The Slide

I have been working up to getting a massage… for the first time in my life.  For reasons that are probably understandable, the idea of a stranger putting their hands all over me has always been disturbing, and then add being naked for all of that touching… just a big nope for me.

But I have a fucking hard ass job.  I have a fucking hard ass life.  And somehow I’ve started coming around to the realization that maybe there are things that are worth getting past my fear of.  So I started thinking about massage.

I’ve been talking to Sir about it… talking to my therapist about it… talked to my bestie, S, about it… and several people suggested getting a chair massage as a baby step to the full on naked experience…

So, this Saturday… I went to Whole Foods and… locked myself in the bathroom for thirty minutes and panicked.  Then I circled the registers four times, went and got a bottled water, circled three more times, and went and bought a massage voucher (I’d never done that and didn’t know exactly how to ask, so… that alone caused major panic.)

Then I went and had to wait for the last person to finish, so I drank my water and watched people in Whole Foods and did deep breathing and tried not to panic.

Then when it was my turn, they made me wait because a “new therapist” was starting and they had to show her how the chair worked…

Um.  Okay.  Sure?

So I waited, and then the original therapist introduced me to the new therapist (and helped her figure out the chair with me on it) and said, “Good luck!” and left.

I told this person that I’d never done this before so I didn’t know anything about it, but I was just looking to do some relaxing things for myself since I have a hard job.  She said, sure, and started pressing on my back.

She said I had a lot of knots and she started putting her elbows and thumbs into different muscles, she put her elbows into my back all up and down the sides of my spine, she did… a lot of stuff. And it hurt.  It felt like she was pressing into my bones at my hips and on my shoulder blades.

She asked if any of those spots were particularly tender, and I said every time she touched me it was tender, I asked if that was normal or if my body was just oversensitive because my immune system doesn’t like me.

She just laughed and said something about one of my muscles being tight, and dug her thumb into it.

So like a good, compliant patient, I sucked it up and then when she was done she handed me her flier for her private massage business, told me to come see her when she could get me on a table, and sent me off.

I got in my car and my back felt really warm/hot, and I felt kind of floaty and really proud of myself for going through with it and surviving.

Then I got home.

And Sir touched my shoulder blade… lightly… and I almost cried.  He was concerned.

He tried to lift my shirt up to look at my back, but the cloth touching my skin made me flinch so much he stopped.

I went on Facebook to ask if this was normal…  My bestie said it might have been too hard, everyone else basically said, “Suck it up, pain is progress!” So I assumed I was just being a baby and took a bunch of Advil to try to sleep.  Sir was concerned.  He had to help me get my shirt off because I couldn’t lift my arms.  I cried and we skipped pajamas.

I couldn’t sleep and all of my joints were starting to hurt.  Then my skin started to feel hot.  Then I started to feel itchy.

I finally woke up Sir and he turned on the light…  I had little red bumps all over my body.  Sir said they were hives and we went to the emergency room.

Turns out, my body had an allergic reaction to… itself.  The ER doctor lectured me about getting “deep tissue massage” when I “know” I have autoimmune disorder, and how I have to be “more responsible.”  DJ got irritated and told the doctor that it was my first massage, I hadn’t asked for deep tissue, and nobody asked if I had any medical problems beforehand.

Then the doctor went off about how massage therapists need to be more responsible… etc. etc. and how I have to watch out for “red flags.”

But you see, how the fuck was I supposed to know?

Everything I’ve ever seen or heard about massage was… the winners of a challenge on a reality TV show getting a “spa day” and putting cucumbers on their eyes and getting rubbed down by people wearing white clothing.  They oooh and ahhh, and nobody ever talks about it hurting, and certainly not about it being dangerous.

So how would I have known this?

And… it was Whole Foods…  it was chair massage…  I thought I was doing the most innocuous possible introduction to massage that I could.

And I wound up in the ER getting lectured for being irresponsible.

My body is in a full flare now.

I’m going on vacation in two weeks.

All of my joints hurt.  My skin on my back stings, burns, and itches in varying combinations.  It still hurts to touch my shoulder blades and my lower back or anywhere along my spine.  The ligament insertion point on my left foot that I’d finally gotten to calm down is hurting again, and my entire right leg where I pulled my hamstring is now stiff, and alternating between acid pain and aching – along with my hip flexor, quad, and IT band.

To top it off, R-dog had started to calm down the last three days, wasn’t barking or jumping on me anymore, was starting to play with his toys when I told him to leave me alone… I thought we’d turned the corner.  Tonight he is biting, jumping, pawing, clawing, restless and agitated.

And… I just…

I just… want things to be less hard.

And then I beat myself up for even that, because… S just go out of the hospital in time to pack a moving van and move to another state after just coming home from living in a different state and… I really probably don’t have half as much stress as she does right now, but I’m all mopey and crying because… I’m just… so tired of… of being afraid of everything.

Every food, every lotion, every new shampoo, every laundry detergent, every bed linen, every plant I brush up against… even just walking… it’s like living in a minefield and… I think I’m developing battle fatigue.

I just want it all to stop.

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