Unpleasant Physical Observation #1

My chest has been tight and achey all day. Perhaps a result of acute anxiety or the fact that not a day has gone by since I was 19 that some part of my body has not been sore.

For the past year and a half now most of my torso has been in some kind of physical pain, be it the persistently tight shoulder, upper arm, and mid-back muscles, or the jammed up hips a lower back. Sometimes all at once.

I see a chiropractor every two to three weeks, and I tend to feel good for the remainder of the day. Less pain, but still a dull ache which I attribute to the aforementioned physical manipulation at the hands of my doctor. I would go more often; I would go every if I could afford it. Alas $40 per visit with no insurance represents a significant amount of my income.

I pop Robax Platinum at least a couple of times a day, with no discernible difference in comfort level. My muscles are not relaxed they are just slightly less tense. Not even a good dose of marijuana combined with a sound night's sleep and a heating pad on my back cannot undo the tension that is my constant state of being.

Today my chest has been feeling a strange pressure, almost like someone hit me in the solar plexus. This has been going on all day and I am wondering if I should get worried. After all, I have been complaining about chest pains for the better part of seven years. I worn a Holter monitor, had an ultrasound of my heart, had an ECG, and done that test where you run and they monitor your heart. I've been told by my family doctor, two chiropractors, and several psychiatrists that I need to relax and I will feel better.

Even when I have no reason to be tense, I am tense. I'm tense right now. I keep catching my shoulders creeping up towards my ears.

I would like to feel good, genuinely good, for just one day. I haven't felt truly well since I was in my teens, and even then I was having anxiety issues. Now sometimes I feel I have more than I can contend with. If I am not having a headache, I am depressed. If I am functioning at a normal mood level, I have aches and pains. If I am headache free and functional, I am anxious. If I am having a headache, I know that likely within the next 12 hours my mood will be highly unpredictable, and that I could either be ecstatically happy or fantasizing about suicide. Things could be worse, I know, but that doesn't mean I don't feel how draining it is or wonder why in the world I waste money on pharmaceuticals to begin with.

My mom always says, sighing, "No one can feel good all the time." True mom, but I would like to feel entirely, wholly good, just once.