Pain. So much…..pain.

As I’m typing this there is one emotion that I’m filled with more so than the myriad of others. This blog is about getting out from under the umbrella of bad karma. I’ve lived my life under that umbrella. My entire life has been filled with one test after the next that tests my faith in religion, humanity, relationships, family.

I’m no different than anyone else when it comes to this. We all have to experience set backs and depression. But there is no denying that some people in this world get a huge heaping dose of this shit while others, not so much. I’m one of the heaping dose of shit kinda guys I guess. Or maybe it just feels like this because I’ve never actually tried to feel the pain someone else was going through.

We tell loved ones we “understand what you’re going through” but do we really understand someone else’s pain?  I think we may feel some sympathy towards someone else’s pain but I don’t think anyone can truly “understand” someone’s pain.

It seems the mind tends to forget or erase trauma in our lives. But it never gets truly erased. Just filed away someone in a neuron in the brain. Sometimes these filed away traumatic memories come out and back into the consciousness again without our direct access into the file. Meaning…you can be sitting at work and all of a sudden you remember back to a time when the bully on the playground in 8th grade tripped you on the ground and kicked your books scattering them all over the hallway while other kids around laughed. It’s what you chose to feel about these memories that defines who we are.

I think a healthy adjusted person in the eyes of society would think back to this memory and feel empathy towards the bully. They would feel sorry that somebody was troubled enough to do something cruel to another person. They hope that bully is in a better place today and then can go about the rest of their day. Then there would be alot that think back and have regret for not standing back up and getting revenge. Then there are those of us that will think back on this memory and feel the humiliation of that moment all over again like it just happened. The feeling and emotion of pain feel just as intense 30 years later as they did when they happened. Those are the empathic people of the world. And I am one of them.

I’m having trouble right now. My first grandson was born last night. The pregnancy was rough at first but some kind of “miracle” happened and the baby progressed normally the rest of the way. And then during the delivery process some other “unexplained” thing happened and the baby was born without a heartbeat and was not breathing. The doctors, as of now, have no idea what the fuck happened. So right now my newborn grandson is on life support. I am 800 miles away from my daughter and grandson. I can’t leave my job yet to attend to her and be with her. I have my own issues with my job that is forcing me to stay. More pain and frustration.

So as this blog is as much for me as anyone else that reads it, I want to remember how I felt at this moment in time to see if my theory about never forgetting trauma is really true. If you ask a professional athlete that had a good career and won championship games and lost them they will all tell you the same thing. The games they remember most are the ones they lost. Those are the ones that wake them up in the middle of the night. So why is it that traumatic and overall bad thoughts come back to manifest so much clearer than happy positive thoughts? Why is it I can remember the exact way I felt extreme humiliation at the hands of a bully so clearly, but I can’t remember how it felt to witness the birth of my first born? I mean I remember her being born and I remember how good and positive I felt but I don’t feel it in my chest the way I feel the humiliation. That negative one I can literally still feel in my heart.

What does my pain feel like? I feel somewhat numb. Like the feeling you get in your leg or foot when you sit on it wrong and it falls asleep. Only without the prickly feeling. The numbness you feel. I feel that feeling in my chest. If you’ve ever taken a pain medication that leaves you feeling like you can’t quite think or grasp what’s going on around you. That is a feeling I get when I’m depressed like now. I have a numbness in my chest and I don’t feel up to speed with my surroundings. Someone could walk in my room and throw a ball at me and I don’t think I’d have the thought process or reaction to be able to either dodge the ball or deflect it or catch it. It would probably hit me square in the face and I don’t think I’d react to it much. Because the pain I feel for my child and grandchild is so great, it’s all encompassing to me.

I’m able to write about this because writing is something I can do without thinking too much. The words I type seem to come from another voice in my head. I’ve tried to describe this in another post in this blog.

I sit here and stare at my computer screen. I have facebook up and I’m reading all the posts from people with their “thoughts and prayers” being sent towards my daughter, her husband and their little one. But words I’m reading aren’t really sinking in. I see them, I can read them, but they aren’t sinking in. Nothing can penetrate the numbness of the depression I’m feeling right now. It’s utter hell in my mind. Out of nowhere tears start running down my face. Then I think back to the pain I felt when I walked out of my Mom’s hospice room for the very last time, knowing it was the last time I’d ever see her alive. The pain of that has now come out of its neuron file cabinet and is back with me while I feel sadness towards my grandson. The feeling of utter failure and incompetence for not being able to go fix it. Then another memory comes flying back into my mind. The feeling I had at 13 years old when I looked at my grandfather slumped over in his favorite recliner chair. But he’s dead. He died of a heart attack maybe an hour before. I’ve never seen a dead body before. Now I’m looking at one and it’s the body of a man I loved more than I can fathom. And he’s not really there. His body is but the man I loved that showed me unconditional love is gone. That pain is now with me again.

My mind races from one traumatic thing after another. I don’t just think of the current depressing situation. Now I’m going to relive ALL of them I’ve had in my life. They all come back to make an appearance in my mind. And this is the cycle of my life. Every time I go through a troubling time with either a relationship, or my job or anything else. Ever other experience I’ve had in my life that made me feel bad comes racing back into my memory. I don’t TRY to remember these things. They just come back into my mind as I sit here and try not to think of anything. One memory right after the other, racing back into my mind. I try to forget about them and think about the one that is in front of me. And now I feel the pain of my daughter. I feel her pain as she clings to her faith and prays to God not to take her baby. The pain of feeling her pain is so great I try to brush it away with my hand. And as I get it out of my mind another painful memory from the past takes it’s place. And so it’s a never ending cycle of pain. I try to remember a time when I felt good. I think back to a time when I felt so much love from my mother after getting good grades. But then no sooner do I think of the good feeling of her hug embracing me, the pain of seeing her for the last time replaces it. Now I’m back to utter sadness. And this cycle repeats itself over and over and over. I know it will not go away unless I try to sleep. It’s the only way I can truly shut these feelings of depression off.

It’s the mind of a manic depressive. Welcome to my world.