Tag Archives: medicine

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Acknowledgment

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I have been going through this “thing”, ever since I whole heartily decided to change. The change I’m sure will be lifelong, because that’s the way life is, always changing.  I just want to do my best at all times. The challenge with that scenario is that I am HUMAN, and I have a wide range of emotions.  And right now I’m pissed. Probably for unrealistic reasons, but I’m still pissed.  I am allowed to feel.  It’s how I handle those feelings that determines the outcome.

Right now I feel unimportant.  I know that is not the case, because God loves me, and that’s all I really need.  But I am still on this big round thing we live on, and I am still affected by what others do.  It will pass, and I will get thicker skin with time, but right now it would be nice to have a living breathing human being to talk to.  I don’t have that at this point, so I attack my keyboard, and spew these feelings.

I’ve always been helped by what they call talk therapy.  (Psychotherapy)  Talking to someone who will listen works wonders for me.  Sometimes I just need a hug…or an ear.  And that’s ok. For the longest time I have felt that it is a weakness to show weakness.  I thought I had to be strong all the time, for everyone. In being “strong” I denied myself the chance to be human.  Sometimes it’s good to be strong for others, and I want to. I want to be there for those I love. Always.  It’s just that in the quiet times, it’s not always easy to be strong, and I fall apart.  I do my best to be positive, but sheeeeit….sometimes I just need to let the walls down and have a good cry. Or a good talk, or go to someone who can support me…I mean physically/emotionally …It’s good to have living breathing human acknowledgment, especially from those you love, and from those that say they love you.  Everyone is different, some want or need more support than others (if it’s healthy, and not co-dependent) .  Others don’t…it’s all ok either way.  I think what’s important is that we just TRY to be there for each other.  Life is going to throw enough ups and downs at me, so it’s good to know that I know that I know who’s got my back.  I hope and pray I have told my peeps that I will always be there for them as well.

Acknowledgment

I believe that the “forces of evil” will use my weakness to throw me off track, if I let them.  Fear, doubt, insecurity….those are all of no good. They cause nothing but problems and create more of the same.

I find that each day I am getting stronger, but like life, I must rest.  I am tired right now and want to cuddle…LOL…when I’m tired, I become vulnerable to those weaknesses that I work so hard to fight.  This is a journey, learning process…with time things will move to smoother waters, this I know with my whole heart.

Right now, I’m just tired and need that support.  A soft place to fall.

Reposted from 2013. It seems that I’m the same person, yet different.

✌️

Shassy

photo of hand with dark paint
Photo by Elīna Arāja on Pexels.com

Keywords: acknowledgment, emotional, trauma, pain, mental health

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Post Acute Withdrawal

Post Acute Withdrawal

Post Acute Withdrawl. (PAW)

Exerpted from “Staying Sober” by : Terence T. Gorski

“When most people think about alcoholism or drug addiction, they think only of the alcohol/drug-based symptoms and forget about the sobriety-based symptoms.  Yet it is the sobriety based symptoms, especially post acute withdrawal, that make sobriety so difficult.  The presence of brain dysfunction has been documented in 75-95% of the recovering alcoholics/addicts tested.  Recent research indicates that the symptoms of post-acute withdrawal associated with alcohol/drug related damage to the brain may contribute to many cases of relapse.

Post acute withdrawal is a group of symptoms of addictive disease that occur as a result of abstinence from addictive chemicals. In the alcoholic/addict these symptoms appear seven to fourteen days into abstinence, after stabilization from the acute withdrawal.

Post acute withdrawal is a bio-psycho-social syndrome   It results from the combination of damage to the nervous system caused by alcohol or drugs and the psychosocial stress of coping with life without drugs or alcohol.

Recovery causes a great deal of stress.  Many chemically dependent people never learn to manage stress without alcohol and drug use.  The stress aggravates the brain dysfunction and makes the symptoms worse.  The severity of PAW depends upon two things:  the severity of the brain dysfunction caused by the addiction and the amount of psychosocial stress experienced in recovery.

The symptoms of PAW typically grow to peak intensity over three to six months after abstinence begins.  The damage is usually reversible, meaning the major symptoms go away in time if proper treatment is received.  With proper treatment and effective sober living, it is possible to learn to live normally in spite of the impairments.  But the adjustment does not occur rapidly.  Recovery from the nervous system damage usually required from six to 24 months with the assistance of a healthy recovery program.  Recent research is showing that for some recovering people the symptoms of PAW often occur at regular “moon cycle” interval and without apparent outside stressors.  Often those 30, 60, 90, 120, 180, and 1 and 2 year sobriety dates seem to be “triggering” times for PAW symptoms to increase.  People recovering from long term opiate and stimulant use often have PAW symptoms for no apparent reason for up to 10 years after they have stopped using their drug of choice.  Often PAW symptoms appear to come and go without apparent reason and without any specific pattern.  Individuals who intend to have consistent long-term recovery must learn to recognize these symptoms and learn how to manage them.

Symptoms of Post Acute Withdrawal

The most identifiable characteristic is the inability to solve usually simple problems.  There are six major types of PAW symptoms that contribute to this.  They are the inability to think clearly, memory problems, emotional overreactions and numbness, sleep disturbances, physical coordination problems, and general problems managing stress.  The inability to solve usually simple problems because of any or all of these symptoms leads to diminished self esteem.  A person often feels incompetent, embarrassed, and “not okay” about themselves.  Diminished self esteem and the fear of failure interfere with productive and challenging living…”

I had studied all of this before, but as I read this, I realize that I need to keep focused.  I have experienced some of these symptoms, and luckily I have not relapsed.  It was very hard. I will better be able to handle recovery, if I understand what is happening.

Although, there have been times where I have fallen, face first, right off the wagon. It’s like the sticker stuck in your sock, that pokes your ankle but you can’t quite seem to find it. It’s always there. The thought of the sweet escape from whatever pain I’m feeling, is always there. Always. Dopamine is a powerful drug. Don’t ever think it’s your friend when you decide to reach for that unhealthy coping skill, because that skill could kill you. Trust me on that one. I’ve overdosed and only by the grace of God I am here to talk about it. Maybe one day I’ll write a post about it, but right now, I’m not ready.

depth photography of blue and white medication pill
Photo by Pietro Jeng on Pexels.com

✌️Shassy

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Humble Collective SEXtuple Strength pain salve. My 1st go-to for topical pain control.

Humble collective pain salve
Humble Collective SEXtuple Strength pain salve. My 1st go-to for topical pain control.

As always, you can click on any underlined words, or pictures to get you to a description, or to their site to purchase for yourself.

Humble collective sextuple strength

This pain salve works great when I have a flareup of gout, or just plain soreness from throwing hay bales, or cutting down trees. It’s topical, so you just take a small amount and massage it into the area you are experiencing pain.

Ingredients are as follows:

  • Coconut oil
  • Arnica infused olive and sunflower oil
  • Beeswax
  • Cayenne infused olive oil
  • Full spectrum Hemp oil
  • Vitamin E oil
  • An essential oil blend of Lavender, Wintergreen, Turmeric, Copaiba, Peppermint & Ginger

Most of these ingredients a lot of us use already. Notice, again, nothing that you don’t understand as far as ingredients, no additives or fillers. Organic. Cruelty free.

Use my code “Humble Alternative” for an extra discount at checkout.

✌️Shassy

Humble collective pain salve
Humble Collective SEXtuple Strength Pain Salve 600 mg CBD

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2nd Product info in the three part series on my last couple of Humble orders.

2nd Product info in the three part series on my last couple of Humble orders.
2nd product info

This is rosin pressed….think of how olive oil is produced. They take the hemp plant and place in a powerful press, with a little heat, and it literally squeezes out all of the goodies. Remember our bodies already have an endocannabinoid system, so this plant is made to work with our bodies and create homeostasis.

“A rosin press is a machine that uses a pair of heated plates to press with enough pressure any cannabis, and hemp material, such as buds, keif, or hash, which causes the cannabinoids and terpenes to seep out in an oily form called rosin. Rosin gained popularity with its solventless yet easy extraction process.” (Sited from trimleaf.com)

The ingredients are as follows:

  • Organic MCT oil
  • hemp extract.

That’s it. Not additives, nothing. Pure plant medicine. You can check out this product, and all of their other products via this safe link.

✌️Shassy

Kewords: 50,000 uses for hemp, hemp products,, eating hemp seeds changed my life, benefits of eating hemp leaves, what is hemp used for medically, health benefits of cbd, hemp and cannabidiol,

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UPDATE:Vagus Nerve. I saw a video about resetting the vagus nerve, and thought I’d think out-loud via a blog. The vegus nerve runs from top to bottom throughout your body.

picture of magic garden from fairy tales
Update: Vagus nerve. I saw a video about resetting the vagus nerve, and thought I’d think out-loud via a blog. The vagus nerve runs from top to bottom throughout your body.

**Sorry this took so long, I’ve been running twelve different directions, and reading a lot. I’ve tried to condense this down to be a shorter read, with links to some of the information I have read.**

What is the vegus nerve? It is one of 12 cranial nerves that run throughout your body, and it affects both motor and sensory functions. It helps control digestion, heart rate, breathing, cardiovascular activity and reflex reactions such as sneezing. It comes from the Latin word “wandering” because it basically wanders from top to bottom throughout your body. It helps regulate your immune system, helps control the fight or flight response, inflammation in response to disease.

“It has four main functions: sensory, special sensory, motor and parasympathetic.” (Cited from this trusted source). It has a back and front (dorsal and ventral). Cues are activated along these during neuroception during times of safety, or times of, what you may perceive as danger. Safety cues are activated through the ventral, and danger cues are activated through the dorsal side.

“According to the Polyvagal theory, the vagus nerve is the key phylogenetic substrate that supports efficient emotion recognition for promoting safety and survival. Previous studies showed that the vagus nerve affects people’s ability to recognize emotions based on eye regions and whole facial images, but not static bodies. “ (Cited from this trusted source.)

The vegus nerve can get out of whack, to explain it easily. It’s the longest cranial nerve running from the base of the brain, down to the colon. Damage to the vegus nerve can affect cardio function, or anything else that it helps to regulate. There’s a lot of other info via this trusted source, if you would like to read more from that publication.

https://atomic-temporary-41308365.wpcomstaging.com/cbd/

So as I’m reading all of this, and researching, what I’m understanding is this. If you ever get a gut feeling, your vagus nerve is involved, if you are ever in a traumatic situation, your vagus nerve is deciding which emotion, or feeling is going to be sent to the brain. In my case, I had a home invasion. During the actual event, I was feeling anxiety and fear. How this affects my diagnosis of ptsd, I believe is relevant. The brain tells the body what to do, but the body has built in survival mechanisms…one being this cranial nerve. But it’s been years since the home invasion….so is my vagus nerve still reacting? I believe the answer is yes. In the moment, the body defaults to survive. But the brain remembers the trauma, and it’s chemical makeup in changed after trauma. So during times when I have episodes of flashbacks, or anxiety, I believe the brain sends fight or flight signals to the vagus nerve, which can then cause physical manifestations of the original trauma. Elevated heart rate, nausea, rapid thoughts.

This also applies to a persons ability to empathetic. Good things come from the vagus nerve.

“However, sometimes we do not receive this care and love in our relationships. Relational trauma impair our trust in others and, like all traumatic events is held in the body and is often maintained as dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The ANS is the part of your nervous system that manages how you respond to stress. In addition, the ANS also helps you to find healthy relaxation into a felt experience of safety. All of this is directly related to the tone and health of your vagus nerve.” (Cited directly from this trusted source from Dr. Arielle Schwartz.)

So now that I’ve done this research, in layman’s terms, this cranial nerve can directly impact your emotion, physical well being, and correlate happy and sad events. Traumatic events, being in love, how we are going to respond, if we have symptoms of ptsd, ect. So that can explain my question to myself, below, can trauma, ect cause damage. Yes it can. It rewires things sometimes.

How can we repair our vagus nerve. I’m including a link here to explain all of that. Alternating nasal breathing, going out in nature. (I do this, it works), changing your diet to unprocessed Whole Foods. (Here’s a link to start changing your diet). I have changed my diet, to nothing processed. Nothing. Processed foods make me feel bad, and cause autoimmune flare ups for me.

In answer to this question: YES. ➡️What I’m wondering, is can trauma; be it physical, mental, emotional etc., cause damage, and exacerbate existing mental health issues, by causing small injuries to the vagus nerve. Obviously physical damage can do that.. car wreck, a fall. Can a person who has undiagnosed autoimmune, personality disorder, or any other mental health disorder become more symptomatic if the vegus nerve is damaged and goes undetected? Or are a lot of those caused from a damaged vegus nerve?

I’m probably overthinking it…but I’m going to do some research. I already know that people with the MTHFR polymorphism, can be affected by the bodies inability to absorb other nutrients, thus causing more issues. It can also lead to early onset Alzheimers. I’m just wondering how and IF it’s affected me and my diagnoses.

Thanks for listening to my thoughts. Lol

✌️

Vegus nerve Cardio Shassyswalkabout.com
Photo by Alexander Ant on Pexels.com

Keywords: vagus nerve stimulation vagus nerve disorders vagus nerve exercises vagus nerve symptoms, vagus nerve function, vagus nerve and anxiety

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Ghosts

Ghosts

Cold ghosts from the grave

Clawing up with rose colored glass

Only to slither under skin

Feeling warm, then reminds of sin

Come at me, defiant one

Trick me with your violent pun

For I will always see

The truth in you

Blackened

Fetching

Luring

The prince you think you are

Not true

For you

Are nothing; death destroying

Disguised as diamonds

Under rotting flesh

Stealing from others

Incapable of feeling

Light shines through your guise

For in reality you are far from wise

So try as you may, to sway and disguise

Truth will prevail

It will be you who dies.

©️shassyswalkabout.com

Ghosts from the past
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Flashback

Flashback

Obtrusive words

You bring to me

After a speck of guilt filled kindness sent

Though they weren’t,

They were

Only wanting

Always needing

I push down feelings of betrayal

Once again

You kill me with your presence

Without even being here

Your effervescent light is just trickery

Armor on

Tears repressed

I must realize the facade

Step back

Retract

Breathe deep and weep.

Flashback

©️shassyswalkabout.com

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There are times when others only want to talk to us, or see us when we seem to fit into their lives.

There are times when others only want to talk to us, or see us when we seem to fit into their lives.

Our society has conditioned our ever present brains to accept what is put in front of our faces, usually via an electronic device or screen. We post a smiling face, nice house, fancy car, when in reality a lot of our lives are filled with pain, dysfunction and calamity.

Suicide thoughts run rampant among those of us who have had to deal with a lifetime of trauma. Or any trauma. Whether it’s from combat, familial abuse, spousal abuse, or abuse from a stranger. Anything traumatic, that makes a person question their safety, whether it’s emotional, spiritual, mental or physical,WILL CHANGE YOU.

I don’t care what you say. It changes a person. Someone who has experience trauma, will not come out on the other side the same, and a lot of times, they don’t even recognize what’s happening, and have no idea how to deal with it. (Me).

This has been me for the majority of my life. Not knowing what’s wrong, wanting to “fix” it, not understanding why I made horrible choices and decisions, and stumbling through, hiding my pain and ignoring my own emotional well being, thinking that crying, or showing emotion, was considered a weakness.

This year has been a really good year of understanding, self discovery, setting boundaries, forgiveness, mixed in with a range of emotions including extreme anger, heartbreak and acceptance. It’s not a done deal, as life is about change, and since we (me, you) are still here, then the progression will continue.

How much should a person share? Where’s the boundaries? When does it become too much? Or not enough? A lot of people really don’t care when they ask “How ya doin’?” It’s a knee jerk reaction, and honestly, we as humans need to watch our words. I STILL have a hard time with that… thinking that everyone means what they say. They don’t. They are full of shit.

Not every person is an asshole, not every person INTENDS to not mean what they say. But there are people who just provide lip service; they say what they think you want to hear, and walk off. Stay away from those people.

AND, there are genuine, good humans, who say things, then life happens and they, for some reason out of their control, couldn’t follow through, or said something that came out wrong. I’ve done that myself.

We aren’t perfect. Our lives aren’t perfect. We wake up with morning breath, we don’t always shave our legs (haha), we get so depressed that we feel like we would be better off, not alive anymore, or can’t shower, eat, breathe without physical pain. If I posted the 90 bazillion other photos of how I really feel during the day, most days, I’d have someone calling for a welfare check.

I guess I want to normalize being REAL. No, we don’t need to share everything, no one needs to know how many shits you took today… (unless you are in the hospital, or work in the medical field… but that’s another post…lol).

Needing validation is a human necessity, in my opinion, but, it needs to be done in a healthy way, and not filled with falsified “look at my perfect life” Instagram photos, or creating the perfect reel, with the perfect children, skinny perfect wife and hot ripped husband. We need to support each other as humans, perfectly flawed and messed up.

Yes, keep yourself healthy, because we all know that batshit crazy person (people) who’s narcissistic abusive behavior will ruin you. Set your boundaries, and for the love of mud, do not let them move. Flexible, maybe, but have a hard line. That may sound like a bass-ackwards way to describe it, but 🤷🏻‍♀️.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. (I have crisis in my contacts). Don’t be ashamed of not being what society or people think you should be. It’s not their business.

Also, if you’re an asshole, keep being you boo…you’re not fooling anyone.

✌️Everything is here.

There are times

Keywords: there are times, there are time when you might feel aimless, there are times in life lyrics, embittered there are questions unanswered

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Scan this code for all my contacts 30 Nov 22

Scan this code for all my contacts. 30 Nov 22
Scan this code
Scan code donation links camper/van fundraiser

This is my centralized location for everything. It’s all here in one place.

You can scan this into your phone, and it will take you right there.

Please considering donating to camper/van fund. All donations are tax deductible and I will have an accountability person, all funds will be open for inspection. Complete transparency where your donations will go.

Just a quick note. My mental health cycles, and I have to take time out some days to cope.

Have a wonderful Wednesday, peace and blessings.

✌️ Shassy

https://atomic-temporary-41308365.wpcomstaging.com/make-money-online/
Donate to camper/van fund here.

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“Clock” MoveMePoetry 11-4-22

“Clock” MoveMePoetry

Don’t drip my time

Encase it with chains

Make me feel wetness

On my legs

As you beg

To keep me

One last time

I will not give in

This rattling tin

Of a heart

Is shorn short

Of time

Release me

As I release you

From forever shackles

Man made hackles

Of shine

One

Last

Time

Your clock strikes mine.

MoveMePoetry Medium Poetry Battle Clock writing poetry

©shassyswalkabout.com

https://atomic-temporary-41308365.wpcomstaging.com/nanowrimo-50k-words-during-november/