Years ago, probably about ’94 or ’95, not long after my third car accident, I was having a lot of difficulty with constant pain – not as bad as it is now, but constantly present none the less. I was going through what they call Adjustment to Injury Counseling – which is a euphemism for ‘Suck it up Princess this is your life now – get used to it’ therapy. Psycho-babbling bullshit is what it is. With or without the trick cyclists, one thing I have learned about chronic pain… is that it turns you into a monumental pain in the arse and before too long you’re no longer the person you want to be and anyone who held you in any esteem whatsoever eventually starts to avoid you because either…
A) you’re a miserable complaining bag of pain bones and no fun to be around…
B) pain makes you really short tempered and your tolerance for ‘people’ is seriously diminished…
C) you can’t go scuba diving/water skiing/abseiling/bush walking anymore and people stop inviting you
or D) any combination of the above.
The result of course is that you eventually find out who your friends are… they need not necessarily be your ‘real’ friends per se, perhaps they’re just your more tolerant friends?!?! I dunno. What I do know is that most people started avoiding me… no doubt in some large part due to my avoiding them. Happy pain free people have this amazing way of pissing you off with their sympathy. I know it sounds stupid – but you just don’t really want sympathy from people who have absolutely zero understanding of what it’s like to be constantly in pain – it just starts to sound insincere at some point….. or maybe I just don’t want to be pitied. I dunno.
Anyway, I worked hard…. really fucking hard to change the things in my life that I could in order to overcome the daily issues that a ’10-15% residual incapacity of spinal function’ (PI lawyers are scum… scratch that – most lawyers are scum) left me with. Quit my job, traveled, went back to uni, made and just learned to live with what I’d be dealt. Stuck on my bedroom mirror these last 6 or 7 years at least has been a quote :
and I believed in that for years. Every day I would read that damned quote stuck to my mirror and remind myself that I should just try my hardest to ignore the back pain bullshit. I tried hard not to think too much how pain impacted on my daily life, and I deliberately distracted myself from the inevitable frustrations caused by the limitations back pain presents and I worked exhaustively not to let on to the people around me just how bad it was. I mean there was a lot of energy expended in literally grinning and bearing it. I hid behind wearing bright coloured clothing – people don’t notice the expression behind your eyes when they’re blinded by candy pink tops. I discovered that a low cut decolletage and a pair of DDs were equally effective in distracting certain company and most of the time I just kept my shit to myself…. and most of the time it worked. Mr K could always see through me, and for some reason Dr IVF used to see through it too (though I don’t know how/why) Sometimes it got on top of me – usually when I was overly tired or stressed.
Problem at the moment is… the pain is now much, much worse and my normal coping mechanisms ain’t cutting the mustard. So now I see the quote and I think – Voltaire’s a fucking wanker who doesn’t know shit from Shinola (what the hell is Shinola ???) Cos it don’t matter how much or how much or how little I ‘dwell’ on my misfortunes…. they’re right there following me around every minute of every day anyway. Following me around and fucking me over.
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