On the subject of pain..
It's been an exhausting week. Harry hurt himself very badly and I spent 12 hours on Monday with him wrapped in my arms willing him to be OK, and he was. Steve had to have an endoscopy and that is an upsetting proceedure in itself, combined with the worry of whether they would find anything cancerous (they didn't). I had to work.
I've been thinking a bit about the nature of pain, because it's one of those things we all have to confront eventually and one of the things we're least prepared to deal with.
When you're a child, when something hurts, you panic. You want the thing that hurt you as far away from you as possible. You cry, you shout, you flail around. When you get a bit older, you see pain as a spur to action. You become angry. You attack. Both of these are inbuilt reactions.
When you're a teenager, and maybe beyond, you might toy with pain. You might flaunt it as a control that you have over your inbuilt responses. It's a powerful thing. Building up your tolerance to pain is empowering. You might let somebody else hurt you to prove how much you love them, how in control you are. You might let somebody hurt you because you feel sorry for them, and you feel strong enough to carry their pain and your own. It's a powerful thing.
As an adult, as you get older (and I know a lot of people go through their twenties without ever noticing this) you get unwanted, habitual pain, and you learn to live with it. A bad tooth or an old break, ecsema or a lung disorder. It doesn't challenge your immortality but it hurts and you have to put up with it. You develop a barrier in your brain against your natural responses to "fight or flight" and you will yourself to be passive, to carry on with work or your family or having fun or whatever is more important. It wears you down and you get depressed but you learn how to deal with it. If you're a responsible type, you might learn to change your lifestyle so as not to aggravate it - no alcohol, no cheese, no drugs, no wheat. If you're defeatist you will carry on with your bad habits until it is intolerable (i did). Plenty of people live like this day to day for years because they are not ready to face the greater pain and expense of getting it sorted out medically.
At some point, for most of us, you realise that your body is like a car, it needs bits readjusting or replacing, and whether it is bad teeth, stomach ulcer, cancer or arthritis you have to bite the bullet, go to a hospital, and submit yourself to invasive tests and therapy. You have to actively fight the bit of your brain telling you to run away. Love or hate the NHS, it gets you fixed, but it isn't fussy about how much pain you encounter on the journey. If you don't think things are going to hurt before you go in you learn a harsh lesson inside. You have no control over when or what your treatments willbe and you're suddenly in this surreal, "Brazil" - like arena where life runs on a completely different set of rules to anything you've ever experienced before.
I would like to reaffirm - this happens to nearly everybody. If it hasn't happened to you yet, get used to the idea, because very few people live entirely healthy lives, never break a bone, never have a baby, and die in their sleep.
At this point, you can decide how to deal with it. You can fight and squeal, but it won't help. You can get depressed and withdraw, but it will only make you more prone to infection and complications. You can submit, which I think most people end up doing, trusting your doctors because you have no choice, or you can reach out and overcome, bear your pain stoically, do everything positievely, be cheerful and try to help others, be brave. Its the hardest thing of all and something not everybody manages. But if you go to any ward in any hospital there are people propping themselves painfully up in bed joking with the nurses. I think this is the highest, greatest, most spiritual thing that you can achieve. When I die I want to be joking with my kids and their partners and after they've left at the end of visiting hours I will turn over quietly and let go.
I've had a crash course in pain - myself and other people's. When I was small, I broke things and hid them from my parents because they would have been angry with me. Toes, fingers, I bit half through my tongue. When I was at university I got in a couple of fights and had my eyesocket cracked. I let somebody brand me. After I started working I got pregnant (twice) and had natural births (a bit of an eye opener on the pain scale). Harry was 11 lb. I have had my wisdom teeth taken out when I was conscious. Not life threatening things, but I know pain.
I've watched Steve go through pain at levels I didn't know existed through his cancer and the treatment and I have watched in absolute fucking awe as he went from scared to angry to resigned to reslient in a matter of days, to the point where he was checking we had enough money ofr the electricity bill while recovering form stomach surgery with a crap anaesthatist who couldn't get the epidural to work.
I've watched Lillith have her tooth pulled out, trusting me, even though it hurt more than anything she had ever experienced before because her jaw was too small for the dentist to inject the anaesthetic in the right place.
I have watched Harry stumble stunned through the door with his whole face smashed up, covered in blood, unable to focus or open his mouth, baffled and afraid, and fight through it all evening until he finally got enough of a hold on himself to be able to drink water, and go to sleep. And he woke up in the morning asking if I was ok..
And I love and respect all three of them so so much more for having seen what they went through and how they made themselves bigger than their animal responses, because it isn't anything anyone can teach you, it is the hardest lesson of all and everyone learns it alone.
And I think of other frieeds who were in pain before I understood what that meant, who pulled together their energy to have fun with me and interact with me and made themselves larger than their experiences so that they could share the time with me.
And I think maybe it is time we actually talked about pain rather than brushing it aside so our friends don't have to feel guilty.
I've been thinking a bit about the nature of pain, because it's one of those things we all have to confront eventually and one of the things we're least prepared to deal with.
When you're a child, when something hurts, you panic. You want the thing that hurt you as far away from you as possible. You cry, you shout, you flail around. When you get a bit older, you see pain as a spur to action. You become angry. You attack. Both of these are inbuilt reactions.
When you're a teenager, and maybe beyond, you might toy with pain. You might flaunt it as a control that you have over your inbuilt responses. It's a powerful thing. Building up your tolerance to pain is empowering. You might let somebody else hurt you to prove how much you love them, how in control you are. You might let somebody hurt you because you feel sorry for them, and you feel strong enough to carry their pain and your own. It's a powerful thing.
As an adult, as you get older (and I know a lot of people go through their twenties without ever noticing this) you get unwanted, habitual pain, and you learn to live with it. A bad tooth or an old break, ecsema or a lung disorder. It doesn't challenge your immortality but it hurts and you have to put up with it. You develop a barrier in your brain against your natural responses to "fight or flight" and you will yourself to be passive, to carry on with work or your family or having fun or whatever is more important. It wears you down and you get depressed but you learn how to deal with it. If you're a responsible type, you might learn to change your lifestyle so as not to aggravate it - no alcohol, no cheese, no drugs, no wheat. If you're defeatist you will carry on with your bad habits until it is intolerable (i did). Plenty of people live like this day to day for years because they are not ready to face the greater pain and expense of getting it sorted out medically.
At some point, for most of us, you realise that your body is like a car, it needs bits readjusting or replacing, and whether it is bad teeth, stomach ulcer, cancer or arthritis you have to bite the bullet, go to a hospital, and submit yourself to invasive tests and therapy. You have to actively fight the bit of your brain telling you to run away. Love or hate the NHS, it gets you fixed, but it isn't fussy about how much pain you encounter on the journey. If you don't think things are going to hurt before you go in you learn a harsh lesson inside. You have no control over when or what your treatments willbe and you're suddenly in this surreal, "Brazil" - like arena where life runs on a completely different set of rules to anything you've ever experienced before.
I would like to reaffirm - this happens to nearly everybody. If it hasn't happened to you yet, get used to the idea, because very few people live entirely healthy lives, never break a bone, never have a baby, and die in their sleep.
At this point, you can decide how to deal with it. You can fight and squeal, but it won't help. You can get depressed and withdraw, but it will only make you more prone to infection and complications. You can submit, which I think most people end up doing, trusting your doctors because you have no choice, or you can reach out and overcome, bear your pain stoically, do everything positievely, be cheerful and try to help others, be brave. Its the hardest thing of all and something not everybody manages. But if you go to any ward in any hospital there are people propping themselves painfully up in bed joking with the nurses. I think this is the highest, greatest, most spiritual thing that you can achieve. When I die I want to be joking with my kids and their partners and after they've left at the end of visiting hours I will turn over quietly and let go.
I've had a crash course in pain - myself and other people's. When I was small, I broke things and hid them from my parents because they would have been angry with me. Toes, fingers, I bit half through my tongue. When I was at university I got in a couple of fights and had my eyesocket cracked. I let somebody brand me. After I started working I got pregnant (twice) and had natural births (a bit of an eye opener on the pain scale). Harry was 11 lb. I have had my wisdom teeth taken out when I was conscious. Not life threatening things, but I know pain.
I've watched Steve go through pain at levels I didn't know existed through his cancer and the treatment and I have watched in absolute fucking awe as he went from scared to angry to resigned to reslient in a matter of days, to the point where he was checking we had enough money ofr the electricity bill while recovering form stomach surgery with a crap anaesthatist who couldn't get the epidural to work.
I've watched Lillith have her tooth pulled out, trusting me, even though it hurt more than anything she had ever experienced before because her jaw was too small for the dentist to inject the anaesthetic in the right place.
I have watched Harry stumble stunned through the door with his whole face smashed up, covered in blood, unable to focus or open his mouth, baffled and afraid, and fight through it all evening until he finally got enough of a hold on himself to be able to drink water, and go to sleep. And he woke up in the morning asking if I was ok..
And I love and respect all three of them so so much more for having seen what they went through and how they made themselves bigger than their animal responses, because it isn't anything anyone can teach you, it is the hardest lesson of all and everyone learns it alone.
And I think of other frieeds who were in pain before I understood what that meant, who pulled together their energy to have fun with me and interact with me and made themselves larger than their experiences so that they could share the time with me.
And I think maybe it is time we actually talked about pain rather than brushing it aside so our friends don't have to feel guilty.