11:06am July 16, 2013

I think I wouldn’t know what my body would feel like, without pain.

Like when I think of connecting to my body, there’s always the deep aching joint pain, and the searing nerve pain, and the other more throbbing nerve pain, and if I’m unlucky the flaming spikes or death. Plus the pain from muscle spasms. And the pain from assorted digestive system pieces and other stuff in my  torso, amplified by nerve pain, the weird icy burning sensation on my back. And the sharper joint pains where things aren’t quite connected right. And the tendon pain. And usually pain from assorted ways I’ve managed to injure myself without trying.

And that’s normal. That’s background. It’s not pleasant, but I’m used to it. Sometimes some part of it will get worse to the point I sent stand it. Sometimes it’s mostly just there, even if it never goes much below severe.

But there’s a weird way that pain is about settling into my body after the end of a long and stressful day. I may not want it there but I’ve gotten so used to it, that it feels like home. I don’t leave my home during the day, but I do get distracted from my body. So settling into my body – which inevitably means settling into the pain – is the equivalent it coming home to what is familiar. .

Someone once compared chronic pain to an unwanted house guest. One of those people who comes there to couch surf and never leaves no matter what you do. I’d say that’s not a bad description in some ways. But it’s also become part of my body, in fact it’s been there forever, and that’s where the house guest idea falls apart.

I don’t know how to connect more to my body, without connecting more to pain. I can’t easily separate them, any more than it’s easy to separate the different kinds of pain from each other.

I don’t even know totally what I’m trying to say, other than how deeply pain is embedded in my body, and has been since forever. So whenever I connect deeply with my body, pain is sitting there waiting. And weirdly enough, in those instances, it doesn’t always feel bad. Depends where and how bad the pain is at the time.

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