“It so easy to be great nowadays, my friend ’cause most people are weak. Most people don’t want to go that extra mile, most people don’t want to find that extra, ’cause it sucks, it’s miserable, it’s lonely. Now, I’m fucking thrive in that shit. That’s the only place to be …”
“When nobody’s watching” – motivatonal speech by Ben Lion Scott https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MVOLbtDLtw&list=PPSV&t=66
Do I like pain? No, I don’t think so. I wouldn’t describe the connection with that feeling as liking. Yet people constantly ask me, why do I hurt myself so often. The point is that they have a point asking that question.
I am one of those special cases, who can always find a way to injure myself with something or somebody.
A bit like little G. He had those wounds over his forehead which never healed. The moment the wound had dried a bit he would use his nails to tear it again to the point of bleeding. There was no way to keep him away from that habit. Well initially, later we made some progress through patient and diligent work with him. Me and a few other carers. Others didn’t seem to care.
B. was similar. He would bite his hand – again to the point it was bleeding. And it bled often, and his hand stank of his flesh and his saliva, constantly rotting a bit. People would say: “B. that’s disgusting” even though his whole vocabulary contained 3-4 basic words (again initially, until I worked on it), and it didn’t include an abstract concept of disgust. I don’t think they had much of a concept of this fact.
M. would run across a room and hit the wall with his head at full speed. He would also use headbutting as a sign of communicating to you, that he needed your attention, usually because he didn’t like what was going on in his head. So, he would bang it hundreds of times per hour against anything. And his carers would calmly put a protective helmet on him and everybody was happy – “job’s done”. I hardly ever saw him without that helmet.
The lads had it quite simple. Their auto-destructive behaviours were fairly straightforward and repetitive, so apparently effective if they kept going on and on. I am a bit more inventive and innovative in administrating my doses of self-harm and self-pain. I am also very clever in finding elaborate excuses explaining why a certain way of action is necessary. Why I don’t have a choice but to do it and why it is not only not stupid but actually quite wise and noble. I can build a doctorate just on those excuses.
I try to track the origins of that pattern and of course, with my education, I have some ready-made psychological theories, which I can quickly put in a microwave and serve bubbly hot to you. The only problem with that is the silhouette value of such analysis. Its explanatory power lies between a second-grade and college student essay (granted intelligent one and committed but still pretty “innocuous” in that endeavor), and what is even worse, its practical value runs exponentially towards the null. To go deeper with it, one should really delve into the maze of facts and observations and see what sort of patterns emerge from that quest. That is what expert counseling is about, and the experienced therapist spends long enough time listening to the individual’s story before moving to any sort of conclusion. The funny bit is that it works just fine the same way among alcoholics talking to one another in AA.
So, let’s deal with some facts. I won’t enumerate all examples of my masochism, available in my memory, because in the course of my life, I gathered so much data in this respect, that it would take a couple of thick volumes just to list it. Let’s go then picking randomly just a few big ones at this time.
For example, how many children do you know, who would themselves, without any provocation or motivation from adults, spend a few hours at night, on their knees, chanting a rosary fervently. With their knees and back aching. With their eyes closing, causing constant stress of fighting sleep. Sound scary. Yes, and it is. We’re talking age of about 10. It wouldn’t happen constantly, but it did happen. Occasionally. Now the question “Why I did it” is not that simple to answer. Firstly, I don’t remember all the context. Yes, I was deeply religious at this point, convinced as a child that I would have to sacrifice my life to the service of God. And I was influenced, not just by religious practices – I was already deeply involved at the church. Still, nobody really asked me to do that. I must have picked up that pattern of behaviour from a religious movie or a book, full of stories about religious idiots called saints. Nobody at this point could explain or just bother to explain to a child like me, that such commitment, if it happens, comes in the course of spiritual development, and may sometimes become necessary while dealing with heavy emotional and spiritual challenges, life (meaning God for many) puts on our path. Plus, nobody also could explain to that child that those challenges on many occasions come from those people’s own mental disturbances and difficulties (which doesn’t exclude God’s finger in it, at all).
And so was mine. An early sign of a serious mental condition. I would do similar things in sports. Now, I know, that is perceived as a virtue. Grinding in your training, with your teeth clenched, with your muscles aching, risking, or even working through inevitable injuries – that’s all constitutes commitment which is likely to bring about success in what you do. Granted, that is “what separates, the winners from the whinners”. Provided, however, that you do it constantly and move in one chosen direction. I wasn’t. I would change sports and clubs. And my practices were random and in effect inconsequential. Of course, in general, I was a very fit teenager, good at any discipline I currently was practicing, but I couldn’t master any of them, despite the pain I was able to apply to myself during the training sessions.
In both of those examples, I think, it is safe to say that I was choosing the pain willingly. And it is not enough to say that I was simply accepting it as a cost of the process I was getting in, to gain some effect. Still, I wouldn’t say I liked it. On many occasions, it would scare me and put me off of what I was currently doing. I still remember my professional cycling training. Age 14. The coach was a bit of a psychopath, and he would inflict accidents “to learn us” how to fall from the bike – a skill that actually saved my life twice later in real situations on the road. So, I was constantly bruised and aching. He would also allow older guys in the team to treat us “newbies” roughly, bully us, and push us around the road, and off-road. And I would accept it. The breaking point came, however, when I lost it to myself. We had done a long practice session, and we were coming back quite a distance. And they left me. When I stayed behind for a moment, they sped up and I had no chance to catch up with that small peloton. I had to make it on my own. It was raining like hell; it was cold like fucking hell. My tailbone hurt like real hell on the saddle from an injury I had suffered a few weeks earlier. I was in real pain and in tears. But I had to make it back to the base. I eventually did but my spirit was broken. Soon after I used an excuse and quit. So, it may be, that that has been always the point of my addictive self-harming when I would say enough. Make the pain so huge, that I can quit altogether and finally get some rest. Maybe.
The other valid explanation for my self-harming patterns is the culture of suffering I was growing up in all my childhood. Leave alone, that religion based on the idea of deification of human being’s own sacrifice for the salvation of the rest of humanity (an idea which by the way was further fully exploited by communists, nazis and made Harry Potter’s story so “fucking deep”). That was the high stuff which as a child I was of course “inhaling” all the time: in church, at school (I grew up in a communist country).
Unfortunately, it was also in my family. I remember going to the woods with my father (God, please take care of his loving soul) for some mushroom picking. I was probably 5, maybe 6. It was November, cold, and raining. And it was a long haul as we got there by bus or train, and we had to walk miles and miles and then come back all that distance again. So, at some point again I had enough. But we had to go. All my dad had for me, was a typical masculine, motivational, pep talk. “Come on lad, you have to be strong. Grind your teeth and suck it up” So I did. And I would do in many situations later in life, accepting and tolerating an almost insufferable level of pain. Sometimes purely physical, like in a couple of situations at publicly founded dentist services, drilling in, or pulling my teeth without any anesthetic on numerous occasions (once again – communist country). One of those extractions lasted 40 minutes because the lady dentist was not strong enough to pull it out. So, she sort of ripped it all gradually out of my jaw. And I was already 18 at this point, fully “formed” to be “a man” so I managed to stay in this chair on my own accord for as long as it took. Later in life, I would be able to remove remnants of my rotting teeth, myself, using some simple domestic pliers.
I can also work for 12 hours in steel-top shoes which causes horrible pain to my feet. But I will go on. I happened to do a lot of work with hurting back – sometimes being strapped in physiotherapeutic belts and on some painkillers. Or being nauseous and vomiting and still carrying on, because it would “trouble” my employer to find some cover for me. Or just work as long as it takes without breaks and despite the pain and tiredness. I once carried heavy physical work for 37 continuous hours with one 15-minute break. And I was then already in my forties.
I can also put up with a lot of mental suffering. There were times in my life when the pain caused by emotions would be so great and persistent that I would genuinely wish to seat at that dentist’s chair again and have that 40-minute blessed distraction from the shit my brain was giving me at this point. I truly and deeply understand those teenagers choosing various forms of self-harm to ease their mental struggles. The reason why I did so little of that was only because the real mental disturbances came to me later in my life. As an adult and educated person, I had a bit of an understanding of the consequences such behaviours can bring. But I swear to God, I was tempted. And I was also tempted for quite a long time to “ultimately” quit that suffering. It was so big. The good thing is that all the emotional upheavals I experience today feel a bit like “kindergarten” plays after the experience of extreme mental battles I fought in the past.
They say that we alkies choose alcohol and other substances to find respite from that mental suffering we get. What they don’t know and don’t understand (even the professionals) is that most of us get to the point when it doesn’t help that much, and we also realize that the more we drink the more pain we feel. It is not about self-consciousness. Anyway, it wasn’t that much in my case. Yet, many of us keep drinking, or return to “the bottle” after a while. I would say it is not because of the pain, we feel. It is to a great extent, despite of it. Paradox, yes. And I need to elaborate on this a bit more. I had a very good friend in the Fellowship who never truly stopped boozing. He would stay stopped for up to a year and then slip back into, first secret, and then full scale total binge. And he knew it all. He knew it would bring more pain. He’d been in AA for much longer than me. The problem with him was, he was probably “the toughest motherfuc…” I ever knew. Physically and mentally. So, his brain would finally convince him that he could take more of some suffering again. I am just glad I am not as strong as he. I had enough of this constant suicidal, self-harming ideation over 18 years ago and I still want to stay afraid of it, one day at a time.
My relationship with pain in its various forms is quite complex then. Yes, I like a bit of it. It stimulates me and brings meaning to my actions a lot of the time. Being deeply imprinted into the core of my identity from the very beginning of my personality formation it is one of the most important markers of how I evaluate my actions and occurrences happening in my life. If something I do is too easy and doesn’t cause any suffering that means that this is probably not a very valuable thing. I know that on many occasions that pattern of evaluation things is fraud. Yes, I am aware that the internal “price tag printer” in my head has been totally skewed. And I hope from the examples I’ve given you above you understand why. I need to constantly watch myself and question my motivation. However, this is, how I am, who I really am. A sado-masochistic idiot. But otherwise, I can’t feel happy either. If something doesn’t cause at least a bit of pain, at least initially I can’t really enjoy it. But maybe that is also just a rationalization. Anyway, I am just happy at this moment to have that amount of pain in my life that currently there is, and I am looking forward to enjoy even more 😊