Disclaimer: This is not an original idea of mine; I’ve seen various forms of this in the cyberverse. After a rough week, I felt the need to ask my body/mind why they were causing me so much grief. A letter seemed the most appropriate format.
Dear Mind & Body:
What is it you are trying to tell me? I lie, stone still, and listen. Hear heart beat; feel pain; feel the weight of you like lead against the duvet.
If I close my eyes, I can see the neck throb spasms; visualize the blood circulating (or not) from top of head to tip of toe. Feel where the numbness gives way to the jagged edges of pain. Count the seconds between the stomach cramps or stabbing gurgles.
The deep aches in my legs seem to laugh at the four lidocaine patches (one on thigh and shin of each leg). Face feels like sinus infection, abscessed teeth, black eye on the left side. The pain cascade from neck to cheek bone to jaw to teeth, once begun, seems immune to breakthrough meds.
Are you punishing me for neglecting you in the past? When I could walk for hours; party to dawn. When my mind still could hold information; when it didn’t hurt to talk. When the dragon in my belly hibernated; occasionally shifting her position in her sleep; shaking scales and tail; flexing wings while dreaming of flying.
Do my legs ache because I walked too much or not enough yesterday? Even after sleeping for 10 hours on Saturday, the fatigue still sits on my shoulders. So, how much sleep do you really need since you insist on usually waking me up every 2 hours or so?
What do you want me to feed you? Why do you crave sugar like an addict; why do you let me lose control over how much and what I eat? What you liked yesterday, you give me grief over today. Or was it what I ate 3 days ago?
What do you expect of me? What messages are you sending in zapping pains, soul-deep aches. When I try to stretch you gently, move you carefully, you retaliate with increased neck spasms, facial pain, and migraines.
Why do you opt for a chemical imbalance that makes depression is my shadow? Why have you chosen to have a good memory for bad things and a bad memory for good things? I walk into a room, unsure why I am there. Things go missing like large chunks of my cognitive abilities.
The act of sitting here writing you a letter has started a new pain cascade. The tingling numbness will explode. Back in bed; in the fetal position; I will slow down my breath, and try and decode the messages you keep sending. Is it morse code – the dots and dashes of my pounding heart; binary language of 1s and 0s combined in pain; a mythical language from our ancient past following the neuropathways? Where do I get my “secret decoder ring?” When will you speak to me in words; sentences; paragraphs that I can understand?
Image by JKönig via Flickr
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Now, it’s your turn. Compose: a letter, an email, a series of tweets; a poem; draw pictures, or shoot a vlog. Address your project to your mind and body: your “project” can be nurturing, encouraging, positive, funny or chastising, angry, unhappy. Whatever dialogue develops between the writing/creating you and the chronic you. And, of course, if you like, you can include your body’s and mind’s response. I’m still waiting for a reply from mine! 
There will be fun {sur}prises for those folks who participate. (No askinng for hints, or shaking the package.) You can post a link to your blog if you chose to go public in the comments section here, or email me with the link, or with your communiqué to yourself. My email is: phylorsblog@ymail.com I look forward to reading your seeing/reading your projects.
Update: I should have been more clear — you can put your comminique in the comments section. And, as was suggested, I’ll set a due date for April 1st (no fooling), but I’m pretty flexible about that. Enjoy.
Thanks Maureen. I read your letter and am heartened that you can still love your body after all it’s put you through! So often, we grow to hate our physical selves for the pain and other symptoms it causes. With a positive attitude towards your body and yourself, you are providing folks like me with a model to follow.
What a great way to gather all those thoughts and questions we have in our head. Here’s my link:
http://sunshineandchaos.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/you-are-the-only-one-a-letter-to-my-body/
Maureen
Thanks, Kathy, for sharing your dialogue!
I understand the need to continually re-evaluate goals, dreams, and desires due to the limitations our bodies can place on us. It’s interesting that you can say you’ve been both challenged and taught, and that your body can still amaze you by what it can do.
Today has been a good day so far. Had brunch with friends in a house by a lake, surrounded by trees and birds. Actually did some craft work this afternoon/evening. Made myself a cheese burger for supper. This is the kinda day when I say “thank you” to my body. I won’t even think of the consequences I’ll no doubt feel tomorrow.
What I want to say to my body is: You’ve let me down, brought me to my knees on more than one occasion, challenged me and taught me. .You “take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’.” Several times a day I grow tired of you. Yet there are also times when I am amazed at what you can do. My reach exceeds my grasp and I am continually re-evaluating my goals, dreams and desires.
I’m pretty flexible about the due date. The entry can be a series of tweets, a poem, a picture/image, letter, vlog, email or anything else your imagination comes up with. I hope you do get a chance to put something together.
I’ve been meaning to send you the fb address for a woman I met through the love not hate blogging events. She has a petition going (for the US) to make endo become a more visible disease.
Love this! I’m hoping to get involved, I’m busy blogging for endo awareness month, but I’ll try my best to come up with something and sneak in a post. Great idea!
Thanks for reminding me there should be some sort of due date! Hope about April 1st — no fooling! And, I can be persuaded to allow more time.
Great idea!! Have you set a deadline for participation? Finally–permission to talk to myself!! Thanks
I will throw in my Hypnotic Healing CD- How to Talk so your Symptoms Will Listen and How to Listen so your Symptoms Will Talk – as one of your surprise prizes.
It is an interactive recording that gives the listener a way of communicating with their body and receiving answers.
Laurie F is getting a copy and I’m not sure if you have one — let me know.
Judith:
I sent you an email about the CDs. The contest will give Max something to chew on. He can certainly enter a post about what life is like living with a chronic.
Dear Me,
I keep asking myself why I hurt so much. Why do I feel like razor blades are cutting into my shoulders, why does my back feel so tight that it could break completely in half at any minute. My joints ache yet I haven’t been diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis….yet but a friend told me she tested a false negative for five years. Is that something I am supposed to look forward to?
My mind and body are also anxious. It comes out of nowhere and I don’t know why it’s been happening lately. I do get anxious once in a great while but this has been going on for a little while already. Stop. OK, please stop. I’ll do anything to get rid of those pests inside my brain and my body that are hammering on my insides until they get through to my skin and I want to attack them like I would swatting at flies.
I’m not happy, nor am I happy. I feel dull, blah, not joyful yet not tearful. I want to feel something but I am incapacitated at the moment. Perhaps I fear my own fear. The world at large is a very scary place, I want to help, I can’t ignore it but we have no control over our lives. None. That is some scary stuff right there.
Just when I want to have an adventure I have to think about my Fibromyalgia and Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. Why did I have to get these together? I can’t even differentiate pain anymore because I ache all over. Muscles, joints, legs, all of it together, all the time. I am getting scared and angry at this stupid disease that doesn’t even have a cure for it yet. I’ve tried all kinds of pills, I’ve done everything I can do, yet nothing helps. Worst of all, some people don’t even believe that what we have is real. Why would anyone make up pain? So, there it is, my ups and downs, my sad to bad feelings, my utter feeling of helplessness in a world that is scary enough without any control whatsoever.
Thanks for getting the contest going.
I know that helpless, out of control feeling. Pain is a thief that robs you of your most precious “gems;” hope, happiness, moments of bliss. And, pain eats away at our memories, our cognitive abilities; it thrives when we wither.
Remember, you’re not alone. Accepting the pain is not the same as giving in.
Hang in there, as trite as that sounds.