Living Spinefully

Hello friends,

Earlier this month, my neurosurgeon and I decided that the best option for pain management at this time is another revision surgery, which is scheduled for the end of September. I suspected that this was coming, but still it’s been a lot to process. I’ve tried to write this post a couple of times, but honestly keep getting stuck.

To provide a quick medical update: two and half years ago, in my surgery after my running injury, screws were connected to hardware on either side of my sacrum, crossing my sacroiliac joint, to secure my spine to my pelvis. Recent X-ray, CT scans, and an MRI have confirmed that these screws have gradually begun to loosen. Loosening screws are not typically a major problem, however, due to their placement, mine are pinching nerve roots on both the left and right sides. This is likely the cause of the pain in my back and legs that has been steadily increasing for the past year. This next surgery will remove the current screws and place new ones in a different position in my pelvis to take the pressure off the nerve and hopefully reduce the pain. I am currently planning on taking two weeks off of work, with an additional week working part time from home.

This surgery is coming at me during a season of life that was already full of transitions – in my job, friendships, romantic relationship, and family. Some of those transitions have been because of my actions – decisions I have made to hopefully be happier in the long run – and some of them have been totally outside of my control. All of them have brought with them their own grief and loneliness that I have been attempting to navigate, some days more gracefully and successfully than others.

In our culture, loneliness isn’t an emotion that we’re very comfortable experiencing. There is a subliminal cultural narrative that feeling lonely is shameful, that lonely people deserve to be pitied, that our lives should be full of friendships and connections, expertly posed for viewing on social media. But loneliness is also a universal part of the human experience. Everyone feels lonely sometimes. And the more we run from loneliness, the less we are able to engage in meaningful relationships from a place of balance, security, and belonging.

I was journaling recently about why loneliness is one of my biggest triggers. For me, loneliness brings with it shame and fear, underlying my insecurities and bringing with it fears that my needs will go unmet, in a way that resembles an anxious attachment style. Anxious attachment is defined by lack of trust in an attachment figure to meet our needs, resulting in constant scanning for any threat of abandonment or rejection, undermining the attachment figure’s efforts to meet our needs and develop connection, and larger and larger emotional responses to unmet needs in an attempt to solicit help. And I think I’ve realized that I am anxiously attached with myself right now; I feel betrayed by my body and I don’t trust my ability to meet my own needs. I frequently communicate with myself that I am unacceptable, worthy of rejection and abandonment. I dismiss or ignore the ways that I do care for myself. And, recently at least, my fear and insecurity demand more and more of my emotional attention. This makes loneliness a very dangerous place for me.

Some of this is developed because of the loneliness, uncertainty, and scarcity that chronic pain creates, and some of this is just me. Don’t get me wrong, there are things that are challenging for me because of scoliosis that I legitimately need help with. And it feels embarrassing to ask a friend to come over to help me carry groceries up the stairs because I live alone and can’t do it myself. But that does not mean that my loneliness is shameful. It also does not mean that my loneliness is dangerous. Developing a secure relationship with myself requires that I recognize and express gratitude for the ways I have cared for my emotional and physical pain in the past, that I have some faith in my ability to meet my needs in the future, and that I develop the self-compassion to treat myself kindly through the process. So by no means a process that’s going to be completed through one blog post.

In doing this work, I was reminded of a quote from the book “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert. In this part of the book, Liz has traveled to Italy, and is dismayed that, despite the beautiful setting and delicious food, she is still haunted by depression and loneliness, which she describes as a couple of goons following her around. Through journaling, she is able to find a calm, loving voice inside her that reassures her that she’s safe, she is protected, she is loved. Through my journaling and mindfulness practices, I have started to be able to find this voice inside myself, too. I am not sure who or what this voice is. Perhaps it’s God, Buddha-nature, my soul, or some other spiritual connection. But I do know that this voice is compassion, wisdom, gratitude, and love. And in times of loneliness, she is there to comfort me. The more I feel safe in times of aloneness, the more balanced I can be in finding belonging.

As always, thanks for reading,

Laura