Torn in Two - Part 6

The chronic pain series

This piece is part of a series about the two-year ordeal I had with chronic back pain. This installment may be confusing if you haven’t read the earlier installments. Here’s a link to part 1.

It’d be nice if I could tell you that I walked past that pharmacy, decided against taking the pills, and that was that. But that’s not how things went down. Instead, for the next few weeks, the doctor’s suggestion of taking the anti-depressants and the pain killers kept popping into my head. And being silly enough to have brought those prescriptions into my apartment certainly didn’t help. Knowing they were sitting on the kitchen bench and that I could go fill them at any moment, left me in two minds.

Maybe you should just take the pills. Maybe you could just take a few of the pain killers so you can have a skate. . . I can’t man. If I take them once, I’ll want to take them again. . . But nothing else has worked, and it’s not like you’ve got any other options. Are you just going to stay in pain forever? . . . I don’t know, but taking the pills is not an option, so just shut up . . . You know it’s only a matter of time. Your back will spasm again soon enough and when it does, you’ll take some of those pain killers – so why not just take them now and feel better?

It’s a frightening thing to know that our minds can be our own worst enemies. That in the depths of our psyches there is a part of us that doesn’t have our best interest at heart. That our suffering can be so great that we are compelled to harm ourselves to escape. I knew I didn’t want to take the pills but throwing away those prescriptions seemed impossible. The destructive voice in my head – the very same one that used to demand I acquire and consume more drugs now, now, now – had been emboldened. The pills were it’s chance to take over, again. I hated that this back issue had brought that voice back to the forefront of my mind. And I hated that my addiction issues had made this chronic pain situation harder. I mean, if I hadn’t abused drugs and alcohol this wouldn’t have been a problem. I would’ve been able to take the damn pain pills when I was in pain like a normal person, and then trust myself not to take them when I wasn’t. In some sick twisted way, it felt like the chronic pain was not only bringing old demons to the surface, but also punishing me for them. It had already wreaked havoc on my body, my mind, and my life, but it seemed not even that was enough – now it was rubbing salt into old wounds.

I probably should’ve tried to talk to someone about everything swirling around in my head, but I didn’t know how. I didn’t know how to explain everything that was going on because I didn’t even understand it myself. All I knew is that I felt stuck. I didn’t know how to move forward. I didn’t want to stay where I was. And going back to the way things were seemed impossible. My body felt broken. Relationships felt strained. And the crater skating had left in my life was meteoric. 

It had been a year since I stood atop my skateboard. In that time, it had become clear just how heavily I relied on that thing. Skating wasn’t just how I stayed active, social, and cleared my head – it was where I derived a sense of meaning and purpose. I had wrapped my identity up in skateboarding. In my late teens and early twenties, I’d won a bunch of competitions, even competing at the national level. I’d been sponsored by a local skateboarding company, receiving free product just for doing tricks on that plank of wood. And when I wasn’t working, I spent every waking moment skateboarding, filming and editing skateboarding videos, or consuming the content of the culture in all its forms. And suddenly all of that was gone, leaving me a drift. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I had all this free time, and I didn’t know how to fill it. All I knew is that I didn’t want to spend it thinking about my back pain or wallowing in self-pity. I needed a distraction. An outlet. Something that would engross me in the way skateboarding had.

Somehow, writing became that thing.

Hitherto I had dabbled with writing, but I’d never taken it seriously. But now that I was isolated, unable to do anything physical, searching for an outlet, and in dire need of a way to let out all my feelings – writing started to fill a larger role in my life. I filled so many notebooks with chicken scratch. And even though I looked at it as nothing more than a way to distract myself – the act started to grip me. It was engrossing. It was challenging. And it allowed for creative expression. Experiences from my life, ideas, scenes, characters, reflections on skateboarding – everything became something I could write about. It almost didn’t matter what I wrote, it just mattered that the pen was moving. Filling pages with ink made me feel like I was doing something. Like I was moving forward. Like there was at least one ray of light breaking through the dark clouds that hung over me.

Writing also helped in a way I’d never expected: it enabled me to organize my thoughts. Getting everything down on paper helped me sift through all the noise that clouded my head. I wrote about the back pain, when it started, what I’d been doing prior to each back spasm, and how the pain was weighing on me. I wrote about the different treatments I’d tried, what had helped, what hadn’t, and what I was yet to try. And I wrote about the option of taking the pills, my addiction issues, and how I wanted to handle this ordeal. Writing everything out didn’t solve all my problems – but it did help me make one decision. . .

Setting fire to those prescriptions felt symbolic. It represented something deeper. This wasn’t just about getting over my back injury anymore. It wasn’t even about staying sober. It was bigger than that. Having my life flipped upside down had given me a chance to course correct. It was time to steer in the direction of what I knew was right no matter how hard it seemed – and removing all chance of taking those pills was the first step.

To be continued. . .

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