[Nevertheless] I Seek Life

These past weeks have been torturous. Weighed down by indescribable pain and the type of utter exhaustion that comes from extreme illness combined with sleepless nights, time spent out of bed has been brief. During weeks like these, my mental and emotional health suffer greatly. I seek comfort however I can find it. I just want the suffering to end.

Thoughts of suicide can be comforting. Thoughts of suicide come, in a way, with a feeling of hope that the pain will end. That hope can help sustain someone longer than you might imagine. I spent a good deal of my teen years dreaming of ending the pain that no one believed I was in - ending my life.

If you can't imagine how thoughts of killing oneself can be comforting, be thankful your mental health has never led you down that path. After all, what's worse than dreaming about committing suicide?

I know what's worse. What's worse is knowing that you will forever live without that hope that the pain will end - living with the fact that you will never choose to end your own life, therefore knowing that the pain you are in will last forever. 

Knowing that every experience you will have for the rest of your life will be marred by pain is mentally and emotionally excrucitating. At my darkest moments, thoughts that there is no escape from pain consume and torture me.

I live with chronic illnesses that come with their fair share of chronic pain. I cannot take pain medication. I have yet to find a doctor who will work with me to figure out what I can do to alleviate pain beyond ice and heat and occasional physical therapy. Between the joint pain, the muscle pain, the pain from subluxations and dislocations, and the days- or weeks-long migraines, there is not a moment of my life that I don't experience pain, but I do hide it well.

You never get used to pain. It's relentless. Agonizing. 

Nevertheless... I seek distractions from the pain. I do my best to keep my spirits up. I say yes when I want to say no. I go and do when I'd rather curl up in bed and ignore the world.

I seek life. I love. I laugh. I hike, teach, create, volunteer. I hang on to those precious moments of joy that abound in this out-of-the-ordinary life I live. I pray. I live in gratitude for the love and support from friends and family. 

And when the pain is unbearable, I lean on my husband and cry, safe in his embrace, knowing he would do anything to take it from me if he could.