Chaos, Coffee, and Confessions: Finding my way back to mental health

If there's one thing I've learned over the past four and a half years, it's that no one will guard your mental health more than you. You know your own mind, you know your triggers. You know what you can tolerate and you know what will set you off. You know you can't get into a car with out feeling claustrophobic, you know that a doctor's appointment causes anxiety to the point you're crying in the waiting room. You know that if someone doesn't care how you feel, it can hurt more than the health issue you're dealing with.  I also know that protecting your mental health is hard. You're already going through a lot and you have to go through even more to keep what little positive mental health you have left.  Sometimes you have to be the garbageman. And yeah, sometimes their job sucks shit. Before the appointment at the Mayo Clinic in February of this year (2024) that changed my life, I had been friends with a co-worker for years. We met at work, got to ...

Not much has changed since I wrote last. Still shaky in the mornings, bloated, feeling it under my belly button and in my pelvis. I've been trying to treat the hemorrhoids they found during my colonoscopy, and I think when I had the procedure done, they scratched me up a little bit in there. My doctor at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester said to use A & D ointment, so I've been doing that. I think it's helped a little bit, but it kind of burns too, and though my lichen is doing okay, I still feel swollen at times. I really think if I can get my hemorrhoids under control, I can handle the rest better. I know why they bother me--this bloating makes me feel heavy around my clitoris, vagina, and my butt, and between the heaviness and the hemorrhoids, I have a sensation of having to have a bowel movement that comes and goes. It's not terrible, but in the mornings I usually have to go to the bathroom once or twice. I'm pretty regular now, and I'm "done" going...