Last night was one of those nights when there was a price to pay for my doing something I wanted to do rather than doing what I should have done during the day. My last post discussed how I had planned for the resultant Flare Up.
As expected the night was not too pleasant and I spent most of it using mind games to keep myself from cracking up. This shows how effective mind games can be in dealing with chronic pain. It must be stressed that they do not stop the pain, but they do stop depression and by so doing they also stop irrational behaviour.
Morning
In the distance an alarm clock sounds briefly
beep – beep; beep – beep.
Relief floods in as another night draws to a close.
In the kitchen slippers scuff the tiles.
A click heralds the soft purr of the kettle warming.
Soft footfall draws nearer.
The rattle of the doorknob heralds the light beam
as the door swings open.
Her face peers into the gloom,
their eyes meet with clear understanding;
another sleepless night.
She crosses the room and opens the curtains
and the last demon flees.
Now he is safe,
racked in pain with the familiar taste of vomit in his mouth;
but safe.
The fear of acting on his thoughts conquered.
The desire to end all, silenced for another day.
For in the lonely hours, wrapped in pain
curled in a foetal ball, he had wept
tears mingling with sweat on the sheets,
face contorted with the silent screams
as the body spasmed time and time again
and the mind fought itself to a standstill.
He’d applied the technique to his thought.
Demons had hurled the seeds of doubt,
and stabbed deep, the knives of harm and hurt
his guardian had ‘challenged’, ‘normalised’….
...... Oh buzz words be dammed.
His guardian had fought, fought all night,
using every ounce of strength and he had won,
but now he had to face it all again.
They'd talk about it later, analyse it and improve.
He glanced at his watch, took the morning meds
and lay back to wait for the calm;
the calm before the storm, that was another day.
John Carré Buchanan
14 November 2011
