Funny, how pain will find whatever you are tethered to and snip the threads, allowing you to float between this and this–being present becomes something different.
I have a hard time understanding my pain tolerance. I know that my perception is very distorted due to years of migraines. It’s strange–how private and intimate the relationship with pain can be, how protective I get over the matter. I cannot explain it away–I cannot tell you where I go when it happens, where I have to take myself mentally in order to deal with it. Let’s just say I know the place well.
Which brings me to my current situation. I’m dealing with the incredible ache and shove of wisdom teeth. All four of them are coming out on Tuesday, and I’m counting down the days. The past few weeks have been an exercise in tolerance. On antibiotics and pain meds(though the pain meds drift between helping and making me feel awful and I’m a little scared of them anyway, so I refer to them sparingly). I’m ready for this to be over. I’m ready to eat normal foods again, ready for the big grins to come back. I’m nervous about going under(I’ve only been knocked out once for a procedure seven years ago, and I woke up in the middle of it…a little traumatizing to say the least), but it has to be done.
The pain of it sucks, yes, but I cannot explain to anyone exactly how bad it is, due to my distorted perception of tolerance. No matter how bad it gets, I tend to utter to myself: well, it isn’t a migraine. Sometimes the pain will trigger a migraine, and yes I’m well aware of the suckage factor there. But otherwise, incredibly difficult to gauge.
I would never say I particularly “enjoy” pain, but I do have an intimacy with it. I like getting tattoos, and I’m intrigued by body modifications; I enjoy physical exertion. I like being sore, feeling parts of the body ache that I would otherwise ignore. I guess there is something “living” about it. I think that the “pleasure” I derive from the sensations stems from all of my experiences with it(aka: chronic migraines).
On the other hand, it’s hard for me to compare migraine pain to any other pain ever felt(including this wisdom teeth thing). There is something mysterious and intense about pain felt in the head, above the neck–there is something so specific about that burning sun that knocks out everything, a white heat. Maybe it’s as simple as being in the same location as the brain, the thinking, the start of synapse and idea. Maybe it’s the “phantom” part of the pain–a migraine isn’t a giant laceration or missing limb. Maybe it’s all the chemical linkage, the serontonin sweetie. Maybe maybe maybe.
I suppose pain is something familiar, and as humans I think we are prone to gravitate towards the familiar. The funny thing is: no matter how familiar of a “thing” it is, it’s still pain–it fucking hurts. It’s quite a conundrum–to be pulled to something that, by nature & reflex, you shove away from.