My Stomach can go to Hell =_=;;

My stomach needs to go to Hell. Seriously. It's acting up AGAIN and pissing me off. I was sick all yesterday, isn't that enough? Of course, I'm in retrograde, so Murphy's Law and bad luck are going to be my best friends for about a month. Bleh. But seriously, I just want to sleep, and be healthy. Oi... damn stomach.

It's really bad too. My stomach is seriously my biggest fear. I'm always afraid I'll get sick, no matter where I go, what I'm doing, or how many times I've done it before. Coming to Hallmark was a personal accomplishment against my stomach, to prove I could do it.

My stomach makes me afraid to get a job, too. It played a big part in me wanting to be an entrepreneur because that way I could more flexibly work around it without the fear of getting fired. Sure, there's the threat of bankruptcy, but that doesn't scare me as much as being fired and what have you. I have more control over that.

Because of this stomach of mine, I skip out on things that could be fun. I've never been on a big school trip to places like Boston or NYC because of it. That and severe crowd claustrophobia, but still. My fear of being sick on these trips is that great. And sometimes just the fear itself can trigger my stomach. Total catch 22.

I'm sure some of you think I'm exaggerating on how bad it is, too. But I have IBS, which is a form of Fibromyalgia. Anyone with fibro can understand how painful IBS is, because they've probably experienced it. But IBS isn't something easy to live with.

Let me try to describe...

Basically, it feels like someone has poured corrosive acid all over your insides. They're on fire from a nuclear explosion. It's like your intestines are squeezing to strangle your spine, and somehow your lungs too. You're doubled over in so much pain that standing or sitting straight is literally impossible. Sometimes you cannot breathe because the pain is that intense. With it can come severe shaking that you can't stop. Almost like selective seizures to parts of your body. You don't know whether you want to cry, or scream, or moan in agony. After a while you learn to just be silent, because none of those things help. Quite often you also get severe nausea with all this, and if you attempt to take medication, you'll probably vomit. You can't usually eat or drink while it's occurring, because it tends to just make it worse. And it won't go away until there is nothing left in your system to expel. IBS is when the intestinal rhythm screws up, like two waves on the ocean crashing into each other. It makes your intestinal track try to turn itself inside-out.

What triggers it? Certain food, powerful emotions that play on your nerves, and the weather sometimes.

There are really no surefire meds for it either. There are some anti spasmatics out there that you can take, but they don't always work. And once the attack starts, they're pretty much useless. Everyone with it finds a different way of coping, but the big thing is to get your body to relax. Which is far easier said than done.

For me, I have to cool off, and read. Sometimes rock back and forth. My hands will shake, and my knees as well. In fact my knees tend to get bruised because they bang against each other and I don't notice at the time. Other pain does help distract me though, so that might be why they do it. But I just have to do this until I literally pass out from exhaustion. Sometimes, like right now, I can work on the computer. When it's not super bad. If I'm in public and can't do these things, then you might see me digging my nails into my skin, be it my palms or upper arms. I also grind my teeth, and start taking longer, deeper breathes. And I may or may not try to curl up.

What sucks the most though, is every time I vomit, how I am able to deal with it effectively seems to change. A couple years back I had to be sitting up. Now my body demands to be laying down. There was a time I had to completely freeze myself, now it's just my upper half. And so on.

But I digress, out of every challenge thrown at me in Hallmark, my IBS, my own personal demon, is the worst of them. Out of everything, it screws up more plans than I care to remember.

And let me tell ya, feeling like you're dying every time it hits ya, blows. You better believe it's caused me to leave class before, or not be able to go. It's highly distracting and unnerving.

Why am I telling you this? Because I tend to mention it a lot, and complain of it, and there are a lot of people who tell me to just deal. So here it is the full story as best I can. And a tiny bit of it is probably because it's 4:44am and the IBS is keeping me awake. I do randomly dumb things when overly tired. God help whoever it is I end up living with in the distant future, I'm gonna be a handful at times like these. @_@;;