Sometimes it takes a crisis to put things in perspective.
To bring out the truth.
Lying in that hospital bed in absolute agony, I started to realise that my whole life had been spent following other people's wishes.
I had been in denial of what I wanted. I had silenced my own inner voice to please others.
I was a puppet and somebody else was always pulling the strings.
I hadn't slept for 4 whole days or was it 5? It is hard to know once you get past a certain point.
Time extends out and loses any relationship to objective measurements.
Beyond a certain point without sleep your brain goes into short "fugue like" states where you disappear for a few moments at a time - bursts of slow wave activity that resemble sleep.
These are called microsleeps...
THE PAIN again. That pain. It is there it is present. In an instant I can go back there. It is everything, it is ALL.
It is like I never left it. In some dark moments I feel like I am still there.
Perhaps all the time since is just a brief dream from one of those microsleeps and in heartbeat I will back in that bed.
Back in that pain that never ending PAIN.
These little absences were a sweet escape from that searing, unending pain in my chest.
Just as they would take me away from that reality, so in a moment that pain would wrench me back.
I have never felt pain like that before.
No matter what position I took, no matter how I sat or laid down it was there.
Everywhere.
Filling every sense, every moment. Every breath was pain and nothing else well almost nothing else.
Pain and thoughts. In order to feel the pain you must be conscious and if you are conscious there are the thoughts.
You feel the pain and you think about it and in some ways that makes it even worse.
"When will it end?"
"Did it end?"
No amount of morphine or even diamorphine (heroin) even touched it.
It was just there, bigger, more intense more dominant pushing its way into evey conscious waking thought.
I just wished they could have knocked me out, anaesthetised me against it.
"Please just let me escape from this pain" I thought or am I still thinking it?
It is so hard to know - to be sure.
One thing is for sure I literally wanted to die.
It felt like someone was stabbing my lower chest with a red hot machete and then pouring boiling acid into the open wound.
I couldn't eat, I couldn't drink, I couldn't sleep (much though I wanted to).
That whole week is etched into my mind like the words chiselled into a granite gravestone.
It is funny how time perception changes under extreme stress. Those several days were an eternity of suffering.
A week becomes a lifetime.
Time slows down. The tick-tock of every moment moves at a snail's pace.
Tick then tock, then...t-i-c-k then t---o---c---k as the pain intensifies.
This is hell. Or was hell - it is hard to say? Is it in the past or am I still there dreaming of a future that will never come?
In those moments one wishes for the mind to stop - a kind of oblivion, some form of escape no matter how brief - but it doesn't come.
All you can do is endure and wait. Just wait.
T-i-c-k then t---o---c---k and so it goes on...
Those thoughts keep coming though. Always coming, hand in hand with the pain.
The pain gives them a laser-like focus.
A new clarity emerges and you have all the time in the world to contemplate your situation.
I imagine it is similar in some ways to how people describe their life flashing before them in a matter of seconds during a near death experience.
In those 7 days of hell I realised that my life was a lie.
The pain allowed me to confront something that I was too uncomfortable to allow myself to see in my conscious waking life.
My life was based on conformity and adherence. I cared too much about what other people thought.
I had taken a back seat in my own life and I had stopped thinking for myself.
Worse than that I was deeply unhappy but I couldn't even allow myself to accept that fact and had hidden it deep down in my unconscious mind.
Nothing hides from that pain though. The pain shines a light on all those uncomfortable truths.
All those little skeletons in the deep recesses of your mind come out to play and fight and do all those thinks they have never been allowed to do.
In those terrible moments I become myself again - or should it be "became" - hard to say like I said before.
I think part of you remains in that moment forever.
I am still there and always will be. Perhaps there are some experiences which never truly end.
They are there with you forever and in a strange way you are forever with them.
Sometimes it takes a crisis to put things in perspective, to reveal the truth.
-To confront what can't be confronted. To feel what you don't want to feel, to see what you have hidden from yourself.
Sometimes it takes a crisis - but it doesn't have to.
We can confront these things right now if we would just be honest with ourselves.
Thank you for reading.
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Instead of 4 years in a liberal arts major, wasting your life with useless trivia (and soul destructive programming), we as a society should have courses on finding yourself and finding your passion.
I have watched many a party girl (and boy) go to clubs every night, dance their lives away. Yes, they love the physical excitement, but come 10 years later they are all empty shells trying to find anything to get them high like they used to be.
They didn't find their passion. Passion builds you up, makes you more. Sensual pleasure for sake of sensual pleasure makes you numb and dilutes your presence.
We have nothing about finding your passion. Yes, there are millions of self help books on the subject, but none of them really help. And we do worse by the "common" knowledge that all good people get a good j.o.b. (just over broke), and that they should choose a path for the rest of their lives after spending only a couple of years as an adult. (no pressure there).
We need something like immersion classes. Where you can try out a direction for a month and see if it is where you want to go.
Thank goodness for ThouTube, however, their search functionality is seriously (and specifically) limited. You never find what you are really looking for except by clicking around and getting lucky. It is all so sad.
I hope it will be better in the future.
ps There are tribes of aboriginals who perform sacred rituals like this, just for this kind of clarity. Like what is shown in _A Man Called Horse_ .
Great points.
Yes and too much of it means you don't even feel it any more.
Agreed.
Yes hopefully it will.
Great movie. Yes in aboriginal and more "primitive" cultures they understand a lot of the things that we have lost in modernity.
Thank you for a fantastic response:)
I know this to be true as well. I am four years into my rehabilitation after a spinal cord injury and two surgeries. After having 2 children, migraines, injuries, etc., I thought I knew pain and I thought I knew me. Boy, was I wrong. Now, I have grown and learned so much that I am grateful for my SCI and for the limitations that remain for it has been the catalyst for the most wonderful changes in my life, but not without a great deal of effort on my part. Struggle and suffering are two of our wisest teachers if we are willing to truly listen.
Thank you for sharing your experiences. I think you are right. Sometimes we need these things to reveal to us what is really important.
YES!!! Very well done! I didn't know whether to comment here or to builderofcastles but the point is this (I hope he/she reads this). I'll use this analogy...my second wife used to always tell me things like: "You're so smart, you've been to college, you can do this, you can do that," ad infinitum. I told her that the people who are the most successful in this world, either financially or personally, are the ones that figure out who and what they are...and capitalize on it. As trivial as this might sound, she excelled at cleaning house. I talked her into putting an ad in the paper, helped her to get licensed & insured...now she has a successful business. The same holds true in our personal lives as well. Once you know who you are, you have a framework from which to view your goals. I hope that makes some sense...it's what I got from your fine article and builderofcastles' comment. I wasn't trying to talk about financial gain as much as personal.
I understand exactly what you are saying and I think you are spot on! Thank you:)
Thank you...after I read what I wrote, I got the feeling I was wandering around in the dark. I didn't think I said what I was trying to.
I think we all have doubts like that. The great thing here is you can just add to your comment:)
This is a great post and a very timely one for me as well. Thanks for writing this. Also, the Steemit help site you built is amazing. Steemit should use it as it's official help page....
Thanks it means so much coming from you:) Glad you like Steemithelp - I've been working away on it in the background.
Very true. I have always been on to seek to understand more of truth.
Since last year I haven't slept as well dealing with Tinnitus after getting Meningitis, which is a major crisis. Such things also helps you see other things as much much easier in in.
Someone said to Voltaire, "Life is hard." Voltaire replied, "Compared to what?"
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Thank you so much:)
There are so many ways to bring about altered states allowing one to reach into deeper reaches of our being. Pain is one door that allows that and surely doesn't come sugar-coatedly! I hear you, as I have lived something very similar as a child, for about 3 years, on and off...
I have found that, in deed, "a part of us stay there" to quote you, but what is this "there" we are referring to? Pondering this question, back then, I realized quickly that it way the path to awe, the path to the very deepest core of what I was, I road I never want to forget and a highway to bliss.
Since then and as a sort of test to myself, I have purposefully endeavoured and studied many techniques allowing me to get there. I have chosen to do so ritually and prescribe myself a dose of coming back to myself on Solstice, many full moons and every time it is needed or when synchronicity calls... ;)
Thanks again for such an essentiel piece of writing well worth sharing. Namaste :)
Hi. Thanks for your great comment. You make some really valid points - someone else brought up the issue that in earlier and native cultures such practices are used to achieve spiritual growth. In some ways you are perhaps continuing that tradition. Perhaps you could post on it? All the best:)
Thanks for your words, it has been a pleasure to send you a reply and surely have been thinking about an awful lot of subjects to share with the Steemit population. There's only so much time in one day, so far, and look forward to sharing more as time goes. I surely would gladly share a post on the importance of rituals in tribal mindsets and provide a lot of example based on my own experiences in these realms. I am continuing an reawakening this tradition everywhere I go with anyone daring to listen and practice. Safe & light travels, namaste :)
You're welcome and I look forward to it.
So much truth in your words. As you say, it doesn't have to take a crisis, but often times it does. It is so easy to remain in complacent denial when going along in everyday existence. Perhaps the imposed non-escapable down time away from ordinary daily life is what is required to just sit with ourselves. No way to go anywhere, and no place to hide. Being right there inside the self with the intensity of everything right in our lap and the undeniable truth just staring us in the face. Potent--powerful--horrible--incredible! Who could ask for anything more?
I have had times when I felt I would either die or fly!! -- when I've been in so much pain that I snapped into the awareness of deep gratitude for feeling so much.
I am grateful to be living at the @gardenofeden, where we are intentionally questioning everything and doing the inner journey everyday. That is of our highest importance, as if we cannot help ourselves, we can never help others. Once one begins to realize the value of remembering the soul's journey, there is literally nothing else to do. I'm grateful to be in continuous motion toward an evolutionary life.
Good for you for looking at yourself and for finding the honesty of your inner most being. Thank you also for sharing this post. May you reap the rewards of you own personal inner journey. Grateful to witness you @thecryptofiend.
Thank you for your kind and understanding words. I think if we all learned mindfulness and comfort with being in the moment sometimes (without constant distraction), we would all reach these kinds of conclusions and realisations a lot sooner!
Agreed!! Being present is of great value--life changing, in fact. It's beautiful you're experiencing the unfolding.
Yes thank you:)
Loved your post! Good to hear you have woken up from the mundane slumber of conformity :) Awesome pictures too!
Thanks I always love picking pictures for my posts. It's one of my favourite bits.
Great job choosing, really makes the story come alive!
Thanks:)
Stunning post! (;
Thank you:)
I concur. I had this kind of pain once. Only it was emotional. And it FELT physical. I wanted to tear it out of my body. I remember sitting there staring at the wall, unable to eat, or sleep, or speak for days, feeling certain it would never end, and wondering if I'd ever be able to have a life again. I was experiencing pain to such an incomprehensible degree, my concept of self up to that point became completely irrelevant. My concept of what really mattered became crystal clear, and everything else became trivial. And has remained so for the most part.
Ever since then, I find it very difficult to value some of things that my peers value, or to the same degree. I simply do not find the same satisfaction in the things that used to impress me. My level of appreciation for the right things, and my ability to not care about the wrong things, has dramatically changed. My ability to attract certain kinds of people and opportunities, and repel others, is totally different than it was before.
When I read your story, I thought you were referring to emotional pain at first. And then I realized that what we're talking about here is universal in principle: pain of any kind, especially the unbearable, unending kind, can rip us out of ourselves. And this is not necessarily a bad thing.
I used to do kung fu. Our master would make us do mini punches forward in the air for minutes on end. And we were not allowed to stop, no matter how exhausted and fatigued our muscles became. We had to stand in our stance, feet planted, and shoulders square ahead, while we punched repeatedly, rapidly in place. It was AGONIZING. And IMPOSSIBLE. And then, something happened. It was as if the muscles just gave out. And suddenly, the punching became easier. And faster. And more fluid. And less painful. And it would get to another threshold of agonizing and impossible, but you had to punch through it. Rapidly. Don't stop. And the relief would slowly settle in again, almost like a numbing agent. And it would become slightly easier and more comfortable than before.
This would go on for minutes, and we would finally stop and rest, and THEN start our workout for the day! I learned that what was happening was that certain small muscle groups we were engaging would eventually give out and let ONLY the muscles that were absolutely necessary take over to get the job done. Only the most BASIC and absolutely essential muscles were to be engaged. The counter-groups and muscles that generally might cause resistance to an action would simply stop counter-acting. And the action would become easier. It was teaching a form of relaxation, basically. And it blew my mind.
And I hated it. :0)
Thank you for sharing your experience. It is very interesting what you say about emotional and physical pain. They are very similar in nature from a neurological perspective and it is true that antidepressants can act as analgesics and bring about pain relief. Similarly painkillers can also have effects on relieving emotional pain. This suggests that on a physiological level there is something in common.
Lol totally get the martial arts thing. I think the teachers love to do stuff like that - I had very similar experiences. I think that as time goes on you learn to relax the antagonistic muscles.
You're right. Analgesics from antidepressants is a known fact, likewise the painkillers can have emotional relief as well. I took antidepressants after a car accident for the express purpose of relieving some physical pain without relying on pain meds. It worked.
Yes I had a friend who did his research project on it in University. They all have potent analgesic qualities:)
Your comments had me thinking.
"I was a puppet and somebody else was always pulling the strings."
In this material world someone else is always pulling the strings. We are all controlled by the modes of material nature. Goodness, passion and ignorance are the true puppet masters of this world.
"Perhaps there are some experiences which never truly end.
They are there with you forever and in a strange way you are forever with them."
The mind is material, the senses are material and the body is material. Thankfully this material life is temporary. It is only the soul that will remain when the body is done. Pain does have a way of piercing your soul and illuminating your true eternal self. Thanks for such a nice contemplative post.
Thanks for such a great response:)
Oh @thecryptofiend, I'm so sorry to learn that you have been experiencing this. Pain at that level is indescribably to someone who has never experienced nerve pain before. My intent here, is not to minimize your experience in anyway. A few weeks ago, I came across this TED TV talk which was censored by them. It specifically talks about the link between emotions and pain and techniques to reset the body.
No worries. Nerve damage pain is some of the worst pain you can have because it is difficult to treat and is similar to the sensation produced by burning. Pain and emotions are very tightly related as you say. Thanks for the link I will watch it when I have a moment. Is pretty late here now (almost 2 am).
@thecrytofiend, I've been a massage therapist for 25 years. I specialize in chronic pain, neurological conditions and autoimmune diseases. As a result I am also a cannabis coach. I'm in Canada, but I can point you in the right directions to things you might research/try to help your condition, regardless of where you are located. I also have MS, myself, so have a personal connection to nerves that can get attacked as a result of other processes going on in the body.
First step, for grabbing the reins on the pain, is to fix your sleeping cycles, then block pain, then tackle your eating lifestyle. I don't know what your circumstances are but I could recognize through your writing that you are dealing with internal neuropathic pain. Just know that I am happy to help you. Hang-in-there.
That's OK I am fine now. That was 2 years ago when I was in hospital with acute pancreatitis which then proceeded to chronic pancreatitis. I don't have pain anymore but my pancreas doesn't work so I have to take insulin and digestive enzymes with my food. It is a hassle but thankfully I don't have any chronic pain. Some people do end up with neuropathic pain - in pancreatitis the major risk is from pancreatic enzymes digesting your internal organs and causing infection. That is probably also the cause of the pain and there may well be a neuropathic component as nerves end up being damaged by the enzymes and subsequent inflammation. I did have residual pain for about 3 or 4 months which have been a result of this but like I said it has gone now.
Oh, I'm so glad to learn that @thecryptofiend!
Hopefully others will read your post and the comment thread and it will help others to know that they are not alone.
Thank you. Yes:)
Any help is pointless for new users if they find out within a week that their blogs are worthless unless you they know, or are liked/favoured by those who hold a lot of voting power. Your content or quality does not matter and everything is an "American dream" lie.
Sycophancy and clinical attention seeking is what is valued while old, loyal quality content creators are unappreciated in inconsiderate curation.
There are efforts underway to improve it but I think what you have said will resonate with a lot of people. I don't have an easy or quick solution to it. The only thing I would suggest to people is persevere but that is not an easy matter if you need to survive in the real world. All I can say is that I value your content (sadly my vote is only worth a few cents right now but maybe that will change at some point).
"There are efforts underway to improve it"
I heard it in July :-)
I know.
UV and RS.
Without getting too personal publicly, does this relate to what we discussed the other day by PM??
Sadly you know what I went thru after being run over - so I can relate to this in lots of ways.
Either way a nice piece of work as always by you my friend.
Thanks mate yes I think you of all people understand! Thank you for your continued support. Also Rocket Chat seems to keep going down. I wonder if they are doing maintenance.
very powerful!
Thank you:)
block the pain and love yourself
Thanks. Sometimes you can't block the pain.
I know what you are talking about. Sometimes I love to remind myself those thoughts, which I had when suffering a real pain. It takes me back to reality and makes all those firstworldproblems less important.
Thank you. Yes it can certainly focus the mind and show you what matters.
Very evocative. I agree -- in many cases it takes real physical pain or a painful episode to see oneself clearly/truthfully, and then to make important changes. I admire your courageousness in writing about your experience, thank you for posting.
Thank you for reading and your continuing support. Hope you are well and taking plenty of photos?
I was very touched by your post. x
Thank you for asking. I've been...okay. Getting better every day. Not taking as many photos as I would like, but planning for more ; ) And you? How are you?
I'm better getting ready to go back to work but I have to take insulin now and that makes it a bit scary. I think once I go it won't be so bad.
Oh wow, that's a big change, indeed. No wonder you feel scared! Please get in touch via PM at FB if you would like to chat! I'm rooting for you, big time!! x
Thanks for your support:) I think I will be OK but feel free to chat anytime you want. Also please let me know next time you post any of your still life masterpieces I would hate to miss them!
Upvoted! And promoted
Thank you so much:)
You welcome ;)
steemithelp is awesome. I will add it to my latest post. You made it right? It's really great.
Yes I made it thanks! It is still a work in progress and I am slowly adding to it:)