I found this in my email draft folder. It was dated February 2023. I have no memory of writing it, but it is pretty accurate and still applies perfectly today. I cried when I realized I didn’t remember writing it, and because of that, I’m just going to post it unedited and let it fly.
The best way to describe my normal pain is to imagine two large chef’s knives jammed in your ass cheeks by the sit bones and going all the way up to the waistline on either side of the spine. Every movement I make and every step I take is pure, horrifying agony. Imagine those knives scraping on your bones, joints, muscles, nerves.
The best way to describe spasms would be to imagine the Incredible Hulk shoving his fist up your ass hole (not in the fun, “It’s Saturday night, let’s do butt stuff” sort of way), grabbing your spine, and trying to jerk it back out the ass hole the fist came through. Repeat a grabbing, jerking action over and over.
The pain is unrelenting. It is with me every second of every day. When I’m awake and when I’m asleep. It never stops. It is incessant and unceasing. It gets so bad it breaks my mind. Over and over and over and over.
No matter what gains I can make, the pain will always take them away. I make an attempt every day. I usually fail. There is too much negative reinforcement. Do something seemingly positive, pay the price of even more pain, or my mind breaking once again.
When I walk, tears come out of my eyes for almost the entire walk. I hide them behind sunglasses on the sunny days. On the cloudy days the tears just run down and freeze in the cold weather. Every step of those walks, the knives scrape and cut and dig. People occasionally stop and ask if I’m okay. I appreciate those good people, but I simply tell them, “I’m just in a lot of pain. I’m on my way home. I’ll be OK once I get there. Thank you.” There is nothing they can do to take the pain away, or make the walk any easier.
One of the biggest insults I have received in my life I have received many times. Usually when working tech support for a school district. “You’re lucky this is easy for you,” they would say. Nobody is lucky and nothing is easy. It completely discounts all the hard work I put in. All the reading, videos, classes, experience. I told those people, “Do you know the difference between you and me? I put in the work when I go home.” I keep walking, keep enduring the pain, keep eating boring, healthy food because I’m putting in the work. And it usually does nothing for me. The pain remains. The pain cripples me and prevents me from continuing. There isn’t enough mental strength and mental energy to overcome the pain. It’s horrifying, terrifying, gruesome, demoralizing.
The harder I try, the more pain there is. I quit the only pain medication I had. It was a miracle at first. Then it became a burden. But at least it helped me through the days. Now I have nothing. I walk partly to avoid sitting at home alone with the pain. The walks are so cold and wet and painful, all I can do is focus on the sidewalk in front of me. One step at a time. Fight through the pain, fight through the tears. Try to clear my mind so I’m not constantly thinking about it. Only think about the effort. Only think about how many steps are left until I get home. There is a certain zen to it. There is also so much fear to it.