Ouch, Baby!

Presumably Where My Reactive Nature to Physical Pain Comes From

At some point along the road I became just awful at coping with body-pain.

I remember the first time it was noticed. My highschool boyfriend, Brandon, peeped under the sheet I had squirreled away under at his Mom’s house in the guest room. It was the nearest place where I could hide from the light while my temperature rose. As he peered in to see how I was doing, I scooted back further into the cave of the bed, whimpering and squinting as though each ray of sunshine was riding in on horseback to battle me to death. Pricking me with tiny, pointy, bits of cruelty OH LORD WHYYYYY.

It was only then that I noticed that I am like this–a total baby about being sick–because he cared. He reacted with stupified laughter and kindness and brought me some soup and water.

It was embarrassing (and still is), but I react really strongly to not feeling well.

Typically, my family didn’t really respond, and so I didn’t realize I was being dramatic or feeling so deeply. I was so used to being ignored in my feelings that I’d let them out to their extremes.

I remember as a kid I had a really hard time sleeping. I was scared no one would come if someone were to abduct me or hurt me. So, I’d scream as loudly as I could to see…if anyone would come…and no one ever did.

Not once.

So, I didn’t think it mattered. And I don’t think my parents were trying to teach me any lessons; I think they were just older–being in their 50s by then. And they didn’t have great hearing. And they didn’t want to move around a lot, so they found any excuse to write stuff off and stay seated.

OR maybe they were given some bad advice to just ignore me all the time. Thinking that would make my fears and feelings go away.

Ultimately, I just felt unsafe. Unprotected. All the time.

I am similar now. Very wary of any physical pains and dramatically responsive when they arise. I just can’t be out there, in the wild, not capable of fully protecting myself while in a state of miserable weakness.

If I have a swelling lymph node, I start getting very nervous. Because I know that if something takes hold, I’m done for. I’m laid out. I’ll need to retreat until it’s over–and that is not a good look. Not in our capitalist KEEP ON GOING society.

There was a period of time when I bought into that mentality. Overriding my instincts, I’d power through all illness to do more drugs and smoke cigarettes and party harder and write all the papers and do all the research and read the things and work work work. I’d lean into all the bad coping habits to just get through the pain and be able to stay in circulation with society. To be able to stay with my friends who showed they cared about me by simply noticing I wasn’t well. To get a gold star from the upper-ups for always showing up and working no matter what.

Bleh!

That’s a damn stark contrast to who I am now. Especially post-2020. After I was forced to slow down entirely. After the world normalized prioritizing wellness over working oneself to death. The latter is no longer admirable, and I love that for us.

Last week, I strained my neck and threw out my back from bellowing and sobbing my feelings out alone in my closet. Embarrassing… but true. Painfully true. The pain is acute. The resulting lack of sleep is diminishing my wellness. My head is pounding from a pinched nerve.

Days later, I tacked on some small ear/throat/nose infection that has my ear just deafened enough, my throat just swollen enough, and my nose just clogged enough to notice. Both of these things together, and I’m my most wretched baby self.

I don’t want to do anything. I will avoid all I can in lieu of rest and water.

I’m eating ripped-up tortillas. I am not doing my dishes.

And while I do find this state of barely-crawling-through-being-alive somewhat shameful, I also find it fine. I just…enjoy who I am in every condition–and the perpetual truth that within this human embodiment, absolutely nothing lasts.

Anyway. Besides lazy tortilla snacking…I am making a lot of loose-leaf herbal teas, and my hair is a mop squished under a hat and I am wearing what could be pajamas but pass enough as clothes–I guess–but I am alive and in pain and even if your parents ignored you, it all fades.

We all have dumb trauma that shows up in stupid ways and it’s fine.

You don’t have to be something you aren’t. We have nothing to prove.

And me? I’m a fucking baby when I’m in physical pain.

Love you, though.

A hui ho,

Julia

From the cave that is my bed with my 10yo rabbit companion, Fi