Day 30-Word Cloud-#HAWMC/WEGO health

As I work pretty much only on an iPad as I can manage to carry it & not a laptop these days, the wordle.net wouldn't work, but they suggested a great app where you can only use 10 words BUT you can use your own photo as the backdrop! Perfect for me as my blog focus is documenting me & these illnesses. This pic was taken about a year ago, & I took a purple (fibromyalgia's awareness color) ribbon & wrapped it around my mouth, as I had found out news that would deeply impact my life & had no say in the decision. I used it with the words shown to make my own sort of word cloud! (the app is wordfoto)

 

 

Day 26-tag line-Pain worth a pic-#HAWMC/WEGO

Today we are to come up with a tag line for our illness or blog or just overall focus. After living & working & traveling all over the world taking pictures, I missed the creative outlet so much. After a year of being housebound, I turned the camera inward. If this illness could destroy me but it not show itself outwardly, I decided to give it a face. My Flickr accounts turned to a pic a day blog, & it's grown from there. I had said once or twice that phrase...pain worth a pic, & I feel it really sums up the education & knowledge that drives me to keep doing this blog. These two pics show how I was feeling today. Hopeless, guilty, sad, scared, angry, & wanting to at once disappear yet to face this illness as well.

 

 

Day 17- pent-up feelings will explode in 3-2-1 #HAWMC

One of the biggest mistakes that I learned the hard way was mentally (& emotionally) secluding myself the 1st year I became housebound. I had to move in with my parents in my mid-30s. They became my caregivers by default, & as I write this I've just woken up with a massive panic attack...which is a perfect example of why sharing helps. My parents couldn't understand all the feelings I was having. Grief, loss, humility, independence, etc were just a few. They took the look on my face as anger & I would be shocked when they would frequently ask 'why are you so mad?' when I was in fact, at that moment, very depressed-not at all angry. My face came across one way & without my knowing gave away the wrong emotion. I didn't talk to anyone-didn't reach out through technology like I do now. Fights would start & misunderstandings took over. I would implode yet the bottle seemed to break outwards.

I joined Flickr & finally started documenting me-my fight with fibromyalgia & what physical & emotional tools it was taking. It became my saving grace...to open myself up to the rawest degrees. I started joining groups through various social media & found a voice, & last year really started blogging daily. It has made a huge difference in simply getting feelings out & rarely having to say a word-my face did the talking yet this time people saw what I was really feeling. The picture below is photo manipulated to show how my outsides don't match the invisible pain inside.

 

 

Day 16 writing style #HAWMC #WEGO

For me, something, a picture or event just goes from brain to blogsy. I'll be watching a movie & have to stop & write my blog...example: after 'fight' tonight with family about moving

Today I realized that from now until we move there will never be a day when I'm not asked to go through boxes, asked about items-should I, can I, may I keep things? Things I love. Things that bring back memories. Happy memories, sad memories, bittersweet memories. Each item has a story, & each story carries grief, laughter, love, & letting go. Mom & dad see my reaction to this as anger-when it's the opposite. Each item I see Zoe, from the first day I got her until the day the vet put her to sleep. I see my overseas life-when I did something that mattered. I helped people...there was a need for me in this world, & there really isn't that need now. I see old friends-some I hold so close to my heart even though I've lost them in one way or another. I see Kris-my late brother. I see my old future potential. I see my test results that admitted me into graduate school. I see gifts from my university students. As much as I hate to say it pain overwhelms any feeling of joy at looking at these precious items. Mom & dad think my resistance to change boils down to drs & morphine, when it's grief over losing professionals who see me as a person who is legitimately hurting & in pain. Mom feels she is the whipping post, dad feels like the joy he used to feel can never be found again, & I feel like an anchor weighing them down from sailing into their sunset years together.

 

 

This morning...#HAWMC WEGO day 12

Today we are to start with the given sentence & just free write. 'This morning I looked in the mirror' & immediately looked away. It's funny. I've been documenting my illnesses for almost 5 years now, & most of the pics are self portraits. I don't mind looking at them...even though they are me they aren't. They're the subject of documenting fibromyalgia & how it looks, acts, is. Taking pics & opening myself up to something so vulnerable is a project-a coping mechanism, just like blogging & a pic a day is-it might seem vain but it's a far cry from that. I used to photograph my overseas living, travels, & when I became housebound I had to turn the camera on myself to face what I was becoming. It was a way to learn to live with this new, foreign me in a distant way. Taking it as a project kept it from becoming too personal at first. I was looking at a disease. I hate seeing myself. I hate looking into a mirror. There are days I purposely don't look in a mirror for days, yet I see myself in photo manipulating pics daily. I'm sure it will continue to stay that way, though I know it's not totally healthy. Just trying to make it minute to hour to day to week to month is hard enough.

 

 

Feeling fully

Feeling so many emotions at once, I can't even express properly, so I'll let the pic speak for itself.

 

Ying & birthday yang

Birthday candles through the Percolator App

Birthday self portrait 9:45 PM, upstairs, alone.