Traversing my human condition
My first inclination was to write about traversing (what has felt like) the full spectrum of my human condition in the space of a single month, from feeling immense joy to agonising grief, and all of the passing emotions in between (and who knew there were so many?)
With each passing day I have been increasingly looking forward to writing about it, aching to have my creativity and insight back — something that felt abandoned, shelved and possibly even…washed up. Yes, I have a flare for the dramatic, but it’s how it felt for me and I won’t invalidate that ever. I do know now that it was simply a moment in time, but whilst I was in the thick of it, it felt devastatingly permanent. Writer’s block, perhaps? More like life block, where everything was put on pause, and then wrenched into reverse and thrust vigorously into spiral-out mode. When I finally sat to reflect — at well over a month since I last wrote anything meaningful other than an Instagram post — I realised that in my haze I hadn’t actually experienced the feelings spectrum over the course of a month, but somehow fast-tracked and jam packed them it into a single day. It was warp speed, a glancing blow of each and onto the next. I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t scare me; I’m going to rank it up there in my Top 10 Most-Frightening Emotional Experiences.
Our brain has a clever way of kicking into protective gear and blocking these memories (general anaesthesia aids this), and whilst I am quite appreciative of that mechanism, I also want to take the time to express this clearly so I can provide my future self comfort that it genuinely will get better. It too shall pass, and eventually does. The end is not actually nigh. Even now, only a short period of time later, I am struggling to recall the gritty details. I don’t remember the day of the surgery clearly at all, other than that I had a horrendous recovery experience and a massive panic attack later the same afternoon. I am fairly certain that I was “not the best version of myself”, though I still am unsure as to what else I could have done to change the situation…it felt so out of my control at the time. I remember that I found the depths of my despair, I edged scarily close to seeing what self-hatred looks like and it left me emotionally battered and ego bruised. I apologised in advance to those who were around me, but I feel like they may be scarred for a bit too.
Thankfully my mind’s muscle memory kicked in and somehow was able to acknowledge that it was hearing lies and encouraged me to hang on until the next stage before discarding everything (my fight or flight mechanism is very active). Either that or I finally got some sleep. Whatever it was, it aided me to navigate the storm, operate on inbuilt GPS and get back into the calmer and clearer skies of inner peace.
In the eye of the storm I felt more lost and desolate than I ever have, convinced that I was the biggest burden, that my husband hated me, that my friends were bored of me, that I was a total and utter disappointment to everyone including the nurse who just met me and the doctors who have known me for years. No one was safe from the blatant disregard I was dishing out for myself — drugs really do mess with your synapses. And to be clear, these were medical and intentional ones, not recreational or joyful — no one goes where I went for just the good times. I do wonder though if the people who prescribe them ever stop and ask how the meds affect emotions and mind — in all the years in hospitals I’ve never been asked about their impact. Still alive? That’s all that counts. The focus is on the blunt trauma impact, the triage approach. Vitals checked, pain under control. I do find that pretty troubling and it makes me wonder if it’s another example of the user experience missing from our medical profession. What would happen if they experienced it for themselves, would it change how they approach it?
I understand this all comes off a bit grandiose in the feelings dramas, elaborately described and possibly just thinly veiled mental illness, but when I stood back and considered the layers of medication — general anaethesia, tramadol, muscle relaxants, an oxy pain pump — on top of sleep deprivation and chronic fatigue / long covid, I began to understand how I managed to also find a bottomless pit of negative energy. There was really no room for anything blissful, this wasn’t a fun “hey, just lie back and enjoy the drugs” kind of fallacy (as so proffered by people who probably haven’t had acute pain for months, then chased it down with an abdomen stabbing). The injection of meds simply becomes a necessary evil to get through the next 24 hours alive. But once out from under the immediate threat I know that the painkillers don’t help me heal, they actually start to push me further down and it becomes the biggest challenge appreciating the difference and acting accordingly.
On day three I simply stopped the pain medication, went cold turkey. This wasn’t because the pain was bearable, it was simply that the extreme darkness wasn’t. For a person normally untroubled by self-doubt, I was cloaked in it and I was succumbing to its seductiveness. It was as if I was enjoying the embrace of the negative emotion, finding comfort in spiralling further down into the rabbit hole which seemed closer and easier to reach, rather than pushing back up to the light which I had lost sight of. Somehow though I knew that the only way out of it was through it, and for a habitual planner the only plan I could conjure was the one that involved promptly getting the fuck out of this place. Cold turkey was my mental health survival plan.
I am at day six now and all of that feels like a chapter closing, being left behind. Whilst the pain still exists, when I experience it I see it as a directive to sit the hell down, rather than take the easy route of pop the pill, mask it and plow through on a clouded existence. I am stringent with my gut health and I can categorically state it’s been the difference in recovery this time (Helen Cross, you saviour).
I can feel my senses coming back to me; a touch of smell (a casualty originally of Covid), a creative eye, an insightful phrase, a sung lyric. I made a list of the things that inspire me to walk back to myself, I call it “the way back” — the greatest hits of tried and tested remedies which I’ve worked out are centric when I feel happy. The memory banking of the last six months has paid off; I recalled the day that I discovered that Piha was my turangawaewae and the sounds, sights, smells and sounds of that precise moment that I had associated and encompassed my beings contentment around. I put them on the list, made them part of my daily routine; each morning I put my feet in the sea, I make small talk with locals, I Play The War on Drugs (oh the irony, it suddenly occurs to me), stretch out on my mat, the doggies join me for doga, photos are captured, smoothies consumed. Rituals. It’s all rituals. That’s the way back.
As someone posted yesterday, “some of us don’t want to be tough alpha leaders. Some of us just want to write and wander the garden and breathe in the sky and nourish and nurture and quietly create new pathways and live our lives as art. To know the earth as poetry”. And some of us want to be both. This morning my biggest global client went live. I did sweet fuck all to aid that this week, but it happened in spite of me. I somehow managed to pull off my biggest career moment in the height of a pandemic, in the middle of a personal crisis. If that’s not a lesson in letting go, I don’t know what is.
Thunder cracks as I type this. Hmm, poignant.
BIG UPS! Thanks to the husband, Scottie, my family (Affy, Maddie, Isa, Mum and Dad), friends Rachel, Rachel and Sarah. You all were angels and held me up. And of course, TP, who always has my back. Helen Cross, you have all of us in a better place, thanks to your wisdom. xx
