The Pain Goes Too Deep

It's about 11:30 at night, and I just had a sandwich. I don't usually eat this late, but given that food is a coping mechanism for me, it was a logical choice given the amount of pain I likely want to numb.

For half a second I questioned the naming of this entry. Who is going to read about "Pain?" I would be willing to bet it will be one of my least read blog entries because so many only want the good. I post a beautiful picture of myself and it gets all kinds of likes and comments, but I post something less than positive, and there will be plenty of times all the post will get is silence.

I am kind of used to it by now. But it still bugs me.

I watched a movie today about a man who became a prisoner of his body after a massive stroke. He survived a few weeks in a coma, and when he came out he could not communicate easily. In time, he was able to communicate by blinking one of his eyes, but that was about it.

In one of the scenes there was a woman he was in a relationship with who called. She had not been to visit him because she wanted to remember him as he had been. She made some comment about him understanding. He told her that he waited for her to show up every day when she asked if he wanted her to visit.

Another scene showed the pain and anguish of his father being unable to interact with his son. He was in tears at the end of the call, and you could see him afterward, distraught.

I see things like this, and I know that there has to be pain for those who care about me. There has to be pain to see me in pain and to hear me upset with things that have no resolution. But that won't stop anyone from trying. I can't say I blame anyone for being however they are being. Sadly, I even made a comment to a cousin at my aunt's viewing last year about how maybe it was good I hadn't seen her in a while, as it allowed me to remember her the way she was.

I cringe when I think about that statement now.

I never stayed away purposely. It is just the way things went, but what I said and the meaning behind it still sucked. If I had known that my aunt wanted to see me - and I didn't see her - that might have been a very different story. It just "conveniently" worked out the way it did to minimize any discomfort I might have had in seeing the things she was going through and the changes in her body.

I am not sure why I am saying all of this in one collective breath. It is just very much what is on my mind tonight as I was sobbing earlier. I am not clear what it was exactly that had me feeling like I needed to, but I guess I am hoping to work it out as I type.

And, just as I typed that, the tears again, began.

I am in pain. Significant pain. I am distressed. I am worried. I am fearful. I am alone. I am lonely. I feel isolated. I am frustrated. I am wanting to crawl into a shell. I am wanting to scream from a mountaintop. I am wishing there were some arms I could bury myself in and feel safe.

I have been in a coping mode for a while now, and I am never sure how OK I really am until I am not. I am never really sure how OK I am until I hit a tipping point and topple over into oblivion. I don't seem to have smallish breakdowns, but devastating abyss ones.

When that happens, I know the pain goes too deep for it to just be about what it appears to be on the surface. But despite knowing that logically, it doesn't help. Times like this nothing and no one really can help. There really is no solution. There is really no right thing to say. There really is nothing that can help me understand anything any differently than the fact that I am awash in great pain and terrifying fear.

I cried with a friend on the phone tonight. Sobbed, really. The last time I risked doing that, the friend I did it with hasn't spoken with me since. Tonight's friend said how difficult it was to be where she stood. She also said she would still be around tomorrow.

So much of what I am feeling has tentacles in other things. What I am feeling emanates from something that happened with "A," but I am not sure that it has to do with him specifically. I think it has to do with relationship frustrations from over the years, from times of being hurt, only to open my heart again, to find a deeper layer and level and understanding of love, only to be hurt again, more deeply, only to muster up the courage to be open again, and have another round, deepening my understanding and taking me to a deeper place of pain.

There is also the part about the "c" word. Whether or not he wanted a relationship with me, I would question things because I question how much longer I can be here. In some ways it feels selfish to want to be with someone - especially if my time with them might not be long. True, none of us are guaranteed tomorrow, but logic has no place in an emotional breakdown. It is a sealant that has no ability to seal when it comes to these types of things.

Logic also tells me there are really good reasons we shouldn't have or be more. Logic tells me that if I love him, I need to allow him to go after whatever he feels he needs for his own best. "Allow" in the sense of how I deal with things internally. After all, if he feels strongly enough about things, there is nothing I can do to alter it. It becomes something I need to deal with within.

But the problem I face at the moment is that I think what is happening with him, or rather what is not, is tapping into my sheer terror about my situation. It is tapping into the potential immediate impermanence of my life. It is tapping into the bag of goodies that I put aside as I have been trying to cope with running out of money and the prospect of a significant surgery and possible death.

Recently I played with a green wig. I have been cooking and baking some, too. They have been ways I have been trying to cope. They have been distractions. Is it good that I have been distracted? I really don't know. Maybe survival is at least one part denial.

I say that in part because in the devastation I have felt tonight, there has been a part of me that sees no point in going on. Yes, it is extreme, and it scares me to feel that way. Is life worth abandoning over "1" thing?

The thing is, it isn't really "1" thing. It is many things. It is many, many things. Taken piecemeal I can tolerate them, but the problem is I don't always have the choice or ability to have them be piecemeal. When the moments of clumping happen, so does the feeling of devastation.

As always a part of me is reluctant to share this so publicly. I don't want anyone to try to fix anything. There is no answer. No right words. The fact is, as you likely are already aware, at times like this logic and solutions not only don't have a place, they are as annoying as hell.

If you want to help, pray for me, and send me good energy. It is what I need most right now, other than to allow myself to feel the array of emotions that are bubbling to the surface. I wonder if part of it is an open wound from when "A" abruptly stopped speaking with me. I am wondering if that was ever truly addressed and healed, or if I just thought it was. It feels unresolved to me, so I am guessing it is more the latter than the former.

I am tired of the mountains I have had to climb in my life. I am tired of having to work so hard, and feeling like I have nothing to show for it. It is exhausting always feeling like there is something wrong with me, or how I say or do things, and not fitting in. It is difficult feeling like I don't matter, or that I am invisible. It is difficult feeling ignored.

So many of the things I have felt over my life are bubbling to the surface. I have to imagine that is a good thing, but it freaking sucks. My head hurts. I am sad. I am depleted. I am anxious. I am so many things in the void that feels like my life right now.