Deserving

At the first consultation of a new treatment Tuesday, after turning me into a human pin-cushion and hearing my life story, the acupuncturist said he didn't believe there was anything psychological to my headache. The solid mass that pretends to be my muscles gives him the hint that it's physiological. 

But at last weekend's hypnotherapy session I was asked about focusing on why my headache started. I spoke about how I often feel that I did something to cause this headache. The medication overuse, stress and anxiety, going on too many roller coasters. 

When you walk into a room for a Chiropractic appointment with someone who is not your usual chiropractor and they say that you're giving yourself mini-whiplash every time you flick your fringe out of your eyes and that's probably the cause of all your problems, you're inclined to believe them. They are the expert after all.

Except I didn't have a fringe when my headache started. Sure my mini-whiplash probably doesn't help, but it didn't cause my headache in the first place.

And the cause, the why my headache started, is likely to always be a mystery. Yes it could have been the stress of moving schools. Yes it could have been the roller coasters. 

Yes it could have been the medication overuse. And whilst I know that biologically medication overuse comes from taking pain killers too often, and not from huge quantities in one sitting, there is part of me that will always think I am to blame for this headache because of the things I have done, and because of the pain I have caused. It's karma. Except I can't cross it off a list like Earl. 

Trance on Saturday focused on emotions, and how they can cause pain. And how pain can manifest itself as an emotion. 

When I try to describe how my headache makes me feel, it's along the lines of frustrated, powerless. When I try to describe how my headache feels, if it were emotion, it would usually be anger. An anger that assaults my muscles, my skeleton, my senses, my organs. An anger that courses its way through my veins, pools in the temples, strikes behind the eyes, lies at the base of my skull, coiled like a snake waiting to spot its prey. 

When treatments don't work, I usually think it's because I haven't tried hard enough to make it work. When my head gets worse it is easy to point to the things I'm doing wrong, and not the things I'm doing right. The eating pastries as a snack, not the 2 litres of water I drink every day. The times I sit on my Xbox for hours not the runs I go for, the walking I do or the daily stretches. 

We only have one life, and sometimes it can be too short. I need to let go of this feeling that I did something in this life or lives past that mean I deserve this pain. I need to focus on making the best of the life I have, and make sure that I get the right balance to enjoy the life I deserve.