I’m privileged in that not only do I have access to excellent healthcare, but I have, for large parts of my life, had extra quick access due to family connections to medicine. So this Thursday, I get to see a top rated ortho guy for my shoulder, and I am so grateful.
It has not always been like this for me, especially when I needed it most. From my late 20s until about 40, I was constantly spiraling in and out of serious depressive episodes, and when I wasn’t just trying to survive, I was still not healthy or happy. During this time, I also had constant, ever-changing chronic pain and migraines.
I believe in my case that the depression and chronic pain fed each other, growing from and then into each other, back and forth.
You might be someone who understands this enough to know then that I had little energy for anything but living.
That’s what chronic illness and pain does to you — forces you into a basic level of living, and all the while, the world around us does not allow for that in any way. You’re still expected to be a good little producer of work and maker of money. It’s a wonder that more of us do not fall through the cracks than already do.
Right now, my issue is independent of my most recent cycle of depression… or is it?
Because when we’re depressed, it’s really hard to get ourselves literally moving, and in that context, you’re simply more likely to experience pain or injury.
Then pain and injury makes you less likely to move and thus increases your depression.
It is truly a vicious downward spiral.
Which is why it’s important that we talk about it more, that we ask each other for help, that we do everything we possibly can to move something.
Move something… what the hell do I mean?
Move SOMETHING… ANYTHING.
I’ve had students with such serious knee issues that they couldn’t stand to dance and so they worked from chairs. Those students were of all ages.
I’ve worked with elders post stroke and serious illness, who danced with whatever they could in their body in a wheelchair.
And then there’s me… fighting this fight right now on a lesser level, for sure but still…
Some days, I want to just lie down and GIVE UP. Just lie down and say fuck it.
That’s the old and dangerous depression lurking, seeing its chance to pounce.
But instead, after all these years and all of this learning and all those students who worked so hard at my beckoning, I cannot give into that.
I get up and walk.
I do the movement that I CAN.
And what I can leads to what I thought I couldn’t.
