Something has plagued me longer than I can remember.
I can not recall what it is like to not feel pain at any given moment. I'm not talking about minor things like little cuts on your hand or feeling sore after a workout. I'm talking about back pain that leaves me in bed for hours longer than I should be, headaches that cripple any sense of hunger or drive to create, knee pain that makes walking something I loath more than something I enjoy.
If I could trade what I think is my greatest skill, my creativity, for a life of normality to my pain... I think I would take that offer.
To describe my pain, I usually go into drawing to show people, but for now I will try to convey it in words.
Let's start off with my headaches. Imagine your brain is wrapped in your skull like normal, but the inside of your skull is lined with spikes and knobs that poke and push your brain in uncomfortable ways. Then imagine these spiked and knobs trying to not only grow inwards, but outwards. The feeling of your head imploding and exploding with painful bone protrusions. The only escape the brain has is the eye sockets and the top of the spinal cord. I can feel my brain clawing at the meat that is my neck trying desperately to get out of my skull, only to find more spikes growing on my vertebrae. My eyes fight back, pushing my brain to the temples where it comes too close to the outside world, and panics.
My back is affected similarly, with those spikes and little bumps and knobs growing on the bones, but it attacks differently. The spikes are smaller, and don't do much beyond the feeling of internal paper cuts. My muscles and nerves feel as though I sat all night in a meat tenderiser with sauce made of warm led seeping into the fibers. The led cools when the tenderizing is over, leaving the muscles stiff. When I move them, the led crumples, flakes, and grinds against itself and the still sore muscles, causing little pieces to float about my body.
My knees feel like someone drove a railroad spike underneath each of the knee caps. When I try to relieve the pain by putting my feet up, my feet go numb almost instantly. The pain of the blood flowing back into my feet causes me to jerk about in the chair, trying to shake away the needles that are stuck in my skin.
My digestive system probably the most odd. My mouth is always dry, no matter how much water I drink. My esophagus is chewed up from the acid that escapes regularly from my stomach. My stomach is so weak that it can't protect itself from the acid. The acid seeps into the tender flesh of my stomach lining, feeling as though someone is sanding the lining down to a smooth, pink finish. The acid creeps into my small intestine, causing food to come out similar to the way it looked in my mouth. My large intestine is a black hole of sorts. Sometimes it works well, and sometimes it malfunctions. It will either store everything until capacity is reached, or it will flush everything out as if I'm in extreme detox. This causes me to pray to the porcelain throne in many positions.
On top of all of that, imagine a warming blanket drapes over your body. It restricts your muscles to basic movements, keeps the pain away if you don't move, and the warmth from it causes some of your body to become a numb jello.
I wish I could find solitude in doctors, pills, writing, or even drawing. I can not however, and it has caused me some great physical and emotional discomfort. Recently I have been tempted by the painless promises of suicide, though I know I can't leave this earth just yet.
