Not everything that is faced can be changed but nothing can be changed until it is faced
The Hemorrhage
When I was 17 I found my mother almost unconscious on the landing of our staircase at home. I recognized she was drunk. I brought her upstairs so she could go to her bedroom and lay down. She had her hand covering her forehead and as I left her at the top of the stairs she turned to me and dropped her hand. She had the most massive angry purple bump on her head I had ever seen. I knew immediately I had to get her to the hospital, which I did. She had had a massive brain hemorrhage with results very similar to a stroke. She spent 6 months away from home, first in the ICU, then a general ward of the hospital and then in a convalescent hospital. She came home with a slightly palsied right side of her body, a limp and some slurred speech.
The Addiction
I knew why this had happened. It was because she was an alcoholic. But during the entire 6 months recovery that was never mentioned or dealt with by her or my father. As a matter of fact, when she returned home she started drinking again. I was absolutely livid that my father was allowing alcohol in the house when he knew this was what almost killed her. I said so to his face a number of times. I also told it to my mom. I told her that absolutely, completely, without a single doubt in my mind, that if she kept on drinking she would kill herself. My older sister Nancy also knew and said the same. Even my younger sister, Jackie, who was only 9, knew it.
The Decision
But my mom didn’t believe she had a problem and my father didn’t want to face that she did. The consequences were too great to their way of life. But finally my father changed his mind and realized there was no alternative but that she go to an in-patient rehabilitation hospital and get sober. We all went together to drop her off. She was as angry as I had ever seen her (and I had seen her plenty angry). She thought we all hated her and she hated all of us. We all cried as we left. It was horrible and more.
The Blow Up
But I was never more relieved in my entire life. I knew she had to face it and I knew she wasn’t going to at home. And she did face it. She was there for 12 weeks. She plan was no contact for the first month and then only once a week I think. But less than 2 weeks after she went in I was blown up on our boat and almost died. I faced my own trials at that point, recovering from extensive burns. The rest of my family obviously had these serious events they also had to face.
But it was my mother who had to face the darkest of times. Not only was she just beginning her journey of sobriety, she had to deal with that while knowing her son was perhaps dying off in some hospital in Brooklyn, NY and she could do nothing about it. She wasn’t even allowed to call me for over a week. It was all just so harsh and so overwhelming for her.
Letting Go
So what happened? When she finally came home after 12 weeks (I had been home from the hospital for about 2 weeks at that point) she was a changed person. She was sober but it was much more than that. She had faced every possible demon, angel, heartache, abandonment and hatred of herself and others imaginable. And she had come out the other side at peace. How did that happen? She told the story that she was just going through the motions at the hospital, reciting the various 12 steps, the various sayings and truisms of AA, without much enthusiasm or true belief they were helpful. But when she heard I had been hurt that all changed. Then she completely gave up control and believed in all her heart the saying ‘Let go and let God.’
That is when it all made sense to her and she turned the corner. She lived 15 more sober, peaceful years and that healed and redeemed so much for our family.
Facing Your Mountain
I tell this story for two reasons. One, to illustrate the quote that you must face something to change it. There is no way around it. But the other reason is to also illustrate that you cannot orchestrate what that facing will look like. You may think you can see the mountain and all you have to do is climb it. But you don’t know what is just beyond your vision. What valley could heal you, what river could drown you, what bear could eat you alive, what human or divine being could save you. You don’t even know if you will be successful.
But you know for damn sure you will not be successful if you don’t turn your face towards the mountain and start climbing.
I didn’t think of Hurricane Harvey when I first picked out this quote earlier this week. I was thinking about those with anxiety and depression. I was thinking about how hard it is to balance on what seems to be such a small path with the consequences of falling off the path being so severe. Then I read a friend’s Facebook post about how she basically just has to throw up her arms and laugh when things keep going wrong in her life. In her case I think it’s about financial and family issues. She always feels like she is just one step away from disaster. Sometimes she steps off the path (or is pushed) and tumbles down into the abyss. It is very hard to climb back up, but she always does.
Natural Disasters
It was only after that, while I was finishing the drawing that I started to connect it to natural disasters like Harvey. It might be comforting to feel like that sort of disaster doesn’t happen to everyone, and it’s true, it doesn’t. But how far away from that sort of disaster are we really? We live in Tornado Alley. We get in our storm shelter about once or twice a year because storms are bearing down on us. How narrow of a ledge we stand on at that moment.
Regain
So, how to deal with this. How do we stay on the path? I don’t know if we do. I think we all fall off the path at times. And I think it feels like an endless abyss when we do, as those on the Gulf Coast feel right now. As I felt when I got divorced 18 years ago. As the addict might feel when he or she falls off the wagon once again.
As a running coach I used to teach how to get the right running form. I don’t do that anymore. Now I accept that we all have our own unique running form. And with most runners, over the course of a 26.2 mile race, there is a good chance they are going to lose that form. So now what I do is teach how to regain your form once you have lost it. And that is how I think about this path we are on. We are going to fall off the path. The question is, do we have the ability, the friends and family, the tools we need to get back up on the path?
Houston, America
Houston in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey is showing that in that deep of an abyss you need an entire community and nation to lift one another back up on the path. We don’t all need that level of help, but we all need some help. If you need it, ask for it, no matter how hard it is to do so. It is worth suffering feelings of failure or embarrassment to get out of your abyss.
I demand that today show #4 in my Pain and Suffering series!
Burn
When I was in the hospital back in the 70s I discovered three very annoying facts about recovering from burns.
The procedures for recovery hurt far more than the initial burn.
That the pain increases, not decreases, every day until you are ready for skin grafts.
You can’t rush getting to the skin graft part.
In my case it took 5 weeks until I was ready for the grafts. During that time I had twice a day whirlpool baths at about 110º to 120º. After the soaking I had the dead skin taken off , sometimes pretty indelicately, by various nurses. Where the dead skin was didn’t hurt, but for them to get that skin off the had to work from the edges of it, which meant they were constantly going over the edge and touching the part of my body where there was no skin, only nerves. Sometimes I would have been given a pain killer but often that pain killer had not taken affect when this procedure took place. This hurt.
Breaking to Heal
The nurses would then put on a cream called Sulfamylon. This cream burned. It burned worse than the burns. This hurt. They would then cover my body with gauze, wrap me up good and off I would go to Physical Therapy.
In Physical Therapy the most important thing, besides maintaining my overall strength, was to make sure the Keloid scars didn’t grow so as to restrict my movements in the future. To avoid this my therapy consisted of stretching as much as I good, which in turn meant breaking open whatever was starting to heal too tight. This hurt.
I would then have about 10 or so hours until the procedure repeated itself later that day.
Growing Pain
Now here is the kicker. When you are burned your nerves endings are either burnt or retract. On day one of your treatment your nerves are not recovered and you only feel so much. But each day your nerve endings come back just a bit. Which means you feel more, not less, pain as the recovery makes its way. What this does to one’s mind is to keep it from thinking ahead. Not only are you focused, obviously, on the immediate pain, but you are also pretty much incapable of imagining life in the future. The constant pain contracts your ability to imagine. For example, I remember at one point during my stay, in September, someone saying something about January and the new year. I just looked at them and said, ‘I don’t really believe January will ever come.’ In my mind I could not see ahead because the pain was too great and was only growing greater.
Your Pain
I know a lot of friends in pain right now. Many in the throes of divorce, others due to physical pain, some are just emotional wrecks over everything being up in the air in their lives. It sucks for them right now and I feel for them. But I also know something, and I know it from very real experience. January does come. Healing does come. Life will not always be the life you are experiencing right now. If you can’t envision a future without your pain, then just take a chance and trust me. Believe my experience second hand. You will get through it.
______________________
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by John Green, 1977 – not dead yet, American author
Guess what? You are going to have to suffer through day #3 of my ‘Pain and Suffering’ series, that’s what!
Never
You know what I never hear or read? This: “Man, I just listened to a lecture about watching out for back stabbing people who pretend to be your friend and I am totally never going to let that happen now that I heard that. Lesson learned! “
A Lot
You know what I do hear and read a LOT? This: “Man, someone I thought was my best friend just completely stabbed me in the back. I trusted her and now I realize I shouldn’t have. I am hurt bad but I am never going to let that happen to me again. Lesson learned!”
I am picking today to be #2 in the Pain and Suffering series.
Pick Your Pain
I pick my scalp. My father did as well. My mother and sisters would tell him not to. My wife and daughters do the same to me on occasion. My response? I don’t stop for long. Why? Because I like picking my scalp. I like picking because I like the little bit of feeling, the pain, attached to it, among other things.
Picking a scab might lead to infection, it might bleed a bit too much. We all get that, but we do it anyway. Why? Because we like it. We like the pain because we know it is controlled. We know the pain won’t kill us (the infection might, yes, but the pain won’t). We know it will only go so deep. It’s the same reason we press a bruise or a sore spot on our body after we have exercised hard. We are testing the pain, seeing how painful it is. And that pain feels good because we know we can relieve the pain easy enough by just stopping.
Choose, Self-inflict, Repeat
Why are we so ready to repeat pain but not pleasure? To me the answer is simple, we don’t have any guilt with pain. Pleasure can make us feel indulgent, selfish. But how can you feel indulgent and selfish when you are feeling pain? It isn’t nearly as likely.
That’s why we have so many quasi-martyrs in the world who love to advertise their suffering. That’s why the ‘fruits of the spirit’ in the bible include ‘long-suffering’ but not ‘long-pleasuring’. We don’t unleash moral condemnation on pain and suffering, do we.
True Danger
There are times when self-inflicting pain really is dangerous and life threatening though. Self-loathing and self-hating can lead to inflicting pain that can have permanent and even fatal consequences. Sometimes to others as well as yourself. I wish I had the answer as to way we do that. All I know is it’s way too frequent among those I love.
Is is weird to be happy that today is day #1 of my new ‘Pain and Suffering’ series?
Friends in Pain
Recently I posted the following on my Facebook profile.
“Recently I have talked to 4 friends in pain over relationships and where they are in life. I don’t like seeing my friends in pain but I love knowing them well enough to know that they can get through it. Pain isn’t forever, even if it feels that way.”
Many people ‘liked’ the post. I went through the list of those who liked it and found six more who I personally have talked to in the past few years about the pain they have suffered in relationships or some other aspect of their life. And those are just the ones I talked to directly. I suspect many who liked it have also gone through a lot of pain, I just don’t know the specifics. Then again, when I think about it, how many of us haven’t gone through pain in our relationships?
Out of the 10 I have talked to personally, 6 have gone through or are going through a divorce. Of the other 4, they either broke up with long term boyfriends or girlfriends or are contemplating doing so, or they were not on good speaking terms with their spouse last I talked to them. Many of them have other painful issues they are dealing with as well. Who knows about the others, but I suspect there was a lot of pain in all those ‘likes’.
Imagined Future
I went through a divorce after 20 years of marriage. It was painful. One of the things that hurt the most was the loss of an imagined future. Not one I planned in advance, but one I realized was gone once the divorce hit. People would say, ‘but you will have a new future and who knows, it might be even better.’ I didn’t really want to hear that because at first I couldn’t imagine it was true.
But it was true. I am in that new future now and it has many things in it that I could not have imagined back then. Not all of this future is perfect, of course not. But it is filled with love and value and meaning and support and creativity and purpose. I am not sure I could ask for much more than that, right? Could you?
How the Future
How did this future come to pass? Well, eventually I had to allow the past to be on it’s own. I had to say goodbye to it as a constant companion because it didn’t want me looking at a new future. It wanted me to only look at it. The past was a jealous mistress and I had to divorce myself from it as well. That doesn’t mean I don’t visit the past. I love much of my past. but just as I don’t sleep with my ex anymore, I don’t sleep with my past either. I have a new wife I sleep with and a new present and future that accompanies her.
What that means is I made room for discovering a new understanding of my life and my future. If you are willing to do that, you can discover something new and wonderful as well.
