My Weekend with the Dark Side

*My weekend with the Dark Side*
by China Krys Darrington

I've had an "interesting" last few days. Before I start any description,
let me give a little backlog. Back in 2003 I made some really stupid
choices that had life-altering consequences. One of those consequences
resulted in a physical attack that caused my back to break. Not complete,
but vertebrae cracked, shifted and has resulted in a major
spondylolisthesisof
my spine (slippage of one vertebrae on top of another so that it sort
of
slips off and tilts.) This stability problem causes stress and strain on my
back...all the time and bony lesions or
spurshave built up
inside my spinal canal which causes pinching and scraping on
my spinal cord and nerves.

At the time there were things that needed attending too BEFORE I could deal
with my back injury, so I ignored the problem until May of 2004. (Trust
me...this was needed. I couldn't deal with my injury without causing
immensely more damage) At which time when I got the x-rays and MRI's dome
my surgeon said "surgery immediately" and the words "fusion" and
"instrumentation" and proceeded to show me this metal thing that looked like
a hair-clippiethat
they wanted to screw to my spine. That was scary enough, but then I
took a look at the *screws* that they would use to drill into my already
damaged, cracked and disintegrating vertebrae. They were like 2 1/2"
long!!! Surgery would happen on the front first, scooping all my internal
organs and placing them on a table next to me during surgery so that they
could get access to my spine. Then they place some chips of bone which they
would harvest from my hip as shims in my spine, they would plunk everything
back into my body cavity and sew me back up and then *the next day* they
would take me back into the OR and open my back up on the backside and carve
out the nasty remains of my discs and replace them with this steel cage *and
dill those awful screws into my spine to hold it in place.*

YUCK!

My daughter was five at the time and had just been through a lot herself.
She was *very* needy and I knew she needed a lot of safety and security in
order for her to start to have a sense of belonging. So I postponed the
surgery in order to get us as a family back on track. Now she is eight.
Three years have passed and I've survived with limited mobility, daily pain
and lots and lots of pills. Pills for inflammation, steroids, pain pills,
muscle relaxants, sleeping pills. All this in a woman who has a history of
drug abuse! Whee. I'm carefully managed and I meet regularly to evaluate
my status, and I've not felt "compulsive" about my drug use at all in the
past three years, but it's still not a good set up.

One thing that HAS helped were these epidural steroid
injectioncaudal
blocks. I've had a few series of them and the last series I had in
the fall of 2006 worked better than anything else I've had done in three
years. I got the first shot in a new series last Thursday. Great, huh?
Yeah, I was pretty excited and hoping I would get as much relief as that
fall series. So I get the injection and the first thing that goes wrong is
that I need twice as much anesthetic as usual to put me under, which leaves
me more 'off' for the day after the injection. I'm really sore around the
injection site and I'm still really achy, which is all normal, but didn't
happen the last time. Last shot I felt SOOOOOO good immediately.
Unrealistic expectation...yeah, I know. But I had my fingers
crossed...twice!

So Thursday night I have these awful dreams. All night I'm just verbally
abusing my kid, saying nasty things about how much of a burden she is and
how much my life would have been different if she wasn't around. Horrible
things. Things I'd rather slit my own throat with toe-nail clippers rather
than ever come out of my mouth. So all night I'm emotionally scarring my
child, over and over...so when I wake up I'm already on edge. I roll out of
bed...

And the pain is still there. OK, breath. No big deal, the pain isn't any *
worse* than it was on Wednesday, right. It's just the pain we live with day
in and day out. Breath. Pain is not suffering. Pain you can breath
through. Pain is subjective. Over the past three years I've learn so many
techniques for dealing with acute pain. And it works...for acute pain.

What I failed to understand at the time is that long-term pain weaves itself
into a tight robe of suffering. It wears you down. It shortens your fuse.
It makes you rigid and brittle and bitter. And I use many of my Jedi skills
to mitigate this. But three years is a lot of daily suffering to deal
with...add that to the mix of subconsciously expecting relief...and I was
dangerously close to the edge.

My kid is eight year old and the center of my universe. I would do anything
for her and I spend EXTRA effort realizing that I need to treat her in an
age-appropriate manner and to give her a good balance of guidance and
support and boundaries and freedom. I know that you can abuse a child with
giving them too much freedom (which is really just an excuse for a parent
not wanting to do their job.) But eight year olds are dorkey and she spends
her days doing dorkey things that grate on my nerves when I'm at my best.

At my worst... It was all I could do to keep her at arms distance and my
mouth firmly clamped shut. But the things in my head were awful. The next
issue surfaced on Friday when I realized that I was suffering from major
depression. This felt, for the first time, like it *wasn't* episodic. This
felt like it was *never* going to lift. The kid and I went to see Shreck
III and I felt annoyed by everything and everyone. I saw nothing by
pathetic sleepers in a rueful world. Usually when I feel like this I
feel*superior
* to all the sheeple. This time I didn't. It was all pathetic...including
me. Including my kid. I identified with all the women who strap their kids
in the backseat and drive the family car into the nearest body of water.
Nothing mattered. It wasn't hate, or anger or apathy...it was
anhedonia.
The complete and utter lack of joy. I couldn't see it. I couldn't feel
it...my world at that time was devoid of this.

I've walked dark paths before. I know what to do. I focus on the moment and
being able to withstand the endurance of the single moment. I tell myself
that I just need to do that until "this too shall pass." It always does. I
remind myself of other times I found myself in the void. I tell myself the
stupid story about the caterpillar who thought it was the end of the world
and how just when it thought it was over it turned into a butterfly. I tell
myself all these things. I make phone calls to tell my support people what
I'm thinking. Yada, yada, yada.

I sometimes feel very pathetic being so proactive in my damn recovery. Hey,
but its beats the alternative. Old, lady crack heads are pretty pathetic
too!

So, another night of those dreams where I'm just vicious. Not to the myriad
of people in my life who really do deserve such treatment, but to the
innocents. Icky. So Monday happens and I at least begin to realize that
I'm depressed and frustrated because I expected to fell better and I don't.
I commit myself to "damage management" and not to make any major decision or
actions. Play it close to the chest. Don't pick up extra ammo or even go
near a gun range. Be careful with fire. Call out for dinner.

I realized I had this "fuck it" mentality that wasn't mania. I almost
bought a new Ducati. Granted it's the Ducati that I've had my eye on for
years and have been steady trying to save for, but I wasn't using that
money. I was just going to sign on the dotted line and ride that sucker out
of the parking lot, leaving my Jeep there. Where was I going? I didn't need
that part of the plan in the state of mind I was in. I at large, expensive
meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner because I didn't want the hassle of
having to cook. Small errors, but eventually they will have a cumulative
effect. That's not what worried me. Its that fact that I wasn't even
gaining the slightest bit of satisfaction from those actions. I was
ungrateful, empty and aggressive.

My mother sent me an email asking how I was and I replied without veneer.
I'm not good. I hurt and I'm frustrated at my options. I'm depressed and
evaluating what I can do about it. She called and did what she does.
Pushed my buttons. Unfortunately that did my buttons were pretty sensitive
and the conversation was quickly concluded by me throwing my phone handset
through the wall .

Yep. I broke it. Yep. I scared the kid. Yep. I lowered myself to
reacting to her little games. It's been a long time since she's been able
to succeed at that one.

There there is the other side. It felt good. I felt this needle-sharp
smile break out inside me and my inner-demon said "there, there my girl,
didn't that feel GOOOD?" I've meditated and studied Tonglen. I go to
dharma teachings and try to grasp karmic retribution. I've done the work to
be a proper Jedi. But the dark side is so damn easy....

And the fall is non-existent. It's just there. And if feels so
goooooooood
!

It's over. It was short. Just a few days. I've realized that (as my
friend Pat White puts it) "we are just skin sacs surrounding a chemical
gumbo." And my gumbo had some serious steroids pumped into its central
nervous system on Thursday, and it's tweaked me out like some 'roiding
bodybuilder.

Today I was responsible and called my doctor and told them about my
episodes. I've reinforced myself with meditation, self-study, and service.
I'm still keeping my head down. I'm considering the surgery may be the
best option to choose at this time. I'm also investigating the possibility
of having my head removed from my flawed body so that I can install it upon
a repulsorlift hover-thing like the bad guy from Men In Black II. That
would be sufficiently menacing, to be a floating head on a hovercraft! :)

So that's the end of my story. My memorial day with the Dark Side.
Remember y'all...it's always closer than you think!