Thursday, June 26, 2014

It's Been a Long Journey

I'm coming up on my 15 year anniversary with my chronic pain, and I can't seem to figure out what the appropriate gift is. One year, Tylenol with Codeine. Five years, Vicodin. 15 years, Morphine? It's a messed up relationship. Someone should come up with a handbook or something. (Please recognize one of the gifts with condition being sarcasm, and my writing is saturated in it today.)

Living with pain of this magnitude is like being married to a ball and chain around my ankle in a world made of water. I've never been in such a smothering, unsatisfying, high maintenance, codependent and sexually unsatisfying relationship with anyone or anything worse than this chronic condition. It is as smothering as a pillow over my face twenty-four hours a day.

I can't go anywhere without it. I try anything and everything to satisfy it, but it's insatiable. I'm running out of ideas of how to calm its sharp and throbbing tempers. For as exhausted as he makes me, I'd at least like to be getting some good sex out of the relationship. And yes, it is a "he". Call me sexist, but that's how I see it. When it's in your body, you can diagnose its sex. For now, I'm the proud parent of this physiological nightmare.

There are a million sad stories I could tell about my chronic pain, but sometimes the sadness is so heavy, it would break my heart to give it words. Sometimes using humor deflects some of the shrapnel from this war. I guess I look at this 15-year voyage as a war of sorts. My words are my weapons, used not to destroy but to connect with pained peers.

I have never battled anything as powerful, as isolating, as painful, as defeating and as humiliating. It's hard to explain WHY chronic pain can create shame but it does. That phenomena is for another blog.

I may not be able to cure the disease but I can offer up hope and humor. This post is obviously more playful, but at the heart of all my posts is a desire to make a difference. I WILL keep writing, if for no other reason than to make at least one person feel less lonesome on her agonizing journey.

May those of you who know this turmoil find some peace in your hearts. And may those of you bearing witness know that just being there can be the greatest gift. Unconditional love is the greatest healer.

1 comment:

  1. I love how honest you are! Even a very brief run with chronic pain opens your eyes to how consuming it is. Keep writing....you have a true gift to share.

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