28/08/2024
Tomorrow I have to have a colonoscopy and I'm not looking forward to it. My tummy has never been great, but it's been particularly bad since I started EMDR this year.
There's a decent chance that this is a mind/body symptom- one of the 'perks' of Complex-PTSD is that your body thinks you're still experienced the traumatic event. This means my autonomic nervous system is shot: no rest or digest for me. And the EMDR means I'm deliberately poking into the biggest and nastiest of my wounds on a weekly basis. Stirring everything up is really intense.
In preparation for the procedure I've had to be on a low fibre diet for a week, but now I'm fasting and taking laxatives- super fun.
You might think, low fibre diet, no major. But one of the ways I (try) to keep my chronic illness under control is through diet. My digestive system is super sensitive, and any change usually results in it having a tantrum. So along with an uptick in migraines and fatigue, I'm also dealing with nausea, bloating, dizziness, brain fog, tremors and joint pain.
And now I get to s**t myself for 24hrs. I'm seriously considering setting myself up on the floor of the bathroom because I'm already shaking with fatigue and I'm worried I won't have the energy to go far.
As a sexual assault survivor whose drink was spiked, I'm as triggered by the fact that I need to be sedated by IV as I am by the actual procedure. I've been working hard on my needle phobia but having an IV cannula inserted is still going to be really hard too.
There are two points to all this oversharing: a reminder that we go through the same stuff differently. That it's okay that I'm finding this 'standard' procedure more difficult than other people might.
And a note to myself, that by this time tomorrow it will all be over, and I'll hopefully have some answers.
This, like all things, is only temporary.
