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

An Inspiring Moment

The other day I had an inspiring morning. It was a day off from work. As far as lyric writing is concerned, I was in a bit of a dry spell. For a couple of weeks it seemed that all I could come up with was a few lines here and there that didn't make much sense or couldn't be connected. They were metaphors that had no meaning, useless lines that were desperate to send a powerful message.

Suddenly in that particular moment, as soon as I woke up, lyrics began flooding my mind. I grabbed the nearest notebook and began writing them all down. And as I got up and started getting ready for my day, I kept coming back to write more in the notebook.

It was comforting to feel that the dry spell was over and that I would be able to move forward, but something more profound happened. There was a personal issue I had been struggling with for years and I had never been able to write a song about it. I even had trouble journaling about it. I wasn't sure what to say. And at times wasn't even sure how I felt about it. The confusion was so overwhelming and the feelings were so mixed that I felt like there was no point in journaling about it or writing about it in any form. I couldn't understand it and felt silly trying to communicate something that was so confusing and nauseating to me. For years, I could not put this struggle into words. I could not communicate in any form through language what I had been dealing with and what I had been thinking about. Suddenly the words were coming to my mind so fast I could barely keep up as I tried to write them all down. And as I looked over what I had written, it wasn't a mess. It wasn't a bunch of useless words that needed to be editted over and over again. It was exactly what I wanted to say, exactly what I had been feeling.

The mind works in strange ways. I had been feeling those things for years. Why could I never express them in words before a few days ago? And when the words did come to me, why did they come so quickly and so suddenly? How is it that I could have put so much time and focus into trying to write a song about this and nothing useful came to me until I had just woken up and hadn't even started thinking about writing anything for the day yet? I do not understand how this happened and I do not know why it happened so suddenly, but I am grateful that it did. As quickly as the lyrics came and as quickly as my private silence was broken, I feel like I am finally, and suddenly, beginning to heal.

Maybe I did or said something and my mind just clicked, putting all of those thoughts and feelings into perspective without my realizing it. The rest of me still felt overwhelmed by the situation and my subconscious was busy preparing me to heal. I had no idea this was coming, but finally being able to put this struggle and pain into words in a way that makes sense and communicates exactly what I think of all of this has lifted such a heavy burden from me. I feel that other songs I haven't even shared with anyone yet have helped me heal or feel better, but this was special. This was something more profound. It didn't just improve my mood or give me a more positive perspective on a difficult situation. It took something that had been so frustrating, painful, and confusing to me and helped me break it down and see it for what it is. And if I had not reached this point I would still have no idea how to overcome this. I still don't know exactly what to do and I don't have all the answers, but now I know how to take a step in the right direction and that's a hell of a lot better than staying where I was.

The lyrics for this particular song are not finished. I don't have any editting to do, but I would like to add a little bit more to what I have. I have no intention of changing a single word I have written for this. It is exactly what I wanted. I don't know why it was trapped inside me for so long, but now it's free and now I feel free. I don't know how this happened, but it is a moment I will treasure for a very long time.

~Eliza