autonomic dysfunction

⚠️ Please read with care: This blog shares personal, sometimes painful experiences. My intention is to support and speak honestly not to harm. I’m not a professional, just someone who understands how hard it can get. If you're struggling, you're not alone please reach out for professional help.

So yeah, it appears it's Wednesday. Yes, Wednesday. I just can't believe it's Wednesday today. I thought it was... I don't know what day I thought it was. That just shows how bad I'm feeling at the moment. Yes, I'm struggling and struggling and it seems the more I try the worse I get. Well, I knew that anyway. And I'm testing out all these new programs that say they can do this and they can do that and help me. I am yet to find any program that can really, really help me for what I need. I'm very specific in what I need and unfortunately everything is just too washy-washy these days.

Why do they make things that are so easy, so complicated? That is the thing that has always, always annoyed me. So I await the arrival of all these new things in 26 to do with technology to see how far we've really moved on, or how far backwards we've gone. Forward, backwards, sideways, up or down. It really doesn't bother me. just you need to know where you are at some points I think...

So this autonomic dysfunction that I have with my MS just seems to be driving me absolutely around the bend. It seems no matter what, I just continue to be on the edge of this weird thing 24/7 and stress or anything and set this silliness off. And the worst thing is that it is to do with histamine. Yes, histamine. If I have histamine in food, it can kill me. I didn't realize that. But I'm beginning to realize now just how much I've had to change what I eat. So now I'm having to eat totally and utterly, healthfully. No junk food whatsoever. which is rather boring when you have to sit there and watch the rest of the family eating the everything that you cannot eat and You just look on thinking well if I ate that I know what would happen but it's good to see everyone else eating and Well, I suppose I really did enjoy my flatbread so There we go Yes, it was very nice indeed But I have to stick to this absolute diet I have otherwise it just causes so much problem with my Autonomic dysfunction. It's unbelievable Anything can set it off that's what I'm just realizing and Changing my life yet again Something is a real pain.

So I'm trying to hope that the doctors will find something that will help settle all this down Help it sort itself out somehow I don't care really. I don't mind having to change .. That's not the point It's just the headfuck and all the nasty feelings you get with it That's what I can't deal with I can deal with the condition It's just I can't deal with the mental torture that it puts you through as well which a lot of these doctors and Neuros etc. Don't realize the mental torture through all this isn't the best So, you know, we like to get things sorted quickly if we can... So yeah, today I feel fed up.

And as I look out the window the sun is out and it's shining through the clouds. Yet we've had a lot of rain and it's caused a lot of issues. So yeah, I'm hoping that everybody has a happy holiday or seasons greetings or whatever you want to call it. I call it all the pain in the rear end as this holiday period is just like a normal day for me. I suffer and I carry on. So yeah, such is life. But hey, I want to go over the bridge at some point in the new year. So let's hope that my power chair battery decides to behave itself. Yes, I know we've had the frost this morning. So that can mean only one thing. I haven't used my chair for a couple of days. That's the three-wheeled scooter of death. So that means that we down to at least 50%. And I ask myself, where does all this electricity go? Yes, there we go. I suppose it goes and the little fairies say thank you for all of that. Oh, thank you. And then there is the ongoing frustration about my mental health and me seeing things. Now apparently the DRS say that I can see things. This will be another post as it's probably going to go on for ages. So I'm just warning everybody now. It's going to probably be well worth a read, but it's going to be back my experiences of what I am seeing and things that I've seen. And I want people to actually get back to me and say what they think they are, whether it's neuro or it is a spiritual thing or whatever. It would be good to know because nobody can tell me. Yeah, because nobody's got a tin foil hat on I don't think.

So I'm either going around the bend or I went clear around the bend years ago. I don't mind being called eccentric but I don't think I'm mad. Or am I? Apparently people with neuro... see here we go I'm starting already and I should really finish as my heads all over the place. Still this is going up and I hope everybody has a happy holiday and you never know there might be a disjointed post yet again from the My Living Hell team. Happy holidays.

Warlock Dark Chronic illness survivor, truth-teller, occasional bastard. From My Living Hell (For those who came here by accident: yes, my living hell is real. And yes, we still fight. Every shitty day. With defiance.)

@goblinbloggeruk - sick@mylivinghell.co.uk 𒀭𒊩𒆳 ᛞᚱᚨᚷᛟᚾ ᛏᚱᚨᚾᛋᚲᚺᚱᛁᛖᛞ ✦ ᚹᚨᛏᚲᚺᛖᚱ 𒀸𒀭 ᚢᚾᛒᛟᚢᚾᛞ

⚠️ Please read with care: This blog shares personal, sometimes painful experiences. My intention is to support and speak honestly not to harm. I’m not a professional, just someone who understands how hard it can get. If you're struggling, you're not alone please reach out for professional help.

Rain, Kittens, Orbs, and the Question of Sanity

The rain came down like it had a personal grudge.

Not a polite drizzle. Not that apologetic British mist that says sorry as it dampens your jacket. This was proper biblical nonsense drains overflowing, gutters giving up, the kind of rain that makes you laugh and think, Well then… water shortage this summer, obviously. Humanoids are marvellous at panicking about drought while actively floating away.

I woke around 4:30am to what can only be described as a purring industrial estate. One kitten asleep on my head. Another wedged into my neck and beard like it had taken out a long‑term lease. Engines running. Vibrations everywhere. If cats are supposed to be aloof, these two missed the memo and went straight for emotional blackmail.

Then came the inevitable.

Kitten. Christmas tree. Gravity.

Yes — the tree ended up on the floor. No — the kitten did not care. In fact, she looked smug. Decorations everywhere, tinsel hanging like festive entrails. We laughed because the alternative was crying, and crying before breakfast feels a bit ambitious.

Looking Up (and Not Seeing Much)

I still look at the sky.

According to the internet, it should be crawling with orbs, UAPs, UFOs, visitors popping in like it’s a motorway service station. I look up and see clouds, rain, and the occasional star when the southwest decides to be generous. No glowing ambassadors from beyond. Either I need new glasses or I’m simply not on the invite list.

That said, I do see strange things sometimes. Flickers. Patterns. Moments that make me stop and think, Hang on… what was that? And that’s where the internal interrogation starts:

Am I seeing something genuinely odd? Or am I seeing reality through a nervous system that’s been joyfully sabotaged?

I live with multiple sclerosis. I live with brain fog. I live with an autonomic system that behaves like it’s freelancing without supervision. When that’s your baseline, you don’t get the luxury of trusting perception — but you also don’t get to dismiss it outright. You’re stuck in the grey bit, where certainty goes to die.

The Medical Cul‑de‑Sac

I did the neurological tour. Thoroughly.

Scans. Clinics. Explanations that manage to be both technical and utterly hollow. MS can do this. MS can do that. Yes, thank you I’ve noticed. Useful, but spiritually about as nourishing as a hospital biscuit.

So I widened the lens.

Philosophy. Consciousness. Vallée. Keel. The trickster nature of reality. Not because I want to declare myself special or enlightened — but because pretending the questions don’t exist feels like intellectual cowardice.

Enter AI, Wearing a High‑Vis Jacket

Asking AI was… an experience. it tried to sanitise everything.

Dietary help? Genuinely useful. When your body treats half the food supply like a personal attack, clarity matters.

Spiritually? Absolutely allergic to nuance.

Everything funnelled straight into pathology. Everything gently but firmly steered toward “this is all in your head, dear.” Not curiosity compliance. Ask a question about perception and suddenly you’re wrapped in digital bubble wrap with a warning label.

Here’s the blunt bit: AI doesn’t think. It reflects.

It reflects liability fears, cultural assumptions, and the worldview of its programmers. Which means spirituality gets treated like a software bug, and lived experience gets flattened into symptom management. That’s not wisdom that’s risk assessment pretending to care.

So Am I Mad, Then?

Let’s not mince words.

MS makes your interface with reality noisy. Signals overlap. The brain flags nonsense as urgent and sometimes ignores what actually matters. That’s biology, not a moral failure.

But and this is where everyone gets lazy neurological explanation does not automatically equal existential erasure.

Not everything is meaningless. Not everything is a cosmic message either.

The real work is discernment, which is far less glamorous than revelation.

Questioning your own experiences isn’t madness it’s grounding. Wondering whether something is neurological, psychological, or something else entirely is not delusion it’s honesty. Certainty without humility, on the other hand, is where things go properly sideways.

I don’t claim gifts. I don’t claim answers. I claim decades of odd experiences, a damaged nervous system, a functioning bullshit detector, and the right to sit with uncertainty without being patronised.

Where I’ve Ended Up (So Far)

I trust neither blind belief nor blind dismissal.

Doctors don’t have the full picture. AI definitely doesn’t. Spiritual circles often disappear up their own arse. Hard materialism leaves too much unexplained.

Reality, inconveniently, refuses to be tidy.

So I keep one foot on the ground, one eye on the sky, and both hands firmly on my own nonsense especially on bad days.

Some days are pain, fog, and unreality. Some days are kittens, rain, and laughter.

I send peace, healing, love, and light anyway to everyone not because everything’s fine, but because choosing bitterness would be the final indignity.

If this season means anything at all, it’s this: More days turning into more days. Still here. Still asking.

That’ll do.

Warlock Dark Chronic illness survivor, truth-teller, occasional bastard. From My Living Hell (For those who came here by accident: yes, my living hell is real. And yes, we still fight. Every shitty day. With defiance.)

@goblinbloggeruk - sick@mylivinghell.co.uk 𒀭𒊩𒆳 ᛞᚱᚨᚷᛟᚾ ᛏᚱᚨᚾᛋᚲᚺᚱᛁᛖᛞ ✦ ᚹᚨᛏᚲᚺᛖᚱ 𒀸𒀭 ᚢᚾᛒᛟᚢᚾᛞ

⚠️ Please read with care: This blog shares personal, sometimes painful experiences. My intention is to support and speak honestly not to harm. I’m not a professional, just someone who understands how hard it can get. If you're struggling, you're not alone please reach out for professional help.

Winter in the Waiting Room: Kittens, Cold Snaps, and Full Circles

So, finally, I’m doing the whole hospital and doctor loop thing again. After much faffing about, I’ve managed to change hospitals let’s see if these new faces actually listen, or if it’s just the same NHS pantomime with slightly different costumes. The cold weather’s rolling in and, trust me, my spasticity is giving me absolute hell. Straightening up bits of my body now takes longer than the average GP appointment so, this winter, it’s bed-bound most of the time, because who can afford to run central heating in the new, improved Broken Britain? Makes you wonder if we’re all just meant to relive the “good old days” of struggling with sod all, forty-odd years ago. Funny how life goes more full circles than a washing machine.

And speaking of full circle, it’s 41 years this year since I got down on one knee in Otley by the monument and proposed to Albertine. Loud as a foghorn and just as subtle. Best bloody thing I’ve ever done, hands down. Now, on the anniversary, I’m gearing up for another round of medical circus tricks: off to get a heart monitor fitted for seven days joy of joys. Maybe, just maybe, they’ll actually read my notes this time. God knows, I’ve written enough of them. If the neurology and cardiology departments ever joined forces, maybe they’d even work out what the hell’s actually going on, and I could retire from being on 24-hour “ambulance alert.”

Instead, I’m left dealing with the vagus nerve going full Chernobyl, sending me into another autonomic dysfunction attack. By the time the ambulance turns up, of course, I’m done with the attack and left trying to convince whichever harassed medic is on duty that I’m not, in fact, an attention-seeking hypochondriac. Try explaining the weirdness of your body to doctors and you’ll get the “Google Doctor” eye roll especially if you use the same language they use. Pro tip: NHS staff hate AI, except when they’re using Google to look up what’s wrong with you. Ludicrous.

This morning, it’s a proper arctic frost out there every car iced up, the world glinting like a badly frosted Christmas cake. The kittens are running riot in the lounge, using the sofa as their own private Thunder dome, which is the only thing making me laugh. Meanwhile, I’m keeping my power chair battery topped up because the cold’s killing the range faster than you can say “Mobility Motability means nothing.” Nothing worse than being ready to go out, only for the chair to die and say, “Nice try, mate. Not today.”

So, it’s off to the chemist in the machine of death (Rusty One) for my weekly prescription pilgrimage. Albertine reckons the van will start; I have my doubts. Why I can’t get more than a week’s worth of tablets at once is a question for the ages. Maybe it’s a secret NHS tactic to get me out of the house. Either way, it’s still freezing and my hands are so cold I could play castanets with my own knuckles. Temperature regulation? Gone to pot like everything else.

OT’s been and gone apparently, next year I get a new wheelchair, so there’s a silver lining. Rusty One, meanwhile, needs a trip to the garage, which will no doubt cost me an arm, a leg, and possibly my soul. As I write, the smoke alarm is going off (Albertine’s burned the toast), the kittens are lying on the bed with that “we run this house now” look, and my new bed has bruised my side and pulled muscles I didn’t even know existed. Standard.

And now, in today’s episode of “What Fresh Hell Is This?” the kitten has discovered blueberries. Yes, you read that right. She’s rooting them out of the container and launching them across the room like tiny fruity grenades. You’d think it was catnip. I woke up this morning with one kitten on my head and the other on my shoulder purring away like they’re trying to heal me by vibrational therapy. Honestly, it works better than half the crap the doctors have prescribed. There’s something about the frequency of that purring that really does help.

Right now, as I sit in my power chair, both kittens have gone behind the computers to play with the wires so I’m just waiting for the grand finale: either “dead kitten moment” or “there goes my computer.” Albertine hands me the remote and I grin music, even when it’s Deathly Hallows chart stuff, makes the world a bit less deathly. The beat goes on, the kittens plot my doom, and I’m just trying to stay warm, upright, and very much alive.

Warlock Dark Chronic illness survivor, truth-teller, occasional bastard. From My Living Hell (For those who came here by accident: yes, my living hell is real. And yes, we still fight. Every shitty day. With defiance.)

@goblinbloggeruk - sick@mylivinghell.co.uk 𒀭𒊩𒆳 ᛞᚱᚨᚷᛟᚾ ᛏᚱᚨᚾᛋᚲᚺᚱᛁᛖᛞ ✦ ᚹᚨᛏᚲᚺᛖᚱ 𒀸𒀭 ᚢᚾᛒᛟᚢᚾᛞ

⚠️ Please read with care: This blog shares personal, sometimes painful experiences. My intention is to support and speak honestly not to harm. I’m not a professional, just someone who understands how hard it can get. If you're struggling, you're not alone please reach out for professional help.

Autonomic dysfunction.

Sounds clinical, doesn’t it? Like something you’d hear from a doctor wearing a tie far too cheerful for the situation. In reality, it’s more like your nervous system looks at its job description, shrugs, and says “Nah mate, not today.”

So for those who don’t live in this circus of malfunction, here’s the truth:

The autonomic nervous system is the part of your brain and body that should run quietly in the background. Heart rate. Blood pressure. Body temperature. Digestion. Bladder. Breathing. Sweating. The automatic things the stuff that keeps you alive without you having to think about it.

Except mine and maybe yours doesn’t. Because MS came along like a drunken arsonist with a lighter, and torched the wiring.

Now I get autonomic dysfunction. A fancier way of saying:

✔ My body forgets how to regulate itself ✔ My heart and blood pressure do whatever the hell they like ✔ I can faint, shake, freeze or burn up for no bloody reason ✔ Digestion? Chaos. ✔ Temperature control? Ha. Good joke. ✔ Fight or Flight? Always stuck halfway like a buffering YouTube video

And the kicker? I’m pretty sure I had this before MS even moved in and pissed on the carpet. MS just amped it up, added fireworks, and turned life into a physiological hostage situation.

Some days my body works. Some days I stand up, and the universe tilts sideways like I’m in a Salvador Dalí painting. Some days breathing feels manual. Sometimes my heart behaves like it’s remixing a drum solo.

And yes — it’s exhausting. Yes — it’s humiliating. And yes — it pisses me off because there’s no switch to turn it off, no fuse to replace, no user manual. Just me. Living in a house where the wiring is frayed and the electrics flicker whenever they feel like it.

But here’s the truth I sit with:

I’m still here. Still writing. Still swearing. Still breathing — even when my nervous system forgets how to.

That, my friend, is survival. Not pretty. Not poetic. Just real.

Welcome to my living hell. Make yourself uncomfortable.

Warlock Dark Chronic illness survivor, truth-teller, occasional bastard. From My Living Hell (For those who came here by accident: yes, my living hell is real. And yes, we still fight. Every shitty day. With defiance.)

@goblinbloggeruk - sick@mylivinghell.co.uk 𒀭𒊩𒆳 ᛞᚱᚨᚷᛟᚾ ᛏᚱᚨᚾᛋᚲᚺᚱᛁᛖᛞ ✦ ᚹᚨᛏᚲᚺᛖᚱ 𒀸𒀭 ᚢᚾᛒᛟᚢᚾᛞ