The Fragile Man

I have shopped my writing around to the publications closest to my subject matter and have found that they aren't interested in my opinion. They publish the editorial works of experts and I'm no expert and all I really have is my perspective. So, I've decided to write about the only subject I'm an expert in, myself.

I'm going to post the beginning of a book I'm writing and I'd like your feedback. Here is what I propose: Read the beginning few paragraphs with the understanding that this will be the telling of a six year journey through fibromyalgia and my other ailments. So read and let me know if you'd keep reading this book, or if it's best kept for myself.

Thank you in advance :-)

Namaste,

Ryan

I awoke on my couch, facing eviction, the power being cut off and working a job which was entirely too physical for my body. My wife and children were gone, left to Texas because I had been a violent man. I had curbed my physical outbursts, but was still difficult to live with. I was full of delusion and victimization and all the pain medication and muscle relaxants I had left. I didn't want to live another day, not without my family. I had the two dogs for company, and they loved me but it was hard to love them back when they reminded me so much of what I had lost. I looked into the empty room my sons had shared; toys still lain on the floor. I laid back on my couch, which had became my bed, since I wasn't sleeping in our bed. I lived a life of busting tires all day, six days a week, 70+ hours a week and staying awake all night. As I laid there a thought bubbled up from the center of my mind like the message from an old '8 ball"; all I had was myself for company and I hated myself. I was an ass-hole and a bully. As I realized this the room began to fade into so much black nothingness and I was there floating by myself.; outside of time and space with no beginning and no end. As I realized that  this was the fabric of reality, I knew myself completely and my body faded. I was simply the energy of me, this observer. I looked back and saw the fabric of my negative energy threaded through the lives of my family causing so much of our distress and problems. I saw it changing the beautiful nature of my children. I saw it causing my lovely wife to bend and change. I could feel her pain and fear in my deepest heart and I awoke.

I sat there staring into the room, blinking at the vivid clarity of it all just as I had done so many years ago when I received my first pair of glasses. Trees weren't just green cotton balls; life wasn't the fabric of my dreams. I understood into the center of a deep placed I had long ago suppressed,  that we are all connected and I had been so very irresponsible with my part in it all. I had been irresponsible in my role as a father, as a husband, as a friend and as a human being. I was selfish, judgmental, and so egocentric my victim mentality was like a suit of armor. I saw it so clearly of myself and I stripped myself naked unto the light of truth. I had fought against the worst of myself for so long. I was tired of shirking, tired of being ashamed of my true self. I turned and fought, finally. I closed my eyes, I grit my teeth, clenched my fists and faced it. When I opened my eyes I expected to be facing demons, shadows, enemies of some sort and what hit my like a blade to my heart was the sight of myself, pale face in my hands weeping at what I had done. I saw this man, who couldn't stand tall; who had faced his whole life as though visited by the ghost of Christmas past.  His shoulders were slumped and his heart was wallowed in sorrow and despair. I became aware of the energy, call it atmosphere, esp or however you can understand it, but I became aware of a looming choice. I felt it with every fiber of my physical being. Like my own spidey-sense; my karmasense was tingling like crazy. The fight or flight reaction was pulling like the riptide of the oncoming of a tremendous wave. I didn't care, I had made my choice and as the wave crashed I covered that man with my body. In the churning destruction I was washed away, split into so many layers of facade as the cinema of my life was shown before me. Each scene; a layer of delusion ripped away, exposing me, skinning me alive. I didn't falter, I didn't shirk. Layer after layer I watched as karma; my energetic responsibility for the threads of delusion, hate and judgement I had woven into reality were heaped upon my shoulders. I used those scenes flashed before me as bubbles of truth to follow to the surface if I were to survive. As I pressed into these scenes, no longer a witness; neutral, I became. Without knowing or noticing perhaps I became that figure I had seen. My face in my hands weeping as the pain I had wrought on others only to disguise myself, to cast my view from who I was. Their pain was to alleviate my own... the source of my shame shown before me as the last load of karmic weight. I stood and assumed it all unto my being. I was one again, like I had been so many years ago as a child. I was washed clean while not removing my past. This wasn't a fragmentation, it was a reunification. I could stand tall because I am a good person. I have done bad things, but I was no longer running from them. Stripped to near spartan living I walked my talk every day.

I had been shown the subtle luring nature of that inner space I came to call the cave. I walked every day being as present as I could be. I had seen the shields of delusion and their consequences and I rejected my reality and stood for truth come what may, how ever I may be judged or scrutinized I will walk in the light of truth. My first tool was to openly call bullshit on myself. When I was being weak and letting others do more work than I on the job I would call bullshit on myself. At first it took stepping into the restroom to actually face my reflection and call it out. "you're being an asshole, you're using and manipulating them and it IS NOT RIGHT" I had to affirm it in reality, not the vacuum of my mind because I can change the facts as I see fit in there. Out here in reality, if I spoke it aloud, I couldn't take it back. I foiled my sneaky and underhanded ego-self this way. It was what it was, I could not change it. Those moments were my foot holds, my anchor points for when I fell, and I fell a lot in the beginning. I began to see again, as I did in that moment of clarity, the sun warmed me, the coffee was richer and I was real, and I was ok. I began to rebuild myself in this way. I was raising two boys into manhood and I couldn't define it and the shame of my example to them thus far was like a burning  coal for the engine of my purpose. To be a good person.

Sharing really is caring

I really believe that sharing is caring, but the thought was brought back into my mind this morning during a Tourette's fit. They're usually directly linked to my stress level, which, with various anxiety disorders means it varies, for no reason and with no warning. Though it is usually correlated to my actual stress level. It usually goes like this:

Stress level:

1 - I don't know yet haha but pacing, definitely pacing... I never stop pacing
2 - The occasional twitch of the shoulders and straightening of clothing (the clothing thing always exists, like having clean hands and such)
3 -
4 -
5 - 3 to 5 range from stuttering, neck craining, hand twitches, foot tapping, guttural noises and clicks and the like. I usually sing during these times in order to focus on what I'm doing. In times like these I feel blessed I learned so many Earth based Pagan songs. They help focus my mind on positive things.
6 -
7 -
8 - High stress times I stutter badly and it always accompanies neck craining: sometimes to the point of such pain that I cry out. The hand body twitches become more exaggerated and the foot tapping becomes leg spasms and jerks. Yes, I admit here and now that I have spasmed into the Thriller dance on one occasion. On high pain days from the fibro, which I'll get to later, the spasms are in my back and they can take me down in an instant in complete agony.
9 -
10 - These days are all of the above with fibro nerve flashes which leave me utterly nonfunctional.

My wife and my kids know all of this because they've lived it, the poor things, as it's come about. I wasn't always this way. The onset of Fibromyalgia exacerbated what my Neurologist called "undiagnosed childhood Tourette's syndrome"  which made sense as I've been a finger drummer for as long as I can remember. To anyone on the outside it may seem odd and I know it makes situations uncomfortable so as I shared with my immediate family, I share with you my family at large.

Allow me to digress; I shared all of this in order to set the frame work for the sharing of my walk through Fibromyalgia. Also understand that I have arthritis and my knees are bone on bone, and I have some band disorder my Rheumatologist explained but I don't understand which means my hips ache and pop out of socket frequently. So knowing all of this I'll explain my Fibromyalgia. I say my because it's a host of disorders which plague different people differently. For instance it heightened the already existing Tourettete's and OCD (CDO) and brought new anxieties. My pain level is always parallel to stress changes and changes in barometric pressure. There are eighteen nerve points recognized as very sensitive with fibro and you can have any number of them active. I have all eighteen points active at varying levels of sensativity which correlate to changes in stress, movement, overall health, mental state (which is a real Bugger) and others. They can also just heighten for no reason. Mine are as follows:


1 - My back (4 lower back and 2 upper back at the base of my neck) and my right knee are sensitive though I'm rarely at this pain level with a cognitive mind. Mild headache. I creak like the rigging on an old sailing ship. Extreme discomfort as though I just can't get comfortable.
2 - Back, knees, headache at the base of my neck.
3 -
4 -
5 - Again from 3 to 5: Back (all points from this point forward), knees, elbows, ankles, feet (at the soles), hands, headache complete head mild migraine symptoms, clouded thinking, IBS, lethargy, loss of appetite, muscle spasms in my back and sometimes in my leg, The leg ones I walk out because I pace, the back ones are all day long twitches. If I sit down for too long they lock up and cause the points in my back to hit a 10 in pain. I have sat through one full movie with my family in four years.
6 -
7 -
8 - You know the drill: Extreme lethargy I'd liken to my worst bout of the flu (when I had pneumonia) extreme body and joint pain (my hands are swollen clubs), my knees feel like they're filled with broken glass, the foot pain is like a hot coal on the pad while the foot remains extremely cold with swollen joints, migraine headache, clouded thinking, grumpy, Anxiety bouts with shrieks at loud noises and flinches at sudden movements, IBS from the very bowels of hell,
9 -
10 - They blur into one and it's all of the above with inescapable agony that writhing in the fetal position won't comfort. Nothing helps; there is no place dark enough, soft enough, warm enough, cool enough... if I could be suspended in air I couldn't find comfort and I feel like I know how the Earth must feel moments before magma becomes lava.

So I tell my family and close friends what my pain level is at. I do so because I have no sores, no open wounds which are dressed, no outward signs really other than my permanently dark eyes to alert anyone that I am sick. I am sick.

I am sick.

It has taken me so long to simply admit that. I have fears of hypochondria so I am very stubborn about being sick. I have been sick for as long as I can remember. I have grown a strong dislike of doctors and western medicine in general. I has taken me a long time to become medicated again though my life is MUCH better being so.  I was told at my last doctors visit that I am maxed out on Lyrica and Cymbalta; lovely. I have to fight what I assume (yes I assume) is the doctors view that I'm just after some pain medicine like percocet or something. I don't want that. I really dislike the feeling of those pain meds. I don't drink to the point of feeling "off" and I don't like that no matter what I take, prescription pain meds, I feel that way. I am a medical marijuana patient. I have been for two years. The amount of pain relief is directly in my hands. The type of relief is under my control as well. By using different types I directly address what I hurting or wrong. I can remain functional and believe me it has saved my marriage because I'm no peach to live with. My wife is a Saint for putting up with me, truly.

I wake up groggy and I go to bed wide awake. I pace all day so that when I go to bed I'm exhausted and I'll sleep as still as possible because I don't want to ruin Rose's sleep. I still sleep restlessly and the points on my back have caused us to cuddle much less. I really miss that physical contact. To explain my back; have you ever had a broken or bad tooth? Where the root was exposed? Where just the slightest breath inward was felt and it could surge to a burning pain at the lightest touch? It's like my lower back is a mouth full of broken teeth. The Lyrica and Cymbalta keep the pain at about a high discomfort level. My family know where to hug me safely, others I keep the pain within; it's worth it for the physical contact and exchange of love. After the hug, which usually ends with a pat on the back, I smile and excuse myself to go walk off the pain. I will not miss out on a hug, and if you're reading this and thinking of hugging me less, even one hug, please please don't. Please don't withhold, I am a hugger. 

I meditate in the morning to offset the lost sleep. I try to meditate a couple hours a day between sitting Shinay and walking Shinay. I open my shrine in the morning which consists of chants which set my intention in the right direction, offerings of saffron water and candles and incense when I have it. I center myself through this process. I get the coffee going and get my family off for their day. I ask them every day "Did you get enough sleep? Did you get enough to eat? Are you going to have a good day?" We play fun music. My youngest son likes Stevie Wonder's "Sir Duke" especially and I love the way he sings it in the morning. After they're off I will come home and medicate and walk out the cramps and spasms. About Noon I'll be able to get out and about to run any errands. I recently got a handicapped parking placard. I thought I wouldn't use it often because as we parked in the past I had thought about getting one and assessed if I would "need" to use it. That assessment was flawed though because it was from the perspective in which parking there wasn't actually an option. I use it a lot. I walk with a cane for a few reasons: my knees; they won't do a knee replacement until I'm in my 60's with the lack of insurance I have. So I'm using what I have wisely and walking with a cane. It's also for my back. My right hip is what I would describe as "soggy" it doesn't hold my weight during a stride. So, the cane helps a lot even though I really dislike it. My skin is soft and thin now. When I look down I don't see my Dad's hands, I see my Grandpa Hope's hands. That's ok by me, he was a great man, but it's a little early. I'm not yet 40. I digress yet again (fibro fog) I'll go get the kids from school around 2:30 and leave again around 5:45 to get Rose from work. We'll get dinner figured out and I'll cook or help cook depending. I'll get Rose off to bed, then the kids, and I'll pace out all the pain and anxiety from the day (even though I do it throughout the day) and exhaust myself around midnight and fall asleep.

That "day" will fluctuate depending on the factors I listed and I have no retreat from my day. I cannot fail my family. I feel horrible as I am no longer the provider for me family, while at the same time I have enormous pride for my wife and how she's blossomed under this. As my body crumples up on me I struggle with depression (fibo add-on), I am unemployed and most likely unemployable, I can't work hard around the house... hell I barely keep house. I manage to taxi my family and remain an emotional support. It's all I have and I give it all.

I'm sharing all of this because I am sick, but I am a human being. I believe we need to open the dark corners, deal with them with the strength of our family. We need to dispel the thought that we should somehow be ashamed of our bodies, of who we are. We desperately need a coming together. I share because it is caring, caring that maybe this will reach someone who needs it on a day they need it. Gifts are given without thought of reciept, or they should be and I believe your very presence is a gift unto the universe for us all to share so make it the best you can give.

Imagine. Everyone, everywhere being open and giving, understanding and nonjudgmental... We have to be the change folks and this is my humble contribution.

Don't Act; BE

"Never try to ACT like someone you're not, because it's acting and that is just a shortcut to being... so in the end you'll just be faking a new person but taking the same shortcuts you are now. Don't act; be."

All of us want to improve who we are; our media, from screen to print, tells us so. So how do you go about change or improvement and make it real? You have to ask yourself "How far am I willing to go? How much do I want this change?" and the key question you have to ask yourself "How honest am I prepared to be with myself?". Otherwise you're just going through the motions again, and aren't you sick of fading change?

Have you ever heard the phrase "Fake it until you make it"? I can't think of a more destructive path to self-improvement. All of us are aware of our inner-most place, the place our consciousness seats. It's the place you talk to yourself non-verbally. It's your inner space. I call it the cave. It's the place, I believe, we understood first as children. The day we understood "I am" as coming from within not what your parent was pointing at from the outside. Later on, it will become the place we can think and not even God can hear us. It's a refuge we create from the world. It's the place we where we know we're just faking it and even if we get really good at it, we will know we're still only faking it. It's the carrot called "make it". Faking it will never bring us happiness, true happiness, which won't fade.

So there you are, sitting inside yourself, lost and wondering what to do next. Life isn't working and every change you've made backfires or does nothing to help at all.  It's time to get real with yourself. The phrase "I won't do this ever again, and this time I mean it" wouldn't be pop-culture if it wasn't true on some level. How many times have you said it? I don't have enough fingers on my hands for how many times I have said it.  Ever notice that when you say that you're in a different place inside yourself than you are right now? It's like you're some slick car salesman pulling the wool over your own eyes. So, how seriously are you going to take this? You have to silence the salesman; you have to know better, and do better. You have to consciously turn away from the easy road and start the real work. You know, that truth you've been doing all you can to get away from? It's now time to hoist that on your back and take care of it.

The very first thing you have to do is some housecleaning of the cave. You, like all of us, have skeletons to clear out. You may be thinking that you already have cleared those out, and so only you know if that is the truth. So we come to: Just how honest are you willing to be with yourself? To me, there is only one level of honest; absolute. So the way I look at it, you're not throwing those skeletons out, instead you're facing them down and accepting them. You have to be able to both stand against the deed and love the doer unconditionally. That is you have to be against what you did, fundamentally and completely against it, while still having understanding and compassion for the you which did it. You have to be able to love yourself, after all; you're stuck with you for your entire life.

What is left when you’ve cleared everything out? After you're done fighting your demons and wound up loving yourself more for the process, what is left? It feels so, empty. The first urge is to define who you are by everything around you. Your likes, and your hates. "I am a pacifist!" "I am a father." "I am a professor" and so on. Or, "I'm against violence" "I'm for the sanctity of marriage" "I believe in Socialism". Stop, stop, stop! None of that matters anyway. They're not definitions, they are what you make your decisions by. They are your values, not you. Now that you've cleared everything out, what you're left with is you. Not the fake puppet you that you've spent your whole life crafting into a super cool adult, but the real and actual you.

So, who are you? Do you even know? Can you tell me without leaving the perspective of your cave? Can you tell me without looking out and echo-locating or looking in an judging? Can you simply be and know who you are? It's an intangible thing isn't it? You are in a constant state of flux, ever changing and growing, ever the student. Be-ing is now, act-ing is a plot for future being which projects the mind to an imaginary state in the future and excuses any behavior of how you got there; it's a short cut. That is faking it until you make it, but you never do. "Make it", that is. You'll always know that you're lying to yourself and what ever you were trying to be; you'll always know it is a sham. You need to find the center of yourself which doesn't change while you're constantly changing. I've often thought of it as the overall intention of your life. It's what all those "I am" and other definitions compiled and averaged out are. So you end up being the intention of all of your choices, like some giant flow chart leading to one person that you cannot be and witness at the same time. There can be only one! You either are or you're examining yourself. There is nothing wrong with that as long as you recognize that that is you and what you're witnessing is really only your memory of  what you were.

You've discovered the secret. That change comes only from making the choice to be that good person, every choice, every day with conscious purpose. Then faking it to making it becomes a delicate dance of imperfection. It becomes accepting yourself as you fail while not accepting failure. It's strict self compassion. It's life, one day at a time. It is nothing more than simply being the change, and it turns out Gandhi was really on to something so deep we may never hope to fully understand it. You exist, so go and be who you are and you'll find that happiness & love were all around you all the while and it was really you who were getting in your way and selling you a load of bunk. You'll find that change is hard work and it resides in our minute to minute choices which add up to be who we are. Go and BE!