A pain in my.....aka quityerbitchin

So, it occurred to me today that I don't really tell people my real problems, I mention petty crap, but most people don't know what's really going on with me, because I don't want to bother them with my problems.  This is a long time response to my life, I mean how many people actually know that my mother, sister and aunt died in a car accident when I was 5.  I don't talk about it unless it comes up, because my grief is long over and I don't want to diminish your grieving.

Today, I decided that some people need to know what's going on because they feel the need to whine about how crappy their life is.  It's not going to change their mind, but it just frustrated me to no end.  My response to your pity party is to overload you with pity party.

My mother died as already stated, but shortly after this my father married a woman who beat me regularly, she abused me emotionally, mentally and physically.  If I upset her I wasn't allowed to call her Mom.  Don't finish eating in 30 minutes, after the beating it was 30 days of grounding to the yard.  She made me wear a skirt for standing on my tiptoes, eat (chew and swallow) soap for cursing and for perceived comments that I might make, eat baby food out of a bowl on the floor like a dog because I ate too sloppily.  Their divorce was my fault, per her comments to me.

No shock that at age 13 I attempted suicide, the one and only time was a failure.  I have thought about suicide several times, just didn't have the courage to do it.  Then in the USMC I found I was severely depressed, mood swings were off the charts.  It took nearly a year to determine I had low testosterone or to be exact hypogonadtropic hypogonadism.  I can take steroids to increase my levels, but there is a chance of prostate cancer, so I don't take it.  This means I can suffer severe depression and anger.

About 2 years ago, I started feeling a tingling in my left leg.  A doctor finally diagnosed the problem as spinal damage.  The leg feels like it's constantly asleep, hypersensitive.  If I step on a stone my leg feels like it's on fire.  Sleeping with the leg has become a constant bother because I have to figure out how to lay my hip and leg just right every night.

At some point during all this, my wife decided she was no longer in love with me, she walked out on 10 years of marriage.  I don't have a home, I live out of my truck. My kids who I love and miss dearly live in Corpus Christi and want me home, but I don't have a home, I have no money for a home.

Here's the most important thing, I'm happy, sure I miss my kids, sure I hurt, sure I want to have a home and a car, but I don't.  I wake up each day happy I'm alive.  My pain is not the worst pain I know of, my mourning not the deepest nor most heart-wrenching, my loss not the largest loss.  I can go on because I know someone out there is in worse pain and could use my support, someone has had a larger loss and could use the $1 I can give them today.  Because I live, I am happy.  Like Andy Dufresne says in Shawshank Redemption "Get busy living or get busy dying."

I'm not saying your pain or depression isn't worse, it's just not the worst.  If you need medication take it, if you need psychiatric or medical care please get it.