Song Inspirations: Pain

Passion Level: 8

Motivation Level: 10

Today I'm reminded of a song inspiration that is very real in my life-pain. I'm not talking about emotional pain, but physical pain. I have an illness that causes me chronic pain. I am in pain every day.

At one point in my life the pain was so intolerable and so difficult to face every single day that I did not want to live. There were days that I couldn't even lift my arms above my head because of the pain, holding my head up was a challenge, and the thought of shaking someone's hand petrified me because they were so sensitive at times. The pain was so much more than just an irritant that I didn't want to have to deal with. It interferred with day to day activities. It made simple things extremely difficult, yet it wasn't the pain itself that made me want to kill myself. It was the thought that there was no hope that it would ever get better. Each doctor appointment seemed to reaffirm that thought. It was test after test that didn't provide answers and it was medicine after medicine that didn't work. How could I live a life like that? What could possibly make my life worth living?

The worst part about all of this was that I shared those thoughts with no one. The friends who knew me at the time would probably be shocked if I told them I was depressed and suicidal then. I didn't talk about my pain and I didn't talk about how difficult it was for me to deal with. Everyone around thought I was cheerful. A little strange sometimes, maybe, but certainly not depressed. I felt that if I shared those things with people they would judge me for it and I also did not want to burden other people with my problems. So I kept it all inside and suffered in silence.

I began thinking of ways to kill myself. I didn't have access to any fancy shmancy instant poisons, so my only options were the more gross, old fashioned ways. Fortunately, I'm a bit squeamish, so none of those options were real options for me. There were times I held a knife in my hands, turning it over and thinking about it, but I knew I didn't have the nerve to do it.

What really brought me out of it were some of the friends I had in my life, but I also started to get better. We finally tried some medicine that actually helped. I was barely holding on to any hope at all that something would work. The doctor told me that the medicine was very strong and would make the symptoms worse before they got better. That next week was pure hell. The symptoms did get worse. Everything I had been feeling was multiplied, but after about a week I finally started to feel better. I wasn't healed. It's just not that kind of illness, but I finally felt like I could deal with it. It was suddenly something that I could live with. The pain was not gone, but it was tolerable.

Today the pain is usually tolerable. I will occasionally have some days were I feel like I can't take it and that it is still too much of a burden for me, but I care about surviving more than I did back then. I'll never let some pain take me that low again, even if it is as horrible as it was before. And after all I've been through, pain doesn't really scare me anymore. I don't like it, but I experience it all the time. Whenever something is a challenge for me, I think about that. I would be in pain either way, so how can I let it hold me back? I may be small and I might not have a lot of physical strength, but I can take a hell of a lot more than you might think. I've been at the point where I've had to face something horrific because I had no choice. Now I'm a lot more willing to face things when I do have a choice.

Pain is a great inspiration, but I'll be honest. I didn't care about living at the time, so writing songs was not a high priority. And most of the lyrics I did write at the time were total garbage. They may have helped me deal with what I was going through at the time, but they had no value as songs. It's okay to write songs that are dark because our songs should reflect our lives and life is dark sometimes. That doesn't mean every song you write about something dark will automatically be beautiful. Just because it's real to you doesn't mean that you are communicating it in a way that makes sense to other people.

I still use the experience for inspiration today, and I've found that it's better. As I look through what I did write back then, I really don't like most of it, but I wanted to share parts of what I found.

You could take me almost anywhere and I would be okay

But I can't stand the dark

Looks like that's where I'm headed

No turning back

This is a dark place

And I've cried many tears here

This is a dark place

I've lost myself to fear

And I swore I'd never return

To the dark place

Oh, this is a dark, dark place

For this one all I wrote were these four lines. I didn't bother finishing it at the time for obvious reasons.

Every day is more of a struggle

Just to stand, just to survive

Every day it's just a little harder

To see the value of my life

~Eliza