dialing in from the borderlands

There are so many things going on in my life now that I don't feel comfortable displaying here. That's the only way I can account for extended silences, or the shallow touch of subjects I visit here. I can't upset anyone with some pictures I took around the yard or neighborhood, my commute sunset or random facts about me. Even I cringe at my shallowness sometimes, but when I get the urge to talk about anything real, I am struck with the awful chance of someone I know or love stumbling across it and being hurt or offended. And not offending one of the many, many people in my life has become a major theme of this past year. It's becoming suffocating, honestly.

You might have noticed I've determined my injury to be a fairly innocuous subject, all around. ^_^;; So. Since I'm a hypochondriac of the most lovable type, and all my bodily hiccups are utterly fascinating to one and all...

I've been getting some acupuncture done to help manage the pain and anxiety I've been dealing with recently. It's my first time going to an acupuncturist, and has been a strange experience; a needle/wire accidentally left in once for me to discover as I was getting up, a couple of bruises caused by the needle/wires (hip and forehead! D'oh.) I'm not sure how long the acupuncturist has been doing this line of work, but don't think too long! :) But her bedside manner and patience keeps me coming back.

I definitely have less pain in my hip, but whether it's attributable at all to the acupuncture treatment is unverifiable, because I also had a cortisone shot around the same time that I started acupuncture. But the areas that I definitely noticed its effects are:

1. Sleep (I sleep better for about 3 nights, after my treatments, than I have since the accident)
   
2. Knot of pain in my stomach from stress (I feel it fading as I lay there on the table, and it doesn't come back for days. It's such a relief.)
3. Anxiety

The latter is probably the most nebulous, but the one I feel the most gratitude about these days. My anxiety is caused not only by my worry over the injury and what the long term affects may be on my health, but many other personal issues. It gets scary when my chest starts to feel constricted, and I notice every breath, regulate it. It begins to take effort to breath deeply, and hurts to expand my ribs. When I went in to the acupuncturist last week, and told her I was feeling incredibly anxious and stressed, she put a few needles in and I inexplicably began sobbing.

I think I've mentioned this before, but I turn my stress inwards and turn it into a bellyful of wanna-be ulcer. It's sad when you need to have the dam burst by a pin-prick. But burst it did, and I was a wet, bedraggled mess. I think the acupuncturist's understanding and bedside manner was incredible. I went on to sob for the entire hour on her table in the dark (hence, I think, the bruise on my forehead, from the needle in it!) And it's not like it fixed my problems or anything, because I went on to sob myself sick again the next night. But I think it may have helped force me to start the process of dealing with these dammed up emotions that were strangling me. And I feel a little bit stronger for it.

It sure was sheepish crawling back into her office the next week, though. --_--