FREEEEEEEEE

Hey :) I'm doing quite a bit better than my last post. I continued to not sleep last week, and part of this week (oops...). But tonight, I will sleep some! I am back home from the Psych Ward (aka the psychology lounge) and it's before 1 am!! That's pretty amazing, let me tell you. Now that my thesis research is done and I've moved on to the methods and such, things are getting a lot easier. But I don't want to get cocky: things could get a lot harder tomorrow. I still have hard classes, and things are about to get a little tougher because midterms are next week... I think I have two. Ew.

Other than school.... oh wait, there is nothing else. Just kidding! Here's something else incredible: I have stopped taking pain medication. Some background: I have chronic Achilles tendonitis, which causes me to be in pain all day, every day. Sometimes it's better and sometimes it's worse. Walking sucks. Sitting sometimes sucks. Standing really sucks. So I take a lot of ibuprofen. I also get headaches every day. And because of these two combined pain factors, I take A LOT of pain medication. I usually take at least 4 ibuprofen per day, and if that doesn't work for my headache, I will take Excedrin or something else. I am the queen of pain medication. I have a stash on me at all times. I also get migraines, but that's not as related to this.

Something to note: NSAIDs are super bad for you in large quantities. They can damage your liver, give you ulcers, and KILL YOU. BADDDDDD.

So the point is that I am basically dependent on NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs). And when you take NSAIDs like ibuprofen for headaches at least once daily for years, you get these things called rebound headaches. It's kind of like caffeine withdrawal. The original cause of the headache is no longer present, and eventually you are just treating the ibuprofen withdrawal headache. I know that I have these, but it's scary going off all pain medications! Well, NSAIDs. But I decided that enough is enough. I have to take care of myself for once! So I stopped taking them five days ago... and all hell broke loose. Day 1 wasn't too good, but I could handle it. Regular headache. Days 2 and 3: migraines almost all day, both days. Around 2 or 3 pm on both days, it hit me like a truck. I got almost no homework done this weekend. BUT... after day 3, nothing bad! On day 4, I had a small headache but it went away (which NEVER happens- I have to take pain meds to make headaches go away EVERY TIME). And today was day 5: NO HEADACHE AT ALL. WHAAAAAAT??!!? So weird! I am not used to not hurting. Of course, my Achilles tendons hurt, but whatever. They always hurt.

So that's great! It's nice to be free from pain meds, or at least almost free. I don't know if the migraines will pop back up later this week. Taking migraine medication is fine though, because it's not an NSAID. But yah, that's pretty much it. I got ridiculously drunk the weekend before last... don't remember much. I also drank last weekend, but it was controlled-ish. My friend got suuuuper sick, so that sobered me up pretty quick.

I don't know what else! Love you all <3