What Hurts The Most

For quite some time now, I’ve been uselessly debating what I would tell people if anyone other than someone I pay, asks me “What hurts the most?” Would I say that it hurts the most in my right side, an area which no one can figure out why it hurts? Would I try and describe how it feels like there is a large, ever growing lamprey living there, with teeth so sharp it feels like razors eating into my flesh…and that is on a good day? Would I tell someone, as I try to nonchalantly limp away from the table to pee that the inexplicable pain in my side currently feels like minions of fireballs searing, tearing, paralyzing me with pain, and that when I finally reach the bathroom stall I cry silently to myself unable to endure what is happening, scared to death about what might be wrong and desperate, so desperate for an answer…any answer…as long as it is the correct answer to what is causing this pain? Would I confess, when I rejoin them at the table that I was away for so long because I couldn’t stop myself from crying, that I couldn’t wipe the tears away fast enough or pull myself together quickly enough to devote my energy to the conversation?

No. I’d probably lie and say I was fine…fine...always fine. Because no matter what I say, it isn’t all of the truth anyway. Whether I am writing about my ripped rectum or my constant need to pee, even when I can’t, I’m never really telling the full truth about what hurts the most.

Well, I once told my Physical Therapist that what hurts the most is my ego and self-esteem; both so wounded and in pain that the mere act of getting out of bed is pointless. She did the best she could to console me but that isn’t her area of expertise. And I’ve tried to talk to my partner about what hurts the most, as the tears pouring down my face blur the distance between us…blur the space where all I want is a strong hug and a shoulder to absorb the snot gushing out of my nose and instead becomes the space where somehow it is about him and how he needs to fix things he can’t even understand. I guess those experiences, as well as a lifelong bludgeoning into my brain that pure truth is rarely what people are looking for, are a large part of what keeps me lying, to everyone but myself, about what hurts the most.

If I were to be truly honest, (will I ever learn my lesson?) as I prepare for one more whack in the face, I would say that what hurts the most is the indifference, the denial, the complete and utter forgetability of what I am going through. What hurts the most isn’t the physical pain…I’ve got pills for that as well as well honed childhood skills of separating my mind from my body when things hurt too much. No, it is what lies deeper and far more invisible than physical pain that hurts the most.

It is the lack of visible proof that something is wrong with me. It is lack of phone calls or e-mails or text messages with the sole purpose of seeing how I’m doing. Sure, people still call me, for whatever it is they need and want me to fulfill for them and sometimes, as a sort of cursory “pleasantry” they will ask how I’m doing and inevitably become too busy, too sidetracked, to one-sidedly selfish to really listen to my answer, if I bother to give one at all. Sometimes it is just so much easier to lie and say, “I’m fine.” in a false staccato voice which does not belong to me but isn’t heard anyway.

What hurts the most is that I envy people who are on crutches or temporarily in a wheelchair or have a cast or sling or brace on their arm, even people who are in the hospital, because “those are the ones who truly have something wrong with them.” Those are the people whose pain is easy to acknowledge…it is easy to do things for them..say, hold open a door or autograph their cast or give them special parking places until they get better. The people who are in the hospital get ‘round the clock questions about how they are doing. They get cards and flowers and visitors. They get obvious acknowledgement of what they are going through, even if it is only temporary (the acknowledgement and the suffering).

Believe me, I am not wallowing so deep in my depressed navel gazing that I truly believe this is the case for all people who are suffering this way. I know that I am romanticizing and glossing over and being selective or downright creating my own reality about what I want to see, but right now…today…last night…this week…for god only knows how long, that is of little consolation to me.

Because that is what I so desperately want. I want the money “wasted” on cards and the fucking flowers that are just going to die and make me sneeze anyway. I want a cast on my arm that people can write encouraging things on it like we used to do in school. I want the “I’m only calling to see how you are doing” phone calls. I want the visits where people are stopping by with homemade chicken noodle soup, or chocolates or hasty get-well drawings from their kids. I want visits and phone calls where people, for once in my goddamn fucking life, are asking no more of me than how I am doing and for once in my fucking life, are actually listening to the answers…the ones I give out loud and the ones I give with my body language. I want people to see through my false self-deprecating jokes that they can help me by “just cutting out whatever is wrong with me.” I want acknowledgement of the hurt and fear and pain and foreboding sense of hopelessness inside me. I want to know that there are people that I can lean on, that will put aside their own super busy lives, if only for a ten minute phone call or a quick visit that’s all about me…that is not a ruse for their own needs or desires for me to be a living “sounding board” for their problems, hopes, failures and despairs.

I want to be seen as someone who is sick, if even temporarily, and needs other people to lean on.
What hurts the most is this ridiculous game we keep playing that I am strong enough to get through anything AND that I can handle everyone else’s problems too. What hurts the most are the people…friends, family and professionals, who outright tell me, or subtly and cowardly, imply that if I just got over my anger, my problems would go away…I’d be able to shit without medicine, walk without pain, fuck without guilt, stand tall and proud without stabbing pains in my lower back. If I just changed me, without medicine, without anger and without help, I’d be fine.

That’s what hurts the most…that my problems are either my fault or that I am strong enough to handle them alone, and that I should fix them by myself while simultaneously being there gleefully supporting the rest of the world and the very same people who don’t call or send cards or stop by to visit but still want me to help them heal their wounds, their pain, their problems.