Life seems to have taken a strange turn. One terrible thing seems to follow another... On 6th june I had my wisdom teeth taken out. For a week and a half I was bedridden, had fever and all. It finally seemed like things were getting better but the very next day, on 17th june, I had the most severe sciatic pain ever. It was pretty much the worst pain of my life, worse than the 2 times I broke my arm. Once again, I was on the bed, unable to move at all. The sciatic pain was on the left side so I was laying on the right side for most of the time. Two days later my right shoulder started to hurt really bad. I could barely move my right arm anymore... and as if things weren't bad enough already, on 22nd june my father had a stroke. They tried to remove the blood clots from his brain but the high blood pressure caused the capillaries to burst, leading to brain hemorrhage. During the same time things got even worse for me as I started to get muscle spasms in different parts of my body, my jaw muscles in particular. My jaw muscles on the right side cramped up and my jaw bent towards the left side and so I could hardly chew any more. My father passed away on 27th, I was thousands of miles away and had to rush back home. Even though my family wanted to burry him right away but I managed to convince them to wait for me. I arrived on 29th, barely able to walk and with a twisted jaw. I managed to see him one last time but... it was all too much! It all felt like a bad dream which I couldn't wake up from.

Things have gotten a bit better. I can walk normally, even though my body has gotten much weaker due to 2 months of bed rest. I feel old suddenly... my back hurts when I sit down, it hurts when I get up, I have to take multiple breaks during the day as I get tired very quickly if I move around a bit. My shoulder is still messed up, I don't know why... and all this time I haven't been able to get a proper check up. The doctors back home just told me its all ok and gave me painkillers. The doctors here... well you have to wait for months before you can see one. For now I just have to bear it for another 3 weeks before I can see a doctor.

Mentally, I feel shaken up... as if I had some sort of faith in the world, that nothing too terrible would happen, or at least that things would be somewhat predictable. Now I find an increasing cynicism within me, that any terrible thing can happen any moment. I am now once again faced with ancient fears and anxieties which I had thought to have overcome already. It feels as if all the good things DMT had brought me are slipping away, I am once again unable to enjoy things, to get up in the morning and do things, to feel at peace with the world and myself. The old coping mechanisms are also back, escapist behavior, procrastination etc.

Looking back, what somehow bothers me even more is the fact that I somehow knew about my dad, or was at least told about it, but I still couldn't do anything. I visited my parents earlier this year but after coming back, I had this constant fear in my heart that something will happen to them. Even on DMT, the topic of the death of my parents came up multiple times. But I couldn't understand why, because my dad wasn't sick, he was healthy and living a fairly active life. He would get up before the morning prayers and was running around doing stuff all day. And the strange thing is, I was so anxious and fearful about losing my parents that when I heard the news, a part of me was relieved... relieved that the fear had come true and now I no longer had to fear it, but merely struggle to accept it. And I am still struggling to accept it... but the world seems more strange now, more unpredictable, more lonely... My dad is gone, my sense of security is gone, overnight I have become an "adult", overnight all the responsibility has fallen on my shoulders.

The point of this post is probably just to... let a few things out of my heart. Even though I have been living on my own for years but now all of I sudden I find myself wondering how I will manage to survive on my own. Death has never seemed so real, it is no longer something abstract, something I can philosophize about and naively claim to have accepted and understood. I have to start all over again, I have to come to terms with life and the finality, certainty, and absoluteness of death all over again. I just wish... I could deal with it all without the constant back pains... I would appreciate any advice in that regard if anyone has some experience with sciatic pains and lower back issues.

That must have been awfull. I don't have anything usefull to say about sciatic pain or lower back issues i'm afraid, but i realy do wish you the best.

Mourning is a realy difficult process and hard enough already without intense physical pain. I hope the pain did not get in the way of that process, because it is such an important thing to go through when you lose a loved one.

My deepest condolences. Be well.

I am not too good with words, but I wish for you that from here on things will get better and heal, with each day that passes.
I am so sorry for your loss, it must be incredibly painful to loose a parent. It's something I dread, but something I haven't experienced yet.

I dealt and still deal with lower back pain for years now, so I know it can take away a lot of life quality. It also makes it difficult to concentrate on the beautiful side of life.
There's something that helped me to minimize the pain to a level that allows me to forget/ignore it most of the time.

Have you tried core exercises? For me simple push ups each day worked wonders. Just 2 sets of 30 push ups was enough. Once I started building up core strength things got easier from month to month.

It took me a while to figure out the solution to my problem. I just hope your shoulder would allow you to exercise.