The ‘that would never really happen’ scenarios that they string together make me smile. Why care if it’s not really real life? It’s still easy to tune out and pretend for a while that it could be, the stars assist with this using their drawled out speech patterns and the producers help with some snappy editing and an irritatingly addictive indie pop soundtrack.

Watching these lucky young ladies living dream lives is a bit like curling up with a Dolly Fiction novel (Do they still have Dolly Fiction?). It can be fun to pretend that my real problems don’t exist for a while and to fantasise about fighting the fictitious issues that Lauren, Whitney and their (fake) friendship crowds face. Oh, to have my biggest worry be what to wear! Oh, to behave so shallow and inconsiderately of everyone else and yet have them play along! Oh, to sun-bake and take beach trips, to go shopping and wear a new dress every day! Oh, to generally get around without pain! Is it starting to sound like fun yet?

I have only seen the first four seasons of The Hills. Season 5 looks hilarious as Lauren walks away to write fictional novels based on her fictional television life (L.A. Candy) and the producers shove ex-Laguna Beach power bitch Kristin into the protagonist role. I think I shall enjoy watching her annoy everyone and how she is just suddenly in Lauren’s post high school friendship group from many angles, even hooking up with Audrina’s ex-oil rag, the ever-stoned Justin Bobby. Funny, funny, funny.

I shall also be giggling along with Whitney, Roxy and their contrived lives in New York. I’m about up to where Whit is going to design her own clothing line, can’t wait to see what she (or whoever) comes up with! I don’t really like the poncey nature of the fashion industry, however I do like pretty clothes…a lot. I also like watching how they wear their hair and makeup, with these big screen TVs, you get quite a lot of detail and I find it interesting to be able to see close up how they have created the look that you get from a couple of feet away. Makeup can be banged on as a necessity or treated like an art medium and I far prefer the latter. If I’m going to bother putting makeup on, I want to have a little fun with it!

So there you have it, Audy. Fake reality can be a bit of fun sometimes! Especially when one needs a break from real reality. I had a little jaw mishap whilst brushing my teeth a few nights ago and the result is a lot of neck, shoulder and generalised pain to deal with. I am attempting to Feldy it out, however I need a lot of breaks and that’s where the need for zoning out comes in. I have another wedding to attend in a few weeks and am about to begin Operation Sew A Pretty Dress, the second…might even spend my afternoon choosing a pattern and fabric! I am gaining some nice inspiration from my slightly shameful television crack problem, but mostly I just know that I would like it to be blue…that’s a start!

Love & Escapism,
Caf

Dear Audy,

Yesterday was a fabulous day! A big day, but crammed full of exciting goodness. In the afternoon, I went to catch up with the lovely Jen. I was rather late, so we didn’t get to get chatty as much as is customary for a catch up, however we did get to watch Miley be an annoying teenager in The Last Song. I was expecting a sappy teenage romance, however that movie takes a nasty turn toward the actually sad in the second half and the world should really be warned! Or, just pay a little more attention to the title than Jen and I did…

Friday evening brought a time I had been looking forward to for weeks, an evening with Joss Whedon! Well, not like a date or anything, just a opportunity to share some air and bathe in the presence of one of my heroes. Joss might not actually be a super hero, but he did create several that I have been enjoying on repeat for over a decade now!

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Joss was speaking at The Melbourne Town Hall as a part of The Melbourne Writers Festival. The atmosphere was practically glowing with the combined admiration beaming from the audience. In the moments before Joss came out, anticipation seized a good deal of oxygen out of the air and an excited voice thanked the sponsors as their logos were projected for our viewing pleasure. The lead sponsors were greeted with applause……aaand now I must take a second for a confession. As the screen filled with the logos of the smaller sponsors and the audience and voiceover hushed, I was that dingbat that loudly said thank you and added a few claps. I sincerely apologise, not to the sponsors, to whom I am grateful (it was JOSS WHEDON!), but to everyone around me that was subjected to my unintentional display of doofustry. Sometimes I get excited and just say things out loud, this can often caused awkwardness for someone with a perpetually loud voice and a propensity for spontaneous clapping, especially in an echoey room.

The Q&A session was pretty much what I expected. I didn’t really go along to learn how to be Joss Whedon, like my 18-year-old self would have. Once you have been around the block a few times you start to realise that people are all just people, even famous, talented people. No two people are exactly alike and these days I am of the opinion that the only person we should set out to be like is the one that we will become if we stay true to ourselves. Joss is a funny guy and listening to him talk was giggly times, however anyone looking for a secret about how to create genius on a page or screen might have been surprised to hear that there isn’t actually one. Many talented writers and artists will say the same thing, if you want to create something, just create it. Believe in it. Trust your instincts and if you want to get it out there for consumption, then go and get it out there. I think that deep down most writers are aware of this. The hard work of it, though, can be a simplistic truth they are hoping to avoid. I love listening to how other people’s minds work and often pick up little insights inspired by their stories, however I have always known that the only thing sitting between me and a finished manuscript is a nice little lack of discipline.

I was none too impressed when the people lucky enough to gain a go at the microphone asked lame questions about how they could become him. I held my tongue, but what I really wanted to yell was, “You can’t be someone else, moron! Not only that, but you just wasted an opportunity to ask Joss Whedon to do the dance of joy. WHY DID YOU WASTE THAT?!”.

The thing I found most amazing whilst sitting in the same room as Joss Whedon, was thinking about how much the characters and worlds he created have enriched my own life. I grew up around the same time as Buffy, Willow and Xander and always found these characters so relatable that in some part of my mind, it almost felt like I really knew them. Buffy Summers is an amazingly strong, beautiful, charmingly imperfect and exquisitely vulnerable character. She battles with demons, real and emotional, mostly she wins but she has also experienced great loss. I’ve always found her struggles with real life, college and general society after high school incredibly well portrayed. Life is hard and being special in high school doesn’t necessarily translate when you enter the human adult, massive, population. Buffy develops as a person, she falls in love, she makes mistakes, she learns and she never pretends to have all the answers. I have always loved this realness about her and often, in times of upset, I find comfort in putting in the dvd of an episode in which Buffy has faced hard times and found the strength and courage to battle on regardless.


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I’d be writing a book if I started on about the wonders of the Sunnydale mythology, so I won’t. What I do want to tell you about is how strange it was to sit there, watching a man speak, just a man, and thinking about how his thoughts, his dreams and the things he imagined have influenced my world. Our worlds are what we perceive after all and I have so many memories of times and discussions with others, even costume parties, that have been influenced by the creations of Joss Whedon. How bizarre it is, this connecting of minds and lives between people through art and writing. I love that we live in a world in which one person’s actions really can touch many, teach many, or simply entertain them – something to be greatly valued, never underestimate the life improving qualities of boredom antidotes!

Thank you, Joss Whedon,

for creating what you create,
for making me laugh,
for making me cry,
and for embracing that little bit of insanity that makes your work incredible.

Thank you.

My big night out also included a lovely dinner with a friend and a long awaited real life meeting with the squee-happy and tweeting giggler, Miss Kimberley from Pop Couture. It’s always so exciting meeting someone that I have been chatting on Twitter with for about as long as I have been chatting on Twitter. I’m yet to have a negative experience with one of these meetings and I love the refreshment of knowing that there are real people, being real people online now, even if it still pays to be a little cautious. Meeting Kim was great, we only had time for a brief chat but it was fabulous to be able to get to know one another a little better and I am looking forward to meeting up again sometime!

Physically, I am pretty exhausted today. Happily, I am not in as much pain as I was expecting. I really am getting better at managing my pain, my expectations and how I react when I am experiencing high levels of pain! Improving my reactions is making it possible for me to truly have a good time again, to be able to let go of my worries and really enjoy being social again. It just takes a bit (a shitload) of practise, that’s all, and I will be able to pace my way back to a more fulfilling and productive life. Today I must rest, but I rest on happy memories – and really, that’s what life’s all about.

Love & Legends,
Caf

P.S. Hungry for more? Check out a bit about Joss in this recent article from The Age.

Dear Audy,

The world has changed a lot in the past ten years, hasn’t it? The biggest influence that many of us feel in these early years of the 21st Century is that of the internet. The internet allows us to connect in ways that have never before been possible, it allows us to voice our opinions on a public platform and to connect with people in places that we might never have the opportunity to visit in the real world. Social media has come along and allowed us to reconnect with long lost friends and family, stay in touch with acquaintances who are, situationally, no longer a part of our lives and to even make new friends. I have been blogging and using social media for a few years and in that time I have made a lot of new friendships, some that have extended into the real world and others that have remained online, either becoming more intimate through private means of discussion, or sticking to public forums, only involved in the aspects of one another’s lives that each of us chooses to post online. For me, both kinds of relationships have been fruitful and emotionally rewarding at times.

There is also that other kind of online relationship. The internet is choc-a-bloc with forums filled with back and forth hate, anger, resentment and provocation. I am in my late 20s and was around when the internet was new and we were all afraid of serial killers finding us and so we posted in any sort of public forum under a pseudonym, now commonly referred to as a username (stupid simplifying language, pseudonym is an awesome word). MySpace wasn’t on the scene yet and most social networking was conducted through forums dedicated to specific topics (like a TV show, or gardening), and through the posts shared and discussed by blogging pioneers. As the years have passed, Facebook has brought social networking to those aged outside the 13-19yrs age bracket, networking sites have popped up to focus on just about any topic you can conceive, Twitter appeared and allows us to send our opinions our into the cyber-ether for whoever cares to follow them and these days, it is often considered odd not to have an online identity. The separation between self and cyber-self has become a smaller gap than existed back in the 1990s, when internet paranoia reigned supreme.

A lot has been written on the topic of online identity, a quick google surf revealed that the many of these articles are directed toward exposing how one’s online identity can effect their career prospects, as well as reporting the tragic results of cyber-bullying. This recent NY Times article offers advice on combating cyber-bullies, an article that focuses on the technical options available. Block/report/ignore/block/check privacy settings/report/ignore… These are all wonderful things to be able to technically do, but it’s not always that easy to stop the emotional effects of the unwanted attention in the first place, is it? Teenagers are the most prolific sufferers of cyber-bullying, although it does effect people of all ages. In regards to what I have seen personally, it is often those who are new to online interaction that are most affected by negative comments, whether this be because they are young or simply haven’t played in the cyber-playground before. Coming to the internet now, without that lovely sense of 90s paranoia, can mean that someone inadvertently makes themselves emotionally vulnerable, simply because they don’t recognise the ramifications that can come of doing this publicly. I like to think of posting online as akin to walking through the streets, proclaiming something through a megaphone – you just don’t know who’s listening.

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It’s a mistake to confuse the internet with the schoolyard, even though lots of your old or current school buddies might be milling about here. People in the online world have no responsibility to you or for your feelings and there’s no teacher you can go dobbing to if they upset you. Just like the schoolyard, though, there are going to be people who you will get along fine with, people with the potential to be your best friend and people that you just plain aren’t going to like or aren’t going to like you.

When someone chooses to offer positivity, these online connections are a spectacular thing, however, hang around for a while and you are bound to encounter those who choose to offer negativity and criticism. Most of the time, this is a reflection of what is happening in their own lives, rather than a meaningful comment on your own. A healthy separation of real world self and online self is important when diving into the cyber-pool. This doesn’t mean that you are presenting a ‘fake’ personality, this just means choosing which parts of your life you care to make public and considering how you will feel if someone chooses to react negatively to what you have written or posted. If you only share thoughts that you truly believe in, or truly want feedback on, there is less chance that people will be able to use them to hurt you. Some might try, but their opinion can’t break you if you feel happy in your perspective and also understand that it’s not always your job to try and change theirs. You always have the choice not to respond to a comment or an email, not to follow someone’s blog, or not to be their Facebook friend. This is the way in which you can continue shaping your cyber-world to your personal tastes.

I take everything that I read on the internet with a grain of salt, until evidenced otherwise, including the people that I meet. If somebody that I have interacted with online suddenly displays behaviour that I find distasteful, I can be somewhat disappointed, but I choose to move on and continue to focus on the relationships that I am enjoying. I find it can be beneficial to confront the person who I disagree with, but not to continue arguing if it becomes clear that we simply have opposing views. By discussing an issue openly, rather than getting upset and passive aggressive, I have come to understand and get to know people with whom I have gotten off on the wrong foot. Surprisingly, to me, some of these relationships have actually blossomed beautifully and I have to believe this is because we have established an open dialogue from the beginning. It has not always been easy to not take things personally, but the more I practise it, the better I get. I love that the world is full of diverse opinions and one of the benefits of expressing mine on a blog is that I often get to hear really different points of view. I don’t believe that there is anything more enlightening than a new perspective, even if it simply reaffirms that I truly do believe something that I already thought I believed. Self discovery is a wonderful thing.

There are a lot of how-to lists floating around on the subject of using social media. Personally, I think it all boils down to two things: conducting yourself with integrity and always understanding that there are going to be points of view that you disagree with. I think there is an opportunity for learning any time I find myself reading something aggressively directed toward me or that I simply don’t agree with. Why does it upset me? Because they have attacked me. No, really, why? The truth can hurt, usually if somebody upsets me, it’s because they have triggered somewhere in myself where I feel insufficient in some way. For example, I was an overweight teenager (I’m still not Miss Thinny-Thin-Thin, but it no longer bothers me), as a result, the most offending thing anyone could call me was ‘fat’. Back then I thought differently, but I can see now that this upset wasn’t because it was of no right of theirs to comment on my weight (even if it wasn’t), the hurt was felt because I really didn’t want to be overweight, I just hadn’t quite mentally gotten to a place where I could figure out how to not be that yet.

The best way to avoid getting hurt by people on the internet is to remember that you are on the internet. Even within the privacy of a private account somewhere, you are on the internet. There are a lot of amazing people expressing thoughts on here, there are a lot of opportunities for friendship, learning and growth, but there are also a few shadows to watch out for and opinionated cyber-lurkers dwelling there, who believe that criticising others will ease their own suffering in some way. Sure, I believe it’s twisted to think that hurting other people will make one superior, or more knowledgeable, or stronger, or happier, but unfortunately not everyone is aware of their ability to see things from a different perspective to their own. For some, their own perspective is all they care to know and if you find that their perspective isn’t helpful to your own existence, ignore them and move on, but try not to cry yourself to sleep, on account of this is the internet. Alternative perspectives might offer something new to you, something you hadn’t seen before, other times it might even be a snapshot into how you have personally viewed things in the past, or they might offer you nothing at all, but they are never more than simply someone else’s opinion and you never have to allow them to anger you. I repeat: If you only share thoughts that you truly believe in, or truly want feedback on, there is less chance that people will be able to use them to hurt you.

And now I shall leave you, Audy, to ponder the wisdom of Jack Handey, in relation to what I have been writing about:

“Instead of having “answers” on a math test, they should just call
them “impressions,” and if you got a different “impression,” so what, can’t we all be brothers?”

“I bet when the Neanderthal kids would make a snowman, someone would always end up saying, “Don’t forget the thick, heavy brows.” Then they would all get embarrassed because they remembered they had the big hunky brows too, and they’d get mad and eat the snowman.”

“If you’re robbing a bank and you’re pants fall down, I think it’s okay to laugh and to let the hostages laugh too, because, come on, life is funny.”

Love & Musings,
Caf

P.S. Just for fun and the love of Jack Handey, one more: ‘The wise man can pick up a grain of sand and envision a whole universe. But the stupid man will just lay down on some seaweed and roll around until he’s completely draped in it. Then he’ll standup and go, “Hey, I’m Vine Man.””

Dear Audy,

When I wrote the post Depression & Neuroplasticity: The Cure Within The Venom, I completely expected that there would be both positive and negative responses and that is exactly what I got. For people suffering from depression or conditions that have associated depression, words like ‘choice’ can bring about feelings of invalidation and anger, often associated with their own past experiences with others’ misperception of their condition. I wrote from a strongly positive perspective because that is how I feel about the subject. I didn’t do this to be provocative for the purpose of being provocative, I did this for the purpose of explaining a bit about my own personal journey and the theories that are helping me to overcome my struggles with chronic pain and associated depression. Sometimes, when you are suffering, a different perspective can seem like an affront to your coping method or degradation of your own condition. It’s not though, it’s just a different perspective and you have every right to ponder it in relation to your own condition or dismiss it completely.

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I found it interesting that the most prevalent argument to my posting my personal view on the theory of neuroplasticity was in relation to the lack of scientific evidence. Scientific evidence means that controlled experiments have been conducted and statistical conclusions have been made. Scientific evidence is a wonderful thing, but it sure does take a lot of time to fund and conduct studies into new theories. The theory that neuroplasticity could be purposefully brought about sounds like utter lunacy to many, however it makes a lot of sense to me. I’d like to give science a little time to catch up before I go ruling out possibilities. This is a personal choice. I might not be traditionally religious, but I do have faith and when every path ahead of me seems to lead into darkness, I choose to put that faith in possibility. Once upon a time, there was general consensus that Galileo was nuts too…and we know how that worked out.

I would actually like to thank my CRPS for allowing me a unique perspective with which to view this theory of the possibility of being able to create and direct neurological changes. Personally, logic alone suggests to me that neuroplasticity itself exists – how else could we learn anything? How could we learn to play the piano or catch a basketball? It’s common belief that once a person learns to ride a bicycle, they will never forget. So commonly believed in fact that people often use this as a metaphor for the retention of other learned skills, as in “(doing such and such) is just like riding a bike”. The implication is that once learned, these strings of co-ordinated motor skills are ours forever. To me, this suggests that somehow, our brain has made new neurological connections and default pathways for information to travel along so that our bodies can perform these tasks without the need to consciously think through every movement.

In regards to modern medical science, I have tried most of the available methods of treatment for my CRPS. These include a lot of different medications, as well as the holy grail of medical treatment for this condition, ketamine. My experience with ketamine was a huge failure and when I ended up in a worse physical condition than before the infusion, it was really hard to figure out where to go from there. My pain specialist turned me away because the spreading of my CRPS did not conform with outdated diagnosis criteria.

The next pain specialist I saw referred me to an inpatient pain rehabilitation plan. In 2009 I spent five weeks, over two stays in hospital (the second due to an unfortunately timed setback) learning how to live around the pain that science could not cure. It was extremely difficult at first, but soon I discovered there were a lot of things I could do to lessen my physical suffering, release tension and improve my quality of life, even without a magic cure for my pain. Then the magic part happened. As I slowly strengthened my body and learned new ways to listen to it and move without exacerbating discomfort, I began to feel less pain. I went from always using crutches, a cane or a wheelchair to walking upright. Naturally, I couldn’t go very far at first, but that has continued to improve in the last twelve months and I have not had to revert to using mobility aids to get around.

Experiencing this sense of improvement opened my mind to the possibility that there need be no limitations to how much I can improve. My positivity was short lived when a series of stressful events and painful flares left me lost and confused. I kept trying to apply what I had learnt in hospital at home, however that is really hard work and I failed so often at first that I thought the task near impossible. I was originally told by my pain specialist that I would continue outpatient treatment after leaving the hospital. In a very strange consultation about my waning recovery, I ended up accused of simply not trying hard enough, informed that my rehabilitation program had never had an intended outpatient component and refused any more treatment from the physiotherapists, occupational therapists and counsellors that had helped me so much during the inpatient program. This turn of events was shattering as the support system of therapists I had found was snatched away. All of a sudden, even the course of treatment that seemed to be helping me was denied to me for illogical reasons and I was once again short a pain specialist and any sense of hope for the future.

It hasn’t been easy, but I had to start to put my faith for improving my condition in myself. I have read a lot about meditation and mindfulness that has helped me. Meditation is something that I have appreciated the benefits of since taking a highly informative course in the physical aspects of the practise a few years ago. I theoretically appreciated the benefits for a long time before my efforts to incorporate this practise into my life began to pay off. I am so thankful that my determination to find some sort of peace even though relief of physical suffering was not an option, kept leading me back to this ancient practise. I was so intrigued by the fact that meditation is such an ancient practise, I kept thinking that there had to be some merit in it or it would not still be around today. I was right. Starting with incredibly small exercises in mindfulness, I have improved my ability to deal with stressful situations and decreasing my stress actually helps my pain. I have uncovered the innate ability to consciously physically relax. I have by no means mastered it but I have seen it, I have tasted it and I want more. It’s a personal journey and I feel the changes every day, for this reason I have no care as to whether or not science says what I am actually experiencing is possible.

Another huge influence in my recent shift in mood and attitude has been experience of learning to practise Feldenkrais. I have learnt to be aware of parts of my body that I have never felt before. I have learnt new ways to release pain and tension and to move so that I am not causing unnecessary pain. I am in no way done learning, but I can feel the improvements in my ability to recover from flares, adapt around trigger happy circumstances and to simply exist in ways that are physically more comfortable. The Feldenkrais journey is one of uncovering as much as one of discovery. I don’t feel as though I am learning new ways to cope with pain and stress, I feel as though I am uncovering old ones. These movement patterns stay with me and I feel the benefit of the time spent practising Feldenkrais even when I am not thinking about it. To me, this is a sign that my nervous system is responding to the time I am spending nurturing these natural responses. To me, this is evidence of neurological change. I am seeing myself differently and can feel and see my potential to find an even clearer view.

My dedication to Feldenkrais and to continued learning about the practise of meditation are making me feel better. The more I feel the physical benefits of awakening reflexes in the brain and the more I practise mindfulness, the more I believe that there truly are changes happening in my brain and that I am causing them. I wrote about neuroplasticity in regards to depression because that has been my most recent area of self exploration. I have been consciously recognising and choosing my responses to depressive thoughts and I might not always win, but sometimes I do. The more I practise, the more I understand, the more I learn about my mind, perception and control, and the less I feel depressed. For me, this is better than any science I have encountered, this positive attitude and approach are actually helping.

The things I write on my blog are never going to apply to all of you, Audy. Nothing in this world is ever going to apply to all of you. Although, a huge personal breakthrough for me was to realise that when I was reading about something that seemed like it was working for other people but didn’t apply to me, I realised that I should stop focusing on why it didn’t apply to me and start looking for ways in which it might. It was really of no benefit to my life to sit there and label things impossible. Why didn’t their approach apply to me? What’s different about us? For me, a lot of the time it came down to what I believed my limitations were. This led me to question why I should even believe that those limitations are limitations. I am currently experiencing a wonderful and almost childlike phase of questioning myself on my beliefs about just about everything.

There are plenty of physical things that I can’t escape, but I can keep learning to improve how I cope with them. As for the depression cycle? Well, if I can figure out how to overcome physical limitations, why can’t I also overcome negative thought patterns? No, I can’t control the thoughts coming into my head, but how I respond to them? I am taking responsibility for that, and I am learning to let go of things that are not conducive to happiness. Sure, I might have to recognise a lot of things about myself that I don’t really admire, but I do know that I’d rather know those traits are there so that I can alter them than remain ignorant of the workings of my very own mind.

Love & Possibility,
Caf

P.S. Thanks for all the kind words about Penelope! I am rather rapt to have completed her successfully

Dear Audy,

I’m very excited to announce that Operation Sew A Pretty Dress was a blazing success! Well, not literally, on account of who wants to wear a dress that’s on fire?

The key for me being able to sew without setting off a funtown flare is soft hands. So often, I am tensing part of my body much more than needed and it causes me more pain than is necessary. I have been doing a lot of Feldenkrais audio tracks to break up my sewing periods and the result has been a much better reaction than the one that hit me the day after Operation Sew A Pretty Dress commenced. I am quite pleased and proud of myself for bouncing back from that flare and continuing the project, my determination to find a way to sew without increasing the pain too much has paid off in pretty dress goodness!

I have named my homemade wardrobe addition Penelope. She just looks like a Penelope and I do like to name things.



I followed this Simplicity pattern. When I took my measurements I was shocked to discover that I was a size 22, when in the normal world I am sized 14-16, depending on how much the manufacturer wants to mock me. Numbers are just numbers though, so I went ahead and followed all the directions for size 22. I was super relieved to find that the sewing skills my mother bestowed upon me as a teenager have stuck. I wasn’t too sure if I would remember what to do, this was the first pattern I had tried to follow in over a decade! There are certainly a lot of failed clothing production attempts tucked safely away in the past, where they can’t horrify anyone anymore (and may I take a second to sincerely apologise to everyone forced to view the ever so loved by me fluffy, leopard print pants, circa 1999ish).

Penelope didn’t come about via a sweet smelling walk through a rose garden. I had a slight setback when I followed the instructions incorrectly while I was sewing the bodice, not realising I was working on a vague assumption that the zipper would go at the back of the dress. Hindsight pointed out that this was especially clever of me, considering that every dress in my wardrobe zips up at the side. All was not lost, however, some careful unpicking and rearranging left me with a bodice that, thankfully, fitted onto the skirt.

The second major hiccup came during a quick fitting check before sewing in the zipper. It was clear that Penelope was far, far too big for me. The sizing chart was a liar. That, or I am a bad measurer, or there is a third option… Penelope wasn’t meant to fit correctly straight from the pattern, she wanted to give me a little space to think creatively and make her fit, without destroying her in the process. I slept on it and would like to thank my morning brain for giving me the solution, like a trustworthy voice through a megaphone. The dress was pleated already, so there was opportunity for more pleating. I fixed my sizing issue like this:



I hemmed her to sit around my knees and then, hey presto! New dress. I was incredibly excited to have her finished in time to wear her to a beautiful wedding that I attended yesterday. I really didn’t wanted to drag one of my old faithfuls out of the wardrobe again. Penelope saved me from that undesirable plan B. Penelope is the bestest!

I am looking forward to planning my next stitchy mission. It’s so nice to be in control of my pain enough to create again. I have missed this!

Love & Zig-Zag Stitches,
Caf

P.S. Thanks for all the thoughts and discussion on my last post, I shall do some more thinking on that topic and elaborate sometime soon!

Dear Audy,

I received a great comment on my recent post Sorry, Frustration, But I Can’t Accept That Proposal. Amongst the many beautiful and encouraging words in that comment was an issue that has inspired me to take a closer look at my coping skills and why I have come to believe strongly in having the choice to stay above or fall below the line between momentary sadness and ongoing despair.

According to the symptoms for diagnosis, I suffer from clinical depression. However, I also suffer from crippling chronic pain and I view both the anxiety and depression symptoms as my body and mind trying to cope with both the pain and massive changes in quality of life. I was not suffering depression when I developed CRPS. In the previous post, I wrote “When nothing can be done to stop whatever is upsetting me, I am the only thing that can make me feel better. How? By choosing to. It’s just a choice, that’s all. The more that I am aware of the choice, the easier it is to let go of the feeling of desolation. It’s not always easy to see the choice, but it is always there.”

It is not uncommon to be met with defensiveness or even outrage when suggesting that depression is a choice – that’s exactly how I reacted when it was first suggested to me. Why? Because to most people, that means you are implying that it is as simple as any other choice, such as what to have for breakfast, or what colour socks to wear. When I say that choosing whether or not to give in to depression is possible, I certainly don’t mean that it’s easy to do.

(click for source)

The brain is a super lazy, super, synaptic network. If it usually responds to certain stimuli (inc. thoughts) in a certain way, then it remembers those connections, strengthens them (like a bicep in a gym) and uses them as a default setting. Over time, if a person allows negative thoughts to be accepted and regarded as fact, the mind produces more and more of these thoughts because physical and chemical connections in the brain start to change so that the route from perception to depression is the fastest and easiest one for the synaptic pulses to take. This is called neuroplasticity and means the brain has physically changed in response to how it is being used. If that word seems too complicated, think of it as I do – my brain is more like malleable plasticine than dried clay. Neuroplasticity means that the human brain is never ‘set’. It is always growing cells and creating new pathways for information to travel along.

Depression can linger long after its instigator has passed and is a bit like a poisonous snake – the cure is in the venom. Along with helping to aid depression in taking a hold of one’s mind, I believe that neuroplasticity is also the answer to both overcoming the depressive thought patterns and creating ways of recognising and responding to stimuli that are less destructive and even constructive. By recognising their existence and practising positive reactions, we can build new connections and new pathways for information to take, so that when it lands in our consciousness, it is a clear perception, rather than one tainted by its having taken the same neural pathway and acquiring the stigma of so many upsetting thoughts or sensations before it.

It is the hardest thing in the world to let go of justified anger or sadness…but that, right there, is the challenge that anyone facing depression must take on in order to overcome it. Accepting that I can choose how I react to thoughts is the most difficult mental strategy I have encountered and has arisen from years of working through my own emotions, thought patterns and responses. I don’t claim to have everything figured out, I battle with depressive thoughts every day. When I say ‘battle’, I am referring to the fight to simply let them go, rather than trying to ‘fight them off’, as the world suggests. In a way, I fight not to fight. The more negative thoughts and energy that I am able to recognise and let go, the stronger I feel. In order to get from a wheelchair to limited walking and driving, I’ve had to let go of a lot of pre-conceived notions of who I am, what I can control, what can control me and what it means to have this human body.

If someone had said to me years ago that the secret to not being depressed is to simply choose, I would have punched them in the face. Like many, I was so convinced that “No one understands!!”. It takes a lot of time and exploration to find ways to understand your own mind and I am learning a bit more about mine with each obstacle that I face. Depression is an ugly, ugly beast and manifests differently in everyone because we all have our own worries and woes for the anxiety to brew its emotional cocktails with. This can make it feel like a hugely personal thing, as though nobody has ever felt that awful before. Often people believe there is a root cause for their suffering and if they can only find and alleviate it then they will be ok. In my own experience, finding the root cause doesn’t automatically turn off the anxiety process and stop the depression.

The way I see it, root causes are red herrings when it comes to overcoming chronic depression and/or anxiety. They are valuable, but recognising them isn’t a cure, there will always be something else to be sad or upset about. I know plenty of people who claim that they are nervous people, or depressive people, or even abusive people because of what has happened to them in their lives. They can recognise where they tipped from mental stability but simply accept that as an excuse for their current behaviour, rather than challenging themselves to let the issue go so that it no longer holds influence over their life.

* * * * *

Everything I write here is just my opinion and I love hearing yours! Have you suffered or do you suffer from depression? If so, how does what I’ve written here make you feel? Please feel free to add your comments – coping with anxiety and depression aren’t set in stone things, nobody is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, I think the more discussion about the nature of it, the more awareness and acceptance we shall breed.

Love & Letting Go,
Caf

P.S. Depression is not all that different from addiction. It’s just the mind set in its way and causing physical effects that are not easily reversed. I bring this up because VicHealth has recently released its first positive anti-smoking campaign in 20 years. The gist? Every time you quit you get a little better at it. Never give up, giving up. As well as being a brilliant concept for an anti-smoking campaign, this perspective also applies to overcoming depression. By completely ripping them off, I give you this statement:

Every time you climb back up from a fall into depression you get a little better at it. Never give up getting up.

x

Dear Audy,

Mistakes are how we learn, right? Thus, when I overdid it a few days ago and set off the most horrible hand flare that I have had in quite sometime, what I was really doing was teaching myself that I had made an error somewhere in my expectation and preparation for beginning Operation Sew A Pretty Dress. Perspective can be a wonderful thing when it’s not messing with our heads.

(click for source)

After a lot of painkillers, some tears, some moaning and a bucketload of scowls, I think I have figured out what that error was. As a part of focusing on my pain rehab, I need to physically prepare for absolutely any task at all. This involves a bit of stretching and up to an hour of Feldenkrais. I have to think about what I am planning to do, how it will effect me physically and what I can do to minimise negative impact.

My expectation for Operation Sew A Pretty Dress was that I needed to be wary of my back and shoulders due to the sitting and odd positions that can arise when I am caught up in the chaos of creation. I prepared for that by focusing my Feldy work on my lower back and shoulders. What I forgot to think about was all the intricate hand and finger movements that are involved with pinning and cutting out fabric. What I have learnt is that the next time I sit down to continue my project, I need to warm up my hands first so that they don’t have another freak out.

This flare has been incredibly painful and incapacitating, but I am trying to take the positives and move forward, even though it is super tempting to keep crying and doing nothing. I don’t want to be that weak anymore. That’s not to say there hasn’t been a lot of venting and upset around here whilst I got to that decision and choosing not to let those emotions continue to control me takes all the mental muscle that I can muster.

It’s hard to let go of negative thoughts and emotions when the physical pain is so powerful, but that is exactly why I have to do it. Letting them go is more of a challenge than simply enduring physical pain and the more challenges that I take on and conquer, the brighter my future looks, each and every day.

Love & Keeping Perspective,
Caf

Dear Audy,

Very sore hands. Very, very sore hands. Trying not to stay in the trance of thinking about my very sore hands…so I recorded a talkie about the good things that have been happening lately.

Whenever I feel depressed, I also feel a little bit guilty. There is a difference between sadness and depression. When nothing can be done to stop whatever is upsetting me, I am the only thing that can make me feel better. How? By choosing to. It’s just a choice, that’s all. The more that I am aware of the choice, the easier it is to let go of the feeling of desolation. It’s not always easy to see the choice, but it is always there.

Getting to this realisation by lunchtime on a flare day makes me feel a little chuffed. I am making progress, flares are just flares and eventually I will have a nice, new, pretty dress.

Love & Lollipops,
Caf

Dear Audy,

Yesterday I did something that I have been planning on doing for a very long time, I commenced Operation Book Sort. I find some peculiar sort of satisfaction in tidying my books and the older they are, the better. Yellow pages? Excellent. Falling out of the spine? Oh, my heart aches for you. Once a precious gift for a stranger? How much mystery and history you hold!!

When I was a kid, I would read my books over and over and over again. Once was never enough. As an adult, I find that once is enough for most books, although I wonder what I am missing out on by not taking a second or third journey through the worlds in the words. Nothing that I have ever read as an adult has affected me the same way that those child read wonders did. Thankfully, most of these wonders act as little portals to the place where their time collided with mine and we shared adventures, grievances and dreams.

I recently mentioned a particular favourite of my childhood books, The Racketty-Packetty House. Thanks to one of my lovely readers, I now know that the author was the ever so captivating Frances Hodgson Burnett (of The Secret Garden and The Little Princess fame) and that the story itself was recently celebrating its 100th birthday! Birthdays are wonderful, this birthday called for a re-release of the book and now this happy little reader has a new copy coming. I cannot wait to visit the Racketty-Packetty (doll) House again, I have missed its run down family of misfits so!

I have dreamt of doing and being a lot of things in my life, but the earliest plan that I can remember was to become an author. I still enjoy writing, however I have always struggled with the discipline it takes to finish something that I have started. I have oh so many story plans that never make it past the first few chapters. In recent years, my efforts have been repeatedly thwarted by the chronic pain in my hands. I have decided that I shouldn’t let this stop me anymore. I have been working incredibly hard at pacing my day and managing my pain effectively and I feel that I am at the point where I can take on a few creative challenges, as long as I prepare myself to be flexible and not allow distractions or flares to completely halt my progress. I kind of feel that if I don’t then I shall end up a bitter old screwball.

Operation Book Sort has brought to my attention many literary gems that I had not seen or thought about for many years. I am considering a taking a reading trail down memory lane and to try and re-experience some of their magic so that I might feel inspired to weave my own stories. Just thinking about it is sparking off inspiration, so perhaps I shall just need to stare at the shelf for a while…

What were your childhood favourites? I think, above all else, I was most taken by The Chronicles Of Narnia. I am still looking for hidden worlds behind secret doors…

Love & Litspiration,
Caf