Journal

And it is taking its toll over me

Published

3 weeks ago

June 21, 2025

“I’m losing steam
No energy left in the tank
And it’s taking its toll over me”
– Novocaine by little image

It was around mid April of 2024 that I messed my back up. I had hurt my back a few other times but it would always go away. I was almost 40 and wasn’t dealing with chronic back pain like many of my other friends. It feels like everyone is dealing with back pain and somehow I got away with not dealing with it.

I don’t know if this was the culprit or not but I set up my camping tent in my backyard to test it out. I got it for Christmas and had yet to really take it out for a test drive and wanted to see if the tent and my new air mattress would be a good sleep. I often have to just get really drunk to fall asleep when camping. That probably makes camping sound like something I don’t like to do but I absolutely love camping. It’s just tough for me to sleep. Honestly it’s also tough for me to sleep in beds that aren’t mine, couches that aren’t mine, etc. I doubt I’m the only person who deals with this. Then again, throw me in a car and I’ll sleep just fine against a door.

I remember trying to sleep on my air mattress and I think the ground in my backyard was really uneven. After like three hours I woke up and my back was killing me.

Now I’ve slept in this tent and mattress combo since I slept great. Honestly the best sleep I’ve had camping. So it’s not like I wake up with a bad back every time I sleep in it. But this was the first time the pain felt debilitating.

I think the real issue was my computer setup at the time. I have a great computer chair that has a massage and heating feature (once again a lovely Christmas gift) but with my work setup I had to lean in to see the small laptop screen I had for my work laptop. I think I too often leaned in and stayed at that position. I’m talking hours in a lean. I think that’s the primary issue into my back pain.

I believe this because like I said, I can camp just fine. I’ve since purchased a new computer chair which allows me to lean back without being fully leaned back. I finally have a pair of glasses that are specified for prolonged laptop use. I have a setup that I feel doesn’t cause as much damage to me.

But I also wonder if the damage has already been done. My lower back has been worn down from prolonged sitting improperly and no proper sitting is changing the fact I have to sit at work for 8 hours a day for four days a week. It’s never going to entirely recover.

There has been various times in my life where I’ve had back pain but it was always more of an injury. The worst of which was when I was sciatica. It came from carrying stone slabs, one broke, and I went right to the ground. For like a year I had on and off sciatica. It eventually went away, and this isn’t sciatica I’m dealing with.

The past year has been me fighting with my back pain, trying to get to a point where I feel good about it. My fight has been doing my best not to talk about it and also not to let it debilitate me having a good time. I’ve been trying to do as much as I can, and be active as I can, regardless of it.

This past month it all came to a head when I did a great baseball trip with my friend Joel. At some point the back pain popped up and I did my best to not let it ruin the trip. I didn’t want to cancel on doing something just because I was hurting. I got through it, but on that final day getting back home in the morning I was doing everything I could to hide the fact my back was screaming at me.

I was supposed to do the Pier which is a music dance party at our riverside pier. Paid like $45 for the ticket. I just didn’t go. I hated not going. But there was no way I could go anywhere that day.

So much of this is psychological too. My back definitely feels better when I stretch out. I have a roller. I go to the gym. I bicycle. I do things to be active. When I stretch and when I have a good workout my back usually feels better. Even if it’s temporary it does. The more I stretch deep, the more I can get to the point of touching my toes in a stretch? The better my back is.
But just the process of doing that has been… depressing. It fucks me up I have to do this. I feel like I failed my own body. I definitely feel like I’m failing my body when I see my stomach a little larger than it’s been in a long time. I know I ate a lot of hot dogs on that baseball trip but I’m worried I’m putting weight on I can’t lose.

I’m having those fears I’m sure everyone has when they turn 40 that their body is breaking down in ways they’ll never properly recover from. Unless you got a lot of money it’s hard to properly get over some of this stuff. It’s not impossible, and a lot of it just comes to having the right mindset.

The problem is I don’t, I know I don’t, and I don’t know how to get back into it.

“Back to the basics, I’m breathing slow
Just cut me some slack, or just let me go
My internal monologue
Keeps talking back to me when I can’t sleep”

I had the week off of work. With having just did a couple expensive trips and purchases (Nintendo Switch 2) I didn’t want to do anything expensive this week. I wanted to use this week to get some stuff done around the house, get a head start on writing, get a real plan for the summer, and spend enough time in the gym to really get my back in a good place.

None of this. And I mean none of it happened. Well, not entirely none. I went to the gym once. I wrote one thing. But that’s not the progress I wanted.

I wasted the week off work.

I actually did this in 2024 as well, which is why I feel like I lit the year on fire. Every time I had a chance to really get everything organized and a head start and not feel so stressed every day on the things I need to do? I’ve wasted that time.

I’ve already tried justifying it that maybe I was just getting burned out. And I’m sure in a lot of ways I was. But I think my own situation and the way I’m handling it allowed those burn out recovery days to turn into a wallowing pity day.

Honestly, I should back it up. I’m not just dealing with back pain. I’m also dealing with cramp pain. Last weekend I woke up at 5AM to what felt like my left calf splitting in half. The next morning I woke up early again to my right calf splitting. It was enough pain I couldn’t ride my bicycle very much.

I haven’t dealt with the cramps since, but I’m worried they will come back. And I had to chug electrolytes and buy bananas and do a whole bunch of other stuff in hopes it’ll keep it from happening again. The other day I woke up at 5AM and it wasn’t due to cramp pain. I think it was my brain going, “This could happen again be ready for it” and I woke up desperately chugging water to hydrate myself.

So here I am.
Struggling with back pain.
Struggling with weight gain.
Struggling with calf cramps.
Struggling with not writing enough.
Struggling with not doing enough in my apartment.
Feeling like I’m wasting my days.
Feeling like I need to take a break.
Feeling like I’m taking too much of a break.

All the while trying to put on a brave face with my friends and family all going through their own situations and needing me to be strong for them. I have friends and family hurt physically and mentally who’ve needed me this past week.

“All I need is a little taste
Let me have a laugh and I won’t complain
Tunnel vision starts to close
Muscle a grin so no one knows”

Today was my last day off before having to back to work and I had that long list of things to do just growing and growing. And I had a plan. I woke up with a plan at 7AM. And then I fell asleep again at 3PM.

My energy was gone. My body was sore. Nothing got done.

And now I am at my computer after 9PM finally with the mental energy to write? I also finally had the energy to stretch my back for the first time today on the roller and that felt great. In 12 hours I gotta be at work for the first time in a week and as I write this I finally feel up to do all the things I wanted to do.

Maybe I was burned out.
Maybe I was injured.
Maybe my struggles were because I just wasn’t physically and mentally well enough to do it?
Maybe I set myself up for failure by putting too much on my plate to overcome?

I’m sure tomorrow I’ll wake up with the same back pain that won’t totally go away, but at least I’ll feel like I can overcome it eventually. I’ll hopefully not have any cramp pain this time. I’ll hopefully not be falling asleep in the middle of the day (especially since that would be bad while working!) and hopefully when I’m done work I’ll have the energy to write.

That plan I had to complete for the week? That can be done this upcoming week around work. I didn’t get to catch up like I wanted to. There’s a lot of things I still need to get done, but just writing this has made me feel a little better about what I’ve gone through.

I need to stop beating myself up for my physical failings. I need to stop beating myself up over mental exhaustion. Sometimes this shit you can’t control and you can’t stop. You have to get through it. So now I have to get through it.

Writing this is helping to get through it. I had a journal entry on my list of things to do. Guess I can cross it out. I just have to wake up tomorrow and remember I wrote this and how I felt writing it.