The other day I was walking Bruce and I had a big visual hallucination.

It was like the world was suddenly zooming out.

I was looking down the sidewalk, and things were getting further away.

Like in the cartoons.

This happens.

It’s one of my more common hallucinations while in an episode.

That and a “waving” of the background or foreground.

And another one is where I’ll have tracers of things that are moving.

My arm or hand, cars, a door closing or something like that.

They’re all really quite disorienting.

I’ve also been getting more tactile hallucinations the past few days.

I haven’t been sleeping that well for weeks now.

I’ve been falling asleep at 2 or 3am and then waking up at 8am in so much pain I can barely move.

So, basically, I’m pretty sure I’m on the brink of a psychotic episode.

I think it’s starting.

And there’s no stopping it.

It’s just bracing for it.

So that’s happening.

I can’t think all that well this week.

I’ve been in a lot of pain too.

My knees and left big toe are killing me.

My ankles have been hurting too.

Because of that, I’ve been googling inflammation and how it affects certain parts of me.

And I even found out that my rheumatoid arthritis (RA) can inflame my brain.

Leading to multiple cognitive impairments, including the ever feared “brain fog”.

Which is another thing that I’ve been feeling lately.

I don’t ever test positive for the RA gene, I’m seronegative.

But my CRP levels are usually high, indicating RA and chronic inflammation.

I just had bloodwork done again and the CRP results were within normal limits, so I don’t know what the fuck is going on honestly.

And my knees have been killing me this past couple of months or so too, and have been swollen in the same time period.

It feels like I’m having a RA flare.

So lord knows if this is mental, or physical, or both, in terms of an episode.

I have gone down (on my own) on my methotrexate, my RA medication.

Maybe I’m now reaping the repercussions, as it takes several months to notice a difference, and have it create an impact.

Maybe I fucked myself over. 

But my CRP levels being normal is really fucking with my head.

I thought for sure they’d be high.

My knees feel like fucking garbage.

My body feels like fucking garbage.

Maybe it’s from the EMDR processing work?

I don’t know.

It’s so fucking hard for me to notice physical and mental issues at the same time.

It’s so difficult.

It’s either one or the other.

Not both.

I can’t do both.

But I need to learn how to.

I have got to learn how to listen to my body and mind better.

I’m terrible at it.

It’s like it’s too much for me to focus on when it’s all malfunctioning at the same time.

I just got back from picking up curbside groceries and got a bunch of fruit and veggies this time around.

I did much better than I usually do.

I got low inflammatory foods this round.

See if it makes a difference.

I hope it will.

Walking has been hard the past few weeks.

My knees feel like there’s very coarse sandpaper in them, under my knee caps.

My knee popped earlier and I thought I was going to collapse, it was so raw feeling.

It radiated up my thigh and I swear I could feel it in my hip even.

I took a nap Thursday afternoon and was woken up every 10-20 minutes by my knees just purely burning and aching and I kept getting a stabbing pain shooting through them while I was just laying there.

I wasn’t even moving.

I had to keep adjusting them slightly just to keep them from spazzing.

Chronic pain is maddening.

I want to walk more, but it hurts.

My big toe on my left foot is stiff and it throws off my gait.

It feels like I just massively stubbed it at all points in time.

My range of motion is limited and has been ever since I had surgery on it in the summer of 2021.

I had that surgery while I was in my giant psychotic episode. The only thing I remember is the fact that I had to take oxycodone, which broke my recovery time.

I remember that I was in my wheelchair and living in Denver still.

But I was for sure already dealing with a huge psychotic episode that I was dipping in and out of.

My left ankle is stiff too, from the same surgery in 2021..

My left foot just has this consistent ache in the outside part of the arch.

It feels like something is pinched or torn in there and never not aches.

My right calf has been killing me with charlie horses and tenderness the past few weeks also, since my vein ablation.

It feels like there’s a very specific line of a bruised nerve or muscle going down the back of it.

I’m sure it’s where the vein is, but man, that shit is achy.

And maybe I’m dipping in and out of psychosis so my body is feeling it tenfold.

I can’t help but notice I’m doing all of this EMDR work in therapy and my pain levels have been excruciating in the same time frame.

All of my reactions to my EMDR sessions are very somatic too.

I know it’s a somatic therapy, but my interpretations and processing is extremely physical.

When I was processing the fire that my brother and I started, I felt burning embers in my chest and then cool water rushing over my body.

Last session this week, I felt what I could only describe as a “glitter” feeling in my chest.

If glitter had a feeling, that is.

I have very little thoughts or cognitions that surface.

I’ve been having intense dreams, absolutely intense.

I can’t remember them that well.

But they’ve been extremely engulfing during them.

The one I had last night I was working at an old job again, but that’s all I remember.

So maybe all of that has more to do with my pain levels than I’m giving it credit for.

Maybe my processing is impacting my pain more than I thought.

Or maybe my arthritis is getting worse.

Or is a huge possibility that it’s also both.

The increased pain could be from the EMDR processing and from my arthritis getting worse.

The mornings are the hardest.

And getting up after sitting for a while is difficult too.

I’m just so stiff.

My knees don’t move properly right away.

It takes a few minutes to loosen them up.

The pain used to fade by afternoon, but now it’s all day and has been for several months now.

The mornings are always the worst.

Getting up from sleeping is literally pure torture.

I dread my alarm going off, not because I have to hear it but because I have to get up and turn it off and that requires me to bend my knees right away.

It feels like someone has taken a baseball bat to my knees throughout the night.

As if I’ve been under anesthesia and someone took their day out on my knees and now I have to deal with the aftermath.

It’s fucking awful.

I did find some articles that stated that EMDR is beneficial for pain management here and here.

But all of the articles I could find talked about autoimmune disorders (mainly fibromyalgia and RA), migraines, phantom limbs post surgery pain, back pain and psychological issues.

I couldn’t find anything on arthritis specifically.

I know I have narrowed joint space.

I know I have bone spurs.

I know I have a pinched nerve in my back.

I know I have real, physical issues that are causing some of my pain.

But that’s just it – some of my pain, not all of it.

*sigh*

At least I have a rheumatology appointment on Wednesday next week.

That’s a bonus.

I still cannot believe that my CRP levels are normal.

Blows my fucking mind.

Oh well.

It is what it is.

Back to just an osteoarthritis diagnosis probably.

I’m debating keeping the rheumatology appointment in general now.

I have about a week to think about it.

I’m waiting on a call back from the orthopedic/sports medicine office now.

I have a feeling they’re gonna be the more relevant ones now.

Goodness.

I thought things would get easier the more I work on myself…

Turns out they’re just getting harder.

– Keren