Category Archives: Realisations

I feel useless

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Useless.

That is the word that recurrently floats in my mind on days when a flare-up of my chronic pain prevents me from being able to accomplish anything, including small simple chores.

It’s discouraging to be a young, fit and otherwise healthy adult, and have to face the fact that today, the chronic pain is interfering so much, that walking towards the drier to grab the pile of clothes, to then fold them is too much. Even if the folding part would be done while laying down on the bed. It’s not that unfolded clothes is the end of the world in and out of itself – I mean, how many mothers can confidently say that they sometimes don’t even get around to fold the pile of clothes before its content is used up. The distinction here is that these mothers weren’t incapable of doing so in theory, but that in practice, the large number of tasks they were taking on left them no time to get to the clothes pile. And so, the frustrating part, the one that makes me feel ‘less than’, is thus that in theory, I was incapable of getting it done.

I didn’t have a choice in the matter – my body made the choice for me, and forced me to be a prisoner of its will. It’s not as if I could drop another task to have enough time or enough energy to do this one, no, I didn’t have such negotiation powers with my body. My only choice was to comply.

If you’re naturally a laid-back person, you’re likely puzzled. “Why not enjoy laying down guilt-free? After all, if anyone criticizes you for not accomplishing anything, or for being a messy person, you can point to the fact that although you would have loved to slave for hours, you simply couldn’t. And thus you’d enjoy binge watching your favorite show without a drop of guilt on your conscience.”

Two elements are overlooked when presenting such a valid question:

1) “I couldn’t” – *cringe* – is not an easy thing for people like me to chew out. This layered issue will be unfolded in subsequent posts.

2) Procrastination never tasted as sweet as when the outstanding matter was of great importance. A Summer day spent mulling because everything was closed and the electricity shut down everywhere is never as satisfying as the day spent procrastinating although you have a huge report to finish writing for the next week. It’s the concept of choice. You’d have the choice, if you wanted to, to slave around for hours, but you chose to instead binge watch your show during these hours.  You weren’t confined against your will to lay there; you chose to lay there albeit responsibility to get something else done was looming over your head. If anything, there is some thrill with procrastination. The entrapment feeling isn’t triggered for you, but oh is it ever so present for me.

If you’re familiar with healthy coping skills related to chronic pain, you know that the healthy next step is to embrace what your limitations are, so as to move past the entrapment feeling. You cannot control what your body’s immediate capacity is, but what you can control, is how much you’ll suffer mentally during this incapacity (more on that in future posts).

And so, I leave you with this comic from TheSquareComics, to help you put things into perspective, on the days where your incapacity makes you feel useless:

 

Want something a little pop rock to bang out the frustration of uselessness? Check out Relient K’s “More than Useless”:

Short enough, yet long enough

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2020-04-11 21.57.33 rainbow, elderly

Confinement is hard*, on many levels.  One of which is the emotional aspect. We are social creatures, and to be suddenly stripped of the ability to interact freely with one another pokes at something deeply ingrained in us. And for the majority of us, we are poorly equipped when it comes to healthy coping mechanisms, which could be used to prevent our spirits from being brought down when confinement hits. As the saying that is often attributed to a navy seal goes: “Under pressure, you don’t rise to the occasion, you sink to the level of your training.”

 

In the wake of this coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, we have the opportunity to taste some of the repercussions of confinement. For some, it gave them room to flourish: arts projects were completed, renovations finalized, cooking storms were taken on, and a time of rest was enjoyed. For others, a new level of chaos had to be managed, juggling work at home while simultaneously taking care of young children who were slowly going crazy, now being trapped in a closed space. After the initial shock of sudden adaption, be it the positive one in the former or the negative one in the latter, all will start to notice a feeling that had been slowly creeping in: isolation.

Yes, you can be surrounded by other humans yet feel isolated, lonely, alone.

This season of confinement will lead us all to be more than acquainted with this feeling. This engulfing feeling. To be entrapped, to some degree.

It makes us wonder, is that how the elderly that have no or few visits have been feeling? Are the clinically depressed among us struggling with similar feelings? And what about those whose health ailments pose obstacles to freely going out?

For all these people, confinement comes with additional burdens: the reality that their bodily capacity is no longer what it used to be – they are not only confined in their homes, but a prisoner of a less-than-able body; a lack of understanding – even judging – from those around them that aren’t suffering the same fate as they are; the feeling of going through this challenge alone; and that’s only naming a few.

It’s been a few years now that I’m finding myself in a state of confinement (limited kind of outings and limited social interactions) due to health reasons, and I have to admit – to my shame – that before that, I hadn’t sympathized, let alone empathized, for such people. My eyes were forcefully opened to the extent of one’s need of social interactions only once I found myself in need of it. The sea of various emotions that ensued will be explored in separate posts. But for now, I’ll share with you one of my hopes, one of my wishes, for the general population that is going through this confinement season.

For you, this state of global confinement is temporary. My hope is that it’s short enough not to make you suffer permanent damages, yet long enough to move you to offer your presence as a much-needed type of help for us, those who will remain confined even after this state of sanitary precaution has ended. We aren’t living it as a finite situation with a light at the end of a tunnel, but as our norm, with little to no hope of it changing. And so I hope, nay, I eagerly desire, that you see how crucial and beneficial social interactions is for us, those whose regular lifestyle is one of confinement.

From our captivity, we watch the rest of the world enjoy their freedom – something that was a part of our past. From our limitations, we watch the rest of the world function without the burdens of physical or psychological ailments. From our torment, we have to face the frustration and/or incredulity of the rest of the world, at the extent of our new (in-)capacity. From our isolation, we have to fight an invisible battle against our condition, and to do so alone, without the rest of the world living it with us. Aren’t you finding some kind of solace, knowing that literally everyone around you is living the same struggle, fears and concerns as you, with respect to the coronavirus situation? That solace is rarely available to us, and if it is, never to such large widespread scale.

Confinement is hard. Confinement as a regular lifestyle is heavy. Confinement as a regular lifestyle and with limited abilities can be crushing.

I’m eternally grateful to the family and friends that make it a point to check in with me, to offer whatever socialization is within their means given their own set of challenges. Those inpourings of love are drops of hope, that create a sea of care and an avalanche of relief.

To quote a cliché saying: Their presence is the best present.

 

*Our current type confinement situation pales in comparison to the kind that victims of wars have to endure, or that the likes of Ann Franck had to live through. The above isn’t meant to overlook that fact, but rather, to discuss what our type of confinement is in its own merit: it’s hard. Not ‘the hardest’, or ‘harder than’ other worse circumstances. It simply is what it is, and what that is, is hard.