I struggle with my mind and body giving out on me.

The giving out of either part usually happens at different intervals.

Different times.

Several days of my mind not functioning properly.

Then several days of my body not functioning correctly.

Rinse and repeat.

When they happen at the same time, it sends me off the rails.

Before antipsychotics, they would both constantly be malfunctioning simultaneously and it makes me feel beyond helpless.

Out of control of myself.

My knees are the worst, pain level wise.

They have been for quite some time.

But my lower back has been giving them both a run for their money in the past few years.

I’ve been in physical pain since before the age of twenty six.

Mental pain, about ten years earlier than that.

I feel like I don’t belong anywhere more times than not.

I’ve heard the phrase “you’re too young for those pain levels” ever since I hit my twenties.

That’s annoying enough to hear on its own.

Because I do deal with it.

I have been dealing with it.

And I’m going to continue dealing with it regardless of my age.

In fact, my pain levels are just getting worse as the years pass.

My left knee hurt so bad that I couldn’t go into the gym yesterday for my aquatic aerobics class.

I drove there, and instantly turned into the lot just to drive back out and head home.

The bumps in the road while driving there and back were making my left knee burn, heavily.

It feels like there’s a lit matchstick under my kneecap.

It feels like someone took a baseball bat to it.

It feels internally raw.

Every slight movement burns and stabs and shoots pain.

I swear anyone else dealing with these pain levels would not be able to handle them.

The degrading of my joints has been happening gradually for so long that I’m disgustingly used to the amount of pain they produce.

The gradual degradation happened all throughout my body and mind.

I’m sitting here this morning super fucking annoyed with everything.

With not being able to go into the gym.

With the auditory hallucinations.

For the fact that severe arthritis is coating all of my joints, big and small.

For the fact that I’m unable to control my mind.

This is my 100th post on this blog and I can’t even be decent with myself about it today.

I just keep sitting here thinking about everything I can’t do.

My body aches and my mind fucks with me.

I have to remember that I’m doing the best I can.

My Dad told me that this morning and it’s true.

Valid point, right?

I know it is true, it’s just hard to accept some days.

When my body doesn’t cooperate on top of everything else, I feel like a failure with too many limitations.

It makes me feel like I can’t control any part of me.

It makes me feel helpless.

Out of choices.

When I’m having mental illness symptoms it makes me feel the same way.

And sometimes the feelings are even thicker.

When I can reflect as I’m symptomatic.

Which is extremely difficult at times and impossible at others.

Having psychotic symptoms absolutely makes me feel out of control.

Completely out of control.

When my body follows suit it makes the lack of control impossible to take.

The only way I can survive some days is to just lay on my couch.

Legs stretched out.

TV blaring in the background as I write in google docs on my phone.

Scroll through random videos.

I try to not hate on myself.

Not actively.

It makes days like today even more difficult when I do.

But it’s seemingly impossible to avoid sometimes.

I keep going back and forth with being hard on myself and telling myself that there’s unfortunately nothing I can do about any of it.

It’s just difficult.

Chronic joint pain mixed with chronic psychosis feels impossible to survive some days.

– Keren