Wednesday, September 29, 2021
Ever since my ex-wife hit the gas on her Subaru and hauled off 337 lbs in sum and 38 cumulative years of warm-bodied, properly-reared children, whose stake I might very well have laid equal claim to, had I qwelled fast enough the overly-intelligent, premium Jack of Ass who takes up refuge in the one place no one on this planet possesses the capacity nor courage to navigate and track him down, my pysche, my life has been consumed by the relentless occupier of my pain; my thoughts and decisions left to its governorship; and my very existence redefined and rendered precisely within its budget and vision to echo beyond all barriers my defeat. No, I actually cannot think of a better way to say my life has been taken over by the pain from my losses. I’m mentally ill, I’m dramatic, and I’m hurting. Sorry…
1.1 Quantitative Pain Theory
On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your pain?
Unless you only accept treatment by ammish doctors – anybody…? – I’m assuming you have been asked that question at least once, most likely at the ER. I was asked this very question just last week. I will gladly give you my answer at the end of this post.
Prior to the onset of this new life I abruptly began two years ago, which eventually phased through all reigns of hell, including two realms previously undiscovered, I had sincerely and wholeheartedly believed I was an expert in more than a few areas in life; most specifically, in the subject of the #HumanCondition. I felt as though I could read another human being as if they were merely a data source. In some regards, this remains true, especially when it comes to the implementation of marketing concepts.
However, as we venture towards context-specific thoughts and #feelings, my mind divides. With intention, of course. It follows without completion trail after trail of concept after concept, seeking the terminology which connects; the idea that relates; the hook that binds; yes, smarty-pants, the the conflict that divides; the boundary therein and the void that separates elsewhere from there; the heads and the tails and the bodies seemingly without ownership of each or either; and, as always with any puzzle I assemble, the common denominators, which almost always underhand to me an anomaly with just the right perplexity to make me feel weak in the knees…
You see, despite the commonality of so simple and everyday a concept that might hold #relevance to one’s life, until I have officially assembled its puzzle, it remains yet a mystery to me.
As did, for some time, the nature and functional effect of my broken heart. Given something with so brutal an affliction its effect upon my mind and spirit; abruptly invoked, and unchallenged nor slowed by but a tither its swift movement across my pysche; complete to full consumption my emotional existence and furthermore the perplexion of what ought to have been a muscoskeletal system once orchestrated by a simple governance of physics, now weakened and weakened more and less again, or not, by the ebb and flow of its very pulse; this #EmotionalPain that hijacked all that was me in one fast day was a puzzle I needed to solve, and I needed to solve it quickly.
And so I did….
There’s no reason to double-check the previous line or send me a message asking if that was a typo; it does in fact say what I meant it to say. However, those results in thier complete form are for another post on another day. Sorry.
For today, we dance…
So how, then, do we define and evaluate pain on a quantitative level? And why would we want to?
Well, the answer to the second question may well be because you want to officially hurt more than someone else in close proximity within your life, and you want to prove it quantifiably-so (can someone please Google this compound adjective and see if it’s used anywhere else).
The Freudian archives that need to be studied to provide a basis or sensible explanation for that one are, with all certainty, beyond the scope of this post. And fortunately, it’s not the direction I currently travel. Allow me to summarize my answers to those questions.
We can’t. We shouldn’t want to. And we’re not going to… And perhaps, you need help…
So what, then, is all of my fuss over? How about we just read my theory and see where it takes us? Shall we?
My thoughts on the matter, simply titled the Theory on Quantitative Pain defines a set of truths, none of which should be surprising. I’ve discovered the only relevant factors that need be scrutinized. l personally derived the following criteria to build my theory, and have since failed in efforts to prove it invalid.
These truths are as follows:
And it follows, there exists just one mitigating factor, which is determined by the #HumanElement of the equation and will exist with as such a variation across measurements:
The person experiencing the pain can choose how to outwardly express himself.
So far, I’ve spoken only explicably about physical pain. However, such a discussion would contrast greatly with the subject matter typical of my blog, now wouldn’t it? Today, I wish to speak on the matter of #EmotionalPain.
Spoiler Alert
Although it might seem somewhat contradictary, near the end of this perspective, I will provide for you a methodology to measure and compare such pain efficiently enough to guide the treatment of an individual with #MentalIllness, and then I will explain why it does not matter, anyway.
1.2 Emotional Pain, Defined
It is no coincidence that the last couple paragraphs have led right up to the door of emotional pain.
Knock knock. And here stand I, now at your doorstep, Mr. Pain.
Ever since my ex-wife hit the gas on her Subaru and hauled off 337 lbs in sum and 38 cumulative years of warm-bodied, properly-reared children, whose stake I might very well have laid equal claim to, had I qwelled fast enough the overly-intelligent, premium Jack of Ass who takes up refuge in the one place no one on this planet possesses the capacity nor courage to navigate and track him down, my #pysche, my life has been consumed by the relentless occupier of my pain; my thoughts and decisions left to its governorship; and my very existence redefined and rendered precisely within its budget and vision to echo beyond all barriers my defeat.
No, I actually cannot think of a better way to say my life has been taken over by the pain from my losses. I’m mentally ill, I’m dramatic, and I’m hurting. Sorry…
However, there is a point to this. But before I can make any such point, I first must sift through and remove the sense from the pile of nonsense. Allow me to speak plainly.
For two straight years, I have not been living life, I have been suffering it.
And so it is to be expected, for with great loss comes even greater grief.
The one thing that makes it unbearable?
The guilt of knowing it was my own damn fault.
The one thing that makes it impassable?
#Invalidation from others that this pain I experience is as bad as I want it to seem.
There’s a common assumption made that I would ever want my pain to seem in any way particular to anyone whatsoever on the outside. I am not an expert in psychophysics. I do not have at my ready the conclusions to any of Freud’s theories. Nor do I have the names ready to drop of any other doctors of like stature. And I wish to remain so that I might provide you the answers derived from my own intellect. And from my position, I can say with all certainty:
Your experience of my pain is, in fact, null and void; a non-thing.
You do not have an experience in this event, nor do you have a seat at this table, for you were not invited. You have only speculation, which is your undeniable right. And oops, I guess I went and made my point. Did you happen to catch it?
1.3 Pain Validation
Failing to #validate an individual’s pain is probably the worst thing you can do to a person in a time of emotional need. Oh wait, you could also kick them in the groin and jab a stick in their eye…
No, this is actually worse, and I’d much rather receive your kick and jab in kind than to squirm through such barren, cold-plated, resentment-inducing, narrow mindedness from someone I was counting on for warmth and support, for future reference.
However, this topic needs a lot more attention than this post can provide and wasn’t specifically what I had hoped to address. And quite frankly, I gave up seeking validation for my feelings years ago when I married a covert narcissist.
Let me get to the bottom of it…
As a person suffering from severe mental disease, and a history of terrible #EmotionalReactions to mental pain, my feelings are often, by just about everyone I know, written off as over-reactions, drama, or figmants of my imagination.
Screech….
Why did I just stop the car?
I have no doubt you heard what I said, but I don’t believe you understood it. So let me say it again in a different way:
My feelings aren’t just deemed incorrect, they are deemed nonexistent. They are not even real feelings to begin with.
And thus, conveniently, there’s no point in discussing them. Fetch the broom, I’ll lift the rug…
I sure am glad you feel complete with this resolution. No really, I do. That’s one of the problems with the nature of my mental illnesses… #Empathy… I was born a true empath, and I’ve spent most of my life trying to hide it until this past year, in fear that there was something wrong with me. I care and empathize so much that I don’t want my mental illness affecting you in a negative way. Imagine that…
So I therefore set foot down the path to eventual frustration of self-defeat wherein I sit upon my hands and shut my pie-hole.
Hello… Lookie…. Over here, sir… You hoo… You see my damn face turning red, asshole!
What is it with you mentally-stable folks and your God-like ability to cancel something from existence because you simply cannot hear it!!? This is healthy?
If you knew your baby was starving in her crib and screaming, could you simply shut off the baby monitor and enjoy a quiet peaceful afternoon?
Nothing else should contrast with this regard. Nothing. Nothing in the realm of pain or emotion should escape the grasp of this concept. You should have care and concern for all of it. Shame on you!
Shame!…
You!…
My finger pointing!
Ok, I say to you now after having gained composure, not all is lost. if everyone in the world were to grab a marker, a red one please, we can have all the pyschology textbooks corrected by the end of the century.
I better move forward so I shall…
Tell me your heart bleeds for this child. But do not tell me it bleeds more than mine. I am homeless and I just donated $10 as I was writing this post. What can you give? www.savethechildren.org
1.4 The children starving in Africa
And here comes the big moment, or I should say, here comes the first time I say there’s a big moment. Today I will single-handedly alter the world forever. Via a simple declaration.
You, as a human being, when speculating on another person’s pain, are no longer allowed to make the point that there exists, somewhere in the world, someone whose pain is much worse than theirs. Oh yeah, and you’re also banned from saying the phrase, “Not everything is about you.”
I’m going to stop you right there so keep your mouth closed for the moment.
Does the fact, that another individual on the other side of the country is at this very moment burning alive and enduring much more wicked and horrendous pain than I, help lessen the pain of my measly compound fracture?
No, of course not.
So what am I supposed to do with that information? How can I apply that information to help my situation in any way, shape, or form whatsoever?
Nothing…
Here’s a bonus question: what were you expecting me to do with this information? What was your motive behind giving it to me?
If you wish to grow as a person after reading this article, I suggest you answer this to yourself before moving forward…
Of course, I can speculate. Truth be told, you probably gave me that information to make me feel guilty. To make feel guilty for… hurting…?
And you likely did it because my incessant whining and complaining about my pain was annoying you (sorry, and I do actually see your point there…).
But allow me now to get as real with you as four men armed with a knife and some kind of metal pole were with me when attempting to take my life over my backpack one night in an empty PSU parking garage…
When I gave the guy his knife back, as I was trained to do years before I became an engineer (bonus clue for my Badlands posts), into the side of his thigh, was I aware of the level of pain I was causing him?
You bet I was.
Should I have felt bad about it?
No, I shouldn’t have, especially since moments prior he was trying to stab it into my chest.
Here’s the stumper: did I feel bad about it?
Yes, I felt terrible. so much so that I’ve replayed the man’s screams for help over and over in my mind ever since, which took me by surprise having never stabbed someone before. I even walked ten blocks to a police building just to report it and turn myself in. The two with broken wrists, one of whom likely had a busted sternum, and the idiot holding the metal pole thingy I left choking on his own esophagus on the ground, well, I’m still catching up but I got a lot of guiit still to process…
I understand for some people the nature of information like this may deliver to them a much-needed lesson on the outlook of life, and perhaps put their situation into a better perspective, but this effect does not apply to everyone, especially not me.
It is the equivalent of saying those dreaded words to me that make me cringe: Not everything is about you…
Why not? Why can’t it be about me when it comes to my pain? Why is the situation or condition of anyone else involved? Of course, a narcissist would follow with the accusation that I’m being narcissistic, but that is a topic for another post.
The guy burning alive on the other side of the country: he’s got a team of doctors helping him and his family by his side; he will be as okay as he can possibly expect given the circumstances.
And in case you weren’t aware of it, according to your logic, his pain wouldn’t matter either, for only the one person with the absolute most pain on Earth is the rightful one to complain about it… Really?
Why can’t I have your permission to hurt, too, and for it to matter?
Whatever your answers to those questions are, I’ll leave you with this: given the blueprint of my mental disease, which will likely be filed one day in the Library of Congress, empathy is just as much a part of my downfall as any other element known to the human psyche. Please don’t use my empathy to hurt me. Please don’t use my mental illness against me. If you do not share the same empathetic mind, such as my dear-friend, Sarah, just leave me to my pain and walk away. Please…
We should’ve gotten a live chicken. – Willie Mayes Hayes, Major League
Content Alert
If you are a licensed psychiatrist with deep knowledge of the inner workings of Freudian theory and are working on an individual patient to help the release of pain from thier past stubbornly held hostage by the pysche, or you are my dear-friend, Sarah, you may skip the next section.
2.1 (Pocketbook pbyschology) Your expertise in my pain management
Here’s a new phase of evolution for taking over management of my pain, since the placement of your righteous feet in near proximity to my hippocampus deems you authoratively adequaute to evaluate its inner-workings in first person.
What I speak of now is your highly-sophisticated, well-thought and inspired, tried and true recipe on how I should, and if I only just would, appropriately deal with my pain. And I give you credit, you’ve instructed so many others on the matter that you could not possibly feel any more confident as the words roll from your mouth, which adds to your credibility, of course.
I was instructed a total of 11 times from 3 different people over the past year that I’m still feeling my pain simply because I want to; and all I have to do is allow myself to not feel it anymore.
My apologies to whomever’s ego crash and burn this rebuttal supplies, but might I ask what your credentials are and from where exactly you’ve obtained your knowledge?
If your #knowledge were correct, by the way, it would be ground-breaking and the answer to the world’s problems, and right this very second I would be shielding you with my own body while we await a military escort to snatch you from the street and rush you to the nearest university.
Your first thought might be to tell me you’ve learned this through your own experience. However, I would stop you short and wave my finger at you in shame. I know not of any human being in existence on this planet, nor have I ever crossed paths with the like, who’s possessed such mastery of mental control over emotional pain that the very levels of severity and intensity could be dialed-in and adjusted to #TolerableLevels (Fact check: Yoda is not a human being and resides in the Dagobah system).
If ever such a person had existed, you would have marvelled me, Sorcerer, and I would have remembered you… Forever…
So I doubt very much that any of these Advice-Givers are simply giving me advice based on their own experiences. And typically following with a failed effort to replicate the master’s technique, often times there exist roadblocks with peculiar placement along the way as well as deviation from normal and expected engagement in human behavior, so as to line the path of failure with ready-to-go excuses as to why it didn’t work this one time for just me.
Oh, you didn’t set out a sacrificial bucket of KFC for the God of Emotion while you meditaded? Well, no wonder you’re still sad, friend!
And yes, there were others, and they all succeeded and graduated, and cannot be seen here now, but, shhhh, they await you in a darkened banquet hall, ready to yell surprise when you one day walk through the door after discovering that you do, in fact, have a #supernatural ability to bypass the mechanism of sorrow installed within your psyche by God himself to ensure you do not fly through life doing whatever you feel like unto others with no subjective hold to the consequences your actions produce.
As to why these people feel compelled to provide me with such faulty, fire-and-forget advice, I know not, nor would I possess the correct academic achievment to speculate on the exact dynamics of this ego system rooted deep within our society, except to offer my thoughtful and highly-sophisticated, ever-evolving review of the nature of #TheHumanRace by saying, “Human folk are sure weird.”
If not for anything but to join the club, I’d like that statement to one day be posted on my Wikipedia page as an official quote.
Well, this was an interesting and fun way to begin a segment that will soon turn very serious, but this side of the topic is often fueled by endless #rhetoric and is far beyond the scope of this post, so I must stop playing in the dirt for now and get up and walk down a different path.
To keep things simple, I’m only here to set the record straight regarding the nature of emotional pain and how we as individuals experience and cope with it. I am not here to pick up a new torch to carry for my hands are already full.
2.2 Unecesary pain. Who really needs it? Yuck…
My logic sidesteps now to bare the crossover of concept between physical and emotional pain because they are much the same by nature and the bridge to understanding each the other through comparison, metaphorically and literally, remains priceless for the #MentallyIllPatient.
So here we go, meat-lovers. Behold, the entree..
Pain is but a #symptom of injury or illness.
There’s really no way of #HealingPain. However, you can heal injury or likewise cure illness. Yes, we can mask pain. We do it in the ER all the time with opiates, which merely changes the way the brain experiences pain; Yet, the pain is still there. I’m reminded of a similar trick involving the use of… you got it, smarty-pants: #antideppresants.
So utilizing the present nature of a symptom the way a doctor typically would, what does this pain tell us?
A sharp pain in the shin might tell you an internal fracture. This can give direction to a doctor inspecting a patient via telemed, perhaps. So that the correct #TreatmentRegiment may be given.
I just made the most important point in this article and you were not even listening…
I bet your eyes have doubled back now and you just spotted the structure of a bridge of sorts connecting two concepts very critical, and I can imagine your eyes widening in this spectacular moment and maybe not completely now but soon it will have its implications on a lifetime of emotional pain in which you have experienced yourself; and may you breathe #RenewedHappiness again, you kind soul, as I seal the deal right in this moment and officially make the statement that may fulfill the registry assigned to this information in your inner-scholarly database of knowledge.
Emotional pain isn’t something unnatural and unsurvivable for which we need to desparately seek a magical cure; we should not fight its propagation across our pysche, except to perhaps tame or temper its speed; it actually has a purpose and a reason; to help guide us through this period of our lives in which our knees find breath and sight hardly possible mere centimeters above the well-marked fill lines indicative of the aftermath of whatever shit-storm just struck our #MentalHealth.
Phew… I finally said it. It’s over with! Well, not really…
But if you’re impressed so far, I think that’s fabulous. I also know jiu-jitsu, by the way. Oh, and Hikuta, too, extensively. And I may be a couple belts into Taekwondo. But that’s it…
Instead of elaborating further or spelling out words you should by now have memorized backwards, I’m going to drop this particular stone to the dirt and allow you to follow and complete the experience on your own, outside the confines of this article.
2.3 Comparing Pain: Case Study
And now, after taking a breath, I need to return to the matter of comparing pain, the topic in which I had begun this article. We will measure and compare the physical pain of two hospital patients, the 9 year old girl with a bruised rib, and the high school football player with a sprained ankle.
Whose pain is greater and why?
For the sake of exercise, and to actually make use of a notebook and pen, jot down the first answer that comes to mind without investing any thought into it (yes, I know no one uses notebook and pens anymore.)
I will allow a few moments for you to review your answer and when I see the expression of rising confidence invading with fresh increase across your face, I will do metaphorically what I’ve always wanted to do physically in a real classroom setting with an actual table and game board and, of course, an innocent and unsuspecting college student; with a pissed-off look upon my face I will abruptly wipe all the pieces off the board and flip the table upside down; or more specifically, I will inform you that this 9-year-old recently finished her 6th phase of bone marrow treatment within two years as a cancer patient, where as the high school football player is, in fact, the kicker, and a third-string kicker at that, and he actually sprained his ankle twirling in dance class (hey, no judgment here.)
2.4 Comparing Pain: Methodology
If I recall, at the beginning of this post I made a promise to deliver to you a #methodology in which a quantitative comparison can be derived from two different subjects bearing deep, intense emotional pain. I am happy to tell you, now that you have arrived, that I was not, in fact, fibbing.
Let us depose our two case studies so as to provide clarity to what we are evaluating.
Subject A: Robbie
A young man, named Robbie, in his early 20’s with an as-of-yet short-lived romantic career. He lost his girlfriend of six months a year ago to a car accident, only two weeks after she had moved into his apartment.
Subject B: Carly
A woman in her 50’s, named Carly, whose husband three months prior had revealed an ongoing affair with a much younger woman before filing for divorce. The woman had been a dedlicated housewife for 30 years and never held a career for herself.
Let’s examine some mitigating factors.
Depth of Feelings
Robbie had never been in a serious relationship before. At some point he evaluated his feelings for her and realized every aspect of them made sense and felt right.
Parenting Bond
Carly had always felt the comeraderie and respect as another parent from her husband
Shared Passion in Life
After some time, Robbie began to realize a new dawn of renewed dreams and aspirations unlike anything he had felt before.
Pain of Infidelity
The sting from Carly’s husband’s affairs cut deep and the bleeding seemed to never stop, embedding into her subconscious feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem.
Life Partnership
Robbie felt like a partner standing firm to his woman’s side as they took on the world together. He truly believed he would never be alone again.
Exiting Denial
After only a few months, Carly begins to realize that her feelings for her husband had started to subside a year ago when she first suspected he was cheating.
All of these points are great for a full psychological profile, but you cannot possibly assign any contextual values to them. For all intents and purposes, the data ia superficial. It is worthless.
Here is what really matters:
State of Grievance: Robbie
Robbie has not gone to work in over a month. He wakes up in the morning to the first thought of the void in his life. He cannot fathom a way to replace the love and happiness he once enjoyed, nor the dreams and hopes he had once held. Nor can he imagine there’s a way anyone can help him. He misses his girlfriend immensely and finds irreconcilable her loss.
State of Grievance: Carly
After a short period of confusion and indifference, Carly takes up the company of a supportive female co-worker and begins going out Friday nights for drinks. She soon realizes a weight has been lifted off her shoulders. As she sorts through the memories of her marriage, it becomes clear the lack of happiness in her life for some time. She enjoys herself in the company of others like she never had before. She still misses her former married life, or perhaps the idea of it, but any thoughts of her past are overshadowed by the new energy and drive that fills her spirits now.
I think we have some pretty clear results here. Of course, in the end we are left with but a qualitative result. That is the best we can do. And that is my point. I’ve said enough.
3.1 The Expression of I
Before I allow myself to veer far too close to the edge of practicality, I must apply my Coyote Road Runner brakes and lay anchor to some good, old-fashioned reality, I look to address a matter personal and urgent to my own psyche.
On too frequent the occasion, as a mentally ill person, has the expression of my pain been ignored or shrugged off as an exaggeration or mere figment of my imagination. As I’ve touched on in other posts, emotional pain imposes far worse an #affliction upon my mind, body, and soul than physical pain. It is a crippling injury in and of itself; a force with which to be reckoned; a disturbance unto my #homeostasis and a hinderance of significant effect upon my life, one of which I steer clear with immense fear. If I were a superhero, this would be my one weakness.
If you know me personally, then ypu likely already know I hate conflicts and will avoid one at all costs. Now you know the reason why.
My mission in this article, if it had to be reduced to one cause, would be to convince nay-sayers the fallacy of the notion that my emotional pain, its severity or otherwise, is derived from my imagination, #subconscious, a component of my mental illness, or any other source internal to my pysche. Nothing could be further from the truth. To be clear, I am not talking about the expression of my emotional pain. I speak of the pain itself and the source from which it came.
The debilitation emotional distress or pain imposes on me is, in fact, an external force causing an effect which is happening unto me. It is something I am experiencing, not doing. There is no self-action here to describe in which I am executing. May I be doing nothing but sitting upon my ass staring mindless at a wall, the situation remains the same and continues forward its process throughout my pysche until resolution or interuption.
Where as with physical pain, I can push through it as long as the function is still capable in my body.
With emotional pain, I cannot.
Did you get that? I am not allowing rebuttals to this point. It is as clear a fact as the sky is blue.
Good grief, I can still feel you stirring in disagreement. Ok, to double down on my point and put any desires to debate me to rest, I could sit in a quiet room, well-rested and -fed, my full #MentalCapacity at my disposal, and attempt with every cell circulating throughout my beautiful, mega-sized, high-capacity brain to hurt my own feelings, and I will fail. So there you go.
The Chamber of Pain
For a moment, let’s entertain the notion that my emotional pain is mostly a figment of my imagination, a delusion, not real or manifested in physical form. so what experience is occurring unto my psyche during these #delusions? How does it manifest to my reality? What does it even mean, if anything? Does it register as an actual memory in my brain? Am I ever in any real mental distress?
Well, let’s explore an idea I have . A really bad one…
Let’s say we have invented a chamber we call the Psychedelic Room. You can see it’s a bad idea already.
We can put somebody in this chamber and make them believe anything we so stipulate. They will believe without a doubt whatever we tell them. They will think they’re feeling whatever physical sensation that would come along with that experience.
Now let’s take a normal person with a good history of #MentalHealth and put them in this chamber.
Once inside, I would like to have him believe that for 10 straight minutes he is burning alive…
I’m not sure what kind of physical or verbal reaction this man would have or express. I suppose it depends on the man. I’m not wishing to highlight his reaction, however. As always on my blog: may the reader feel the burden of a guniea pig. Yes, my experiment here takes highlight of your behavior and mannerism during this hypothetical process.
In this scenario, knowing with certainty this man would not experience any physical injury or harm, would you feel it appropriate, should your peers standing by you strike up a conversation of such a nature, to lightheartedly joke or comment about whatever sounds may be emanating from the chamber? What might you say to this man when he exits the chamber?
The answers to these questions, of course, are for your consideration and speculation. However, should this be a real situation to occur in your life one day, God help us, I would advise you that as the man is leaving the chamber to be sensitive and thoughtful with your words and mannerism.
Offer the man a hand up… Ensure him he’s okay… Don’t be so quick to touch him and be mindful of where…
Because, despite the realization that all of the feelings and sensations experienced within the chamber were mere figmants of the imagination, delusions, exagerations of reality injected into the mind, for all intents and purposes, despite having never been harmed or existing even briefly under the threat of any such harm, you are in fact speaking to a man, a fellow human being, who just endured for ten tortuous minutes being burned alive…
3.2 Symptomatic
The expressions of my mental and emotional pain are indicative of the injury I bear within, and I assure you they are quite proportional. It is a symptom. A symptom meant to give those around me who care the idea of what I’m going through so that they might invest thought into a remedy, for those who care to help me, not shut me out.
I assure you, this pain is as real as it gets. And the consequences derived from my expression of that pain are just as real. The pain I bear is not welcome within my pysche, nor did I extend any such invitation, although from time to time I may unwittingly leave the door open for it.
Yet, there it is.
I drop this stone and walk away. I have said all that I had wished to say.
However, I choose to conclude this writing with one final segment; an authoritative end-all to your argument, given the event that your mouth is still moving and you’re mind is still resisting these #truths. I shuffle my feet once more back to the matter of having your instructions recited to me for the 38th time on how to cope with my pain.
What if after all is said and done, at the end of our work shift, when you’re going home for the night and I’m on my way home likewise, alone I walk down that darkened sidewalk, and in the frigid still of the night’s air a roughness brushes chapped redness across my lips, the silence of it and the bite that reaches out and chews from my hanging emotion, and I realize in that moment:
It still hurts…
What if I’m carrying that pain home with me now? But I’m doing it alone, thinking no one knows or cares or even believes in it. When there should exist another set of footprints aside mine. Yet, I walk alone.
And it still hurts…
And the very next day, I see you in the morning, quick to complain to my soundboard the harsh treatment from our boss that day. And I listen with a warm smile so you know that your friend hears you and he cares. And I grant you a quick laugh to give credit to your random joke, so you know that you exist unto me as more than a chore or burden.
But it still hurts…
Perhaps later that afternoon you talk about your ambitions, your plans, your dreams; with your career, your wife, your children; all of them still in your life. You tell me your plans with your family over the weekend; the very weekend in which I’m going to spend alone. Yet I smile with all sincerity and I’m truly glad and warm to the heart that you are happy.
But it still hurts…
And the weekend comes and goes and you’re gone for the duration and I don’t hear or see from you. And I spend that time in an empty apartment, with no one to speak with, no one except for my mental illness, of course. And we all know what that has to say to me, don’t we? In that silence I hear only endless chatter, voices unfamiliar, words unclear, endless rhetoric; an image of the love of my life sitting around the dining room table with our children, except another man sitting in thh chair next to her. My imagination; my worst fears; my pain… Its influence; its whispers; its nudge.
And yet, I hurt now more than ever…
When you return home late Sunday evening you give me a call to tell me about your weekend and ask me about mine, but I do not answer. You assume I probably went to bed early, but the following morning you see an empty chair at my desk and you wonder now where is your friend; the one with a smile, always, and ever the eager to hear about your troubles?
Is he sick? Did he get a flat tire on his way to work?
But you know not the moment that came for me without warning, or that I would be tested my full capacity to cope with the wicked depression armed to the teeth with my sadness, my worries, my feelings of loss, my pain, which knew me well and stalked me tirelessly til the time was right, and then swarmed me with overwhelming force; nor would you have worried about such an event.
Because, after all, you have already explained to me how to properly cope with my sorrow and move on from my pain.
My friend, where were you…
I had with me your words, your wisdom, your detailed instructions… But they failed me…
What I really needed was you…
You, and your receptive ears…
You, and your humble understanding…
You, and your acceptance of the pain I carry…
You…
…Where were you that day?
Where were you the day I was hurting a little too much?