Despair, Pain, and the Need to Choose Life

Today I was in unspeakable pain for a few hours. How the time passed is a flash of images but the emotions of it are a blur to me. I do remember sitting at one point rocking back and forth and praying silently and thinking "I want out of this body". I did the only things I knew to do - pray, eat, take painkillers, and shower and clean hoping the rest of the allergens would be cleansed away, and I would be able to breathe less painfully. I tried to make deals with God - "if this pain is because of that thing i consumed, i promise i'll leave it forever if the pain goes away in an hour. i'll know this is you sending me a message". I tried all this because I was trying, desperately, to have less pain. I couldn't accept that the pain was out of my control and could last indefinitely.

Finally, it lessened a little. When I sat down in my pooja, I started crying so hard from relief that I was okay. I had gotten through the worst of it for now. It was still painful, but livable. But I couldn't stop crying, and then I felt all the terror I had been holding in while going through it - that it would never stop and I wouldn't die either, that I wanted to escape my body and had no control over that either. The crying and despair spiralled out of control. How will I live with this? I can't go through this one more time. Take me, God. Take care of me. How will I manage my life? How will I live? What do I do now?

I heard my phone blowing up. Lots of texts. I thought - God is reaching out to me. This is a lifeline. I finally responded to a work-related question and reached out to my dear coworker. We spoke, which means she stayed on the phone and held and soothed me as I cried. She encouraged me to call other people I loved and to not be alone. I did all that, embedding myself in a desire to live. I wasn't convinced that living is attractive, but I didn't want to give up either. My sole anchor was other human beings. I have difficulty with trust and relying on people, no matter how intimately close to my heart they are. But I knew that to not reach out for help wasn't fair to me, or to people who love me and would want to be in this with me - whether they could physically be there or not. And for me to not let them try, to not let their love and positivity and strength and solace and well-wishes enter me, was just not giving me or them a chance. To fear being let down, sometimes we do that - not give people a chance to get it wrong. But I am willing for people to try. The heart is in being reached for.

What I know is that the pain won't go away. It may lessen. I may feel okay one day. I may get sick again and again, as is likely with chronic illness, pain and auto-immune diseases. I may feel despair again. But I'm committed to living because of how loved I feel, and because I don't want to give up on my spirit. I am still deeply struggling with how long I can continue like this. This feels like a crisis, a crisis of body and spirit and faith and a life turning point. Nothing is figured out, I feel mindless from pain often. What does not help is a thought spiral about what I'm going to do, or how I'm going to live (short-term or long-term). All I can do is breathe. And actually, even that is not in my control. Life is as precious as this one breath, you just don't know if the next one is coming or not. For those who don't teeter on that cliff often or ever, it may feel hard to feel this. But it's true.

Life is no longer about doing things. It is as simple and vital as taking deep breaths. It is as pure as loving, and to feel that we are loved. To feel it, there must be arms that wrap around us, and hands that hold ours, and stroke our weary heads. There must be voices that carry love vibrations across phones and oceans. And people who are willing to bring us food and hugs and medicine if desired, or watch the kids and pets and plants when we can't. Each of us struggles with something or the other, someday or everyday. In us, there must be the desire to choose hope over despair. It is not about getting rid of the struggle, but knowing it is more bearable if we are not alone - for just one more breath, one more day. We don't really have to get through the rest of our lives in this one moment. We just have to breathe one breath now. Thank God that's an auto-pilot system. If you can hold on to nothing else, notice that.