I remember falling to my knees as my back muscles ripped themselves right off my spine… well, that is how I want to describe the pain. My whole back would tighten up with so much force it felt like it was going to snap me in half. If I moved at all – unrelenting pain would surge until I was still again. It wasn’t like other muscle cramps, I didn’t feel it coming on, these were fast, violent and debilitating. I have had back spasms in the past, but this one just kept coming back and eventually it didn’t leave.
So to me it was obvious, there must be something seriously wrong with my spine. After 4 months of seeing doctors, physiotherapists, chiropractors, osteopaths and a pain specialist, things somehow got worse. No answers, no vindication and I wasn’t gifted the perfect solution, I was given heavy pain killers and sedatives. Nothing else allowed me any relief.
I understood I looked ‘healthy’, maybe that’s why the pain specialist’s advice to me was: “I once had a twitch on my eyelid, and then one day it just went away, you know”. And in my head I’m thinking – “I’m not so sure you’re actually a ‘pain specialist’ considering all you do is prescribe narcotics”
It was becoming hard to explain to people how this happened. So eventually I stop trying to. I’d go quiet, avoid the eye contact and tell them I’m doing okay. But the truth was, I had forgotten what it’s like to not be in pain. I had forgotten what it’s like to hold the weight of my guitar, or even sit down at the piano.
My relationships were in pieces and I lost touch with a lot of friends because I was simply a shell of myself. I broke down every other day. Eventually trying to hide it from loved ones because it felt like my reddened eyes were anticipated, and becoming a normality. The physical pain blurred itself into emotional pain. I stopped using my body because I was scared to move, to lift things. Blood flow to my low back decreased to the point where my muscles were atrophying, I was virtually immobile. The thought of giving up was present. I didn’t necessarily want to die. But I wanted to be free from this. Not just my pain, but what it had taken away from me. Feeling like a prisoner in my own body. So at that time, I didn’t fear death, I feared never again knowing the life I had.
After a year of being misdiagnosed and treated for things like ‘bulging discs’ and a ‘degenerative disc disease’, I discovered a musculoskeletal specialist, but more importantly he was someone with experience in treating chronic pain. That’s when things slowly started to change. When someone finally looked me in the eye and told me I was going to get better. There were more downs then ups, but there were ups, and that’s all I needed to carry on.
I have since learned that the majority of chronic pain is not caused by physical problems in the body at all, but learned neural pathways in the brain. My depression, anxiety and continuous stress took an occasional sore back and turned it into a debilitating ordeal. But it didn’t have to be that way, and I feel a need to emphasise the importance of understanding how emotional wounds can become physical ones. Chronic pain to me is like an injury of the mind. I was stuck in my stress response, my fight or flight mode. Stress = tension = pain = more stress = ∞. What a hole that was to dig myself out of every day. But when I started to treat my mind I was finally able to unwind the cycle of pain and begin to heal.
My story isn’t unique, but chronic pain is something few medical professionals recognise or understand let alone friends and family. The brain is so complex and all pain is real, but the longer you live with it the realer it gets. It's taken a long time to get some semblance of my life back and I still have a long way to go. I don't want these last two years to define me though, maybe one day I can look back with some appreciation for how it will shape me, but right now the cuts are still too fresh, and I just want to move on, heal, and enjoy life again.
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PLGRMS new track, Disappear, is out now.
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