ChronicPainExistent
One day at a time
- Jan 3, 2024
- 48
[X]—I love you so much. [X]—I love you so much. [X]—I love you so much. [X]—I love you so much.
Words can not describe how much each of you mean to me right now, as I am writing this.
You have been my lifeline. My reason for living. My foundation. The most treasured parts of my life. My everything.
Words can not describe how much appreciation I feel for everything you have done for me, given for me, provided for me, sacrificed for me.
Words can not describe how much I truly want to live—for myself, and for each and every one of you. I would like to go out for a walk every day again, look at trees, listen to birds chirp; I would like to revisit [X], and [X]; I would like to get back on the road bike (it's an amazing bike.) I would like to live life. Meet friends. Try new hobbies. Read books. Work on programming projects. Improvise blues. Learn [X] properly. Travel and see Japan and the Netherlands. Help [X] and [X] with English. Work on the catalog for [X]. Recontinue driving lessons with [X]. Learn how to cut my hair myself so I don't have to ask [X] every time. Play with [X]—maybe even buy him some more toys. Help with chores around the house. The list is endless.
Words can not describe how sorry I am.
I have failed. The things I have gone through, the mistakes I have made, the ways I have struggled—maybe in another life, I could have written a book or two about these things.
Unfortunately, as of writing, I don't have the capacity to do this justice. I can not explain my condition to the levels of depth and detail that I would like, in my current condition. I wish I could.
I have damaged so much of my body through careless overuse and through improper stretches and exercise. My hamstrings—thoroughly overstretched and never recovered fully. Simple walking and standing is enough to stretch the hamstrings, making them worse each time. My ankles—constantly hyperstretched over a period of weeks, and even with a year of trying, I failed to recover them. My wrists and biceps—constantly overstretched over the years. My ulnar nerves—overstretched and damaged to the point of chronic pain because of something ridiculous I was trying to fix tennis elbow. Both my shoulders, I impinged while carelessly trying to exercise my biceps; I'd had my arms up and shoulders greatly in internal rotation very repetitively. My breathing and abdominal pains—caused when I'd accidentally hyperstretched them while laying in a twisted position while half asleep. My knees—the usual, sharp chronic pains I've had for years. There are more, but I won't belabour the point.
For each of these pains, I could probably write pages upon pages. There is so much to each of them. Each, on their own, is absolutely manageable. But combined, they have been devastating. Over the weeks, there has been no sign of the downward trajectory slowing down—the variety of my pains have only accumulated further and further, and their severities have remained constant, despite my hardest efforts at rest, recovery, and rehabilitation.
There has been no rest. Sleeping aggravates my shoulders and knees. Sitting aggravates my breathing and feet. No position works for long, and parts of my body are always paying the price, no matter how carefully I position my body and how often I rotate positions. After sleeping, I always awaken with pain. The pains are constant, never ending, always changing, and always worsening in ways I don't expect.
My mind is weary from sleep deprivation, and from fighting this battle every waking moment for the past few months. There has been no respite. There is always something hurting and requiring intervention.
I am toiling in a prison of my own making. Every pain, every debilitation, is of my own making. Sharp pains in my bicep just from hanging my arms down straight in the air. Discomfort that builds in my hamstrings just from laying down in bed completely horizontally. Shocks of stabbing sensations in my abdomen at unexpected moments when I take a breath more deeply than usual. Agony in my side when I twist more forcefully and less carefully than I intended. Sharp pains in my heels when I walk just a little bit more. All of these things I can pinpoint to specific causes, each one of them a mistake of my own doing.
A unique combination of factors were the prerequisite for me ending up on the trajectory that led to this current state: (1) Years of putting off proper treatment of chronic pains in my knees, back, and arms, which instilled in me a tendency to neglect my health and proper rehabilitative practices; (2) years of depression that had resulted from the constant pains; (3) an obsessive personal nature, prone to over-doing things and not using moderation; and (4) a particularly strong fixation, hinging on obsession, on static stretches, correlated with a years long history of doing such stretches recreationally.
The impetus, what lit the fuse, was yet another knee injury sustained while climbing a ladder last year. It made me fall into a deep depression, and it was then that I'd begun stretching my ankles for hours upon hours each day, in some absurd and extremely strange way to cope with my problems. Within weeks walking became painful, and from this point onwards, my prison was being built in earnest.
These faults are mine, and mine alone.
I know that this is a selfish action. Through this, I will be causing you pain—pain that you don't deserve; pain that you never asked for; pain that I would never want to inflict on anyone that I love; pain that is evil in nature. This is an evil, unforgivable thing to do.
I am unforgivable.
And I am sorry. I am so, so—so, so sorry.
[X]. [X]. [X]. [X]. wish I could have done better.
I love you so much. But I am in so much pain, the only real thing I want anymore is for it to end.
The sheer scale of my pain and its unendingly worsening nature is what pushes me to this—to do something that I absolutely abhor and revile. I don't want to do this. I really, really don't.
I want to live. I want to continue being with you. I want to be by your side, and continue fighting. I want to keep struggling through it all. I want to be an example of positivity, and of hope, and of succeeding through struggle. I want to do what's best for everyone. I want to pay back everything that's been given to me. I want to validate all of your hopes in me. I want to live.
But the pain has just been too much for too long, and my condition has been untenable. There is just so much pain.
I am sorry.
Through my actions alone, I have thrown myself into a pit and set myself ablaze in an inferno of pain. Through my mistakes, I have only dug myself in deeper and deeper.
Please, allow me to pass. I want the burning to stop.
Words can not describe how much each of you mean to me right now, as I am writing this.
You have been my lifeline. My reason for living. My foundation. The most treasured parts of my life. My everything.
Words can not describe how much appreciation I feel for everything you have done for me, given for me, provided for me, sacrificed for me.
Words can not describe how much I truly want to live—for myself, and for each and every one of you. I would like to go out for a walk every day again, look at trees, listen to birds chirp; I would like to revisit [X], and [X]; I would like to get back on the road bike (it's an amazing bike.) I would like to live life. Meet friends. Try new hobbies. Read books. Work on programming projects. Improvise blues. Learn [X] properly. Travel and see Japan and the Netherlands. Help [X] and [X] with English. Work on the catalog for [X]. Recontinue driving lessons with [X]. Learn how to cut my hair myself so I don't have to ask [X] every time. Play with [X]—maybe even buy him some more toys. Help with chores around the house. The list is endless.
Words can not describe how sorry I am.
I have failed. The things I have gone through, the mistakes I have made, the ways I have struggled—maybe in another life, I could have written a book or two about these things.
Unfortunately, as of writing, I don't have the capacity to do this justice. I can not explain my condition to the levels of depth and detail that I would like, in my current condition. I wish I could.
I have damaged so much of my body through careless overuse and through improper stretches and exercise. My hamstrings—thoroughly overstretched and never recovered fully. Simple walking and standing is enough to stretch the hamstrings, making them worse each time. My ankles—constantly hyperstretched over a period of weeks, and even with a year of trying, I failed to recover them. My wrists and biceps—constantly overstretched over the years. My ulnar nerves—overstretched and damaged to the point of chronic pain because of something ridiculous I was trying to fix tennis elbow. Both my shoulders, I impinged while carelessly trying to exercise my biceps; I'd had my arms up and shoulders greatly in internal rotation very repetitively. My breathing and abdominal pains—caused when I'd accidentally hyperstretched them while laying in a twisted position while half asleep. My knees—the usual, sharp chronic pains I've had for years. There are more, but I won't belabour the point.
For each of these pains, I could probably write pages upon pages. There is so much to each of them. Each, on their own, is absolutely manageable. But combined, they have been devastating. Over the weeks, there has been no sign of the downward trajectory slowing down—the variety of my pains have only accumulated further and further, and their severities have remained constant, despite my hardest efforts at rest, recovery, and rehabilitation.
There has been no rest. Sleeping aggravates my shoulders and knees. Sitting aggravates my breathing and feet. No position works for long, and parts of my body are always paying the price, no matter how carefully I position my body and how often I rotate positions. After sleeping, I always awaken with pain. The pains are constant, never ending, always changing, and always worsening in ways I don't expect.
My mind is weary from sleep deprivation, and from fighting this battle every waking moment for the past few months. There has been no respite. There is always something hurting and requiring intervention.
I am toiling in a prison of my own making. Every pain, every debilitation, is of my own making. Sharp pains in my bicep just from hanging my arms down straight in the air. Discomfort that builds in my hamstrings just from laying down in bed completely horizontally. Shocks of stabbing sensations in my abdomen at unexpected moments when I take a breath more deeply than usual. Agony in my side when I twist more forcefully and less carefully than I intended. Sharp pains in my heels when I walk just a little bit more. All of these things I can pinpoint to specific causes, each one of them a mistake of my own doing.
A unique combination of factors were the prerequisite for me ending up on the trajectory that led to this current state: (1) Years of putting off proper treatment of chronic pains in my knees, back, and arms, which instilled in me a tendency to neglect my health and proper rehabilitative practices; (2) years of depression that had resulted from the constant pains; (3) an obsessive personal nature, prone to over-doing things and not using moderation; and (4) a particularly strong fixation, hinging on obsession, on static stretches, correlated with a years long history of doing such stretches recreationally.
The impetus, what lit the fuse, was yet another knee injury sustained while climbing a ladder last year. It made me fall into a deep depression, and it was then that I'd begun stretching my ankles for hours upon hours each day, in some absurd and extremely strange way to cope with my problems. Within weeks walking became painful, and from this point onwards, my prison was being built in earnest.
These faults are mine, and mine alone.
I know that this is a selfish action. Through this, I will be causing you pain—pain that you don't deserve; pain that you never asked for; pain that I would never want to inflict on anyone that I love; pain that is evil in nature. This is an evil, unforgivable thing to do.
I am unforgivable.
And I am sorry. I am so, so—so, so sorry.
[X]. [X]. [X]. [X]. wish I could have done better.
I love you so much. But I am in so much pain, the only real thing I want anymore is for it to end.
The sheer scale of my pain and its unendingly worsening nature is what pushes me to this—to do something that I absolutely abhor and revile. I don't want to do this. I really, really don't.
I want to live. I want to continue being with you. I want to be by your side, and continue fighting. I want to keep struggling through it all. I want to be an example of positivity, and of hope, and of succeeding through struggle. I want to do what's best for everyone. I want to pay back everything that's been given to me. I want to validate all of your hopes in me. I want to live.
But the pain has just been too much for too long, and my condition has been untenable. There is just so much pain.
I am sorry.
Through my actions alone, I have thrown myself into a pit and set myself ablaze in an inferno of pain. Through my mistakes, I have only dug myself in deeper and deeper.
Please, allow me to pass. I want the burning to stop.
