Injury

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I have this Thanksgiving tradition where I design myself a brand new pair of running shoes — technically, they’re “bought” by my in-laws, the Christmas gift I tell them they got me during our annual Exchanging of Receipts ’round the tree — and then, I run myself straight into the ground before they even come out of the box.

The universe has sent me the same lesson for multiple years now, on the same threshold between fall and winter seasons. Is this time THE time I actually learn?

I thought maybe sitting down to flesh it out was a step in the right direction, even though I can’t sit, or step, or do anything without pain crackling through my lower back, stabbing at my SI joints, throbbing in my hips and shooting down my hamstrings.

I mean, screw custom sneakers; the real gift would be household appliances I can operate entirely above the waist, you know what I mean? 😬

Things are slightly better now than they were. I was more or less incapacitated for a week after I returned from my trip to Chicagoland for the holiday — and yes, I did have to push my already-tender hammies through the Turkey Trot 5K I signed up to run with my sister and niece in teeth-chattering 30-degree weather.

I felt tight, sore, and really f*cking cold for the first three miles, but yes, I did have to sprint the final 0.1 in order to waste that tween boy who kept speeding up every time I tried to pass him, and to finish the race in under 26 minutes. Because immediately reverting back to “competitive athlete with something to prove” mode the second I touch down in my childhood hometown is a set-in-stone rule that I can’t not blindly follow, no matter how “grown up” I am….duh! 😉

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Was it worth it, selling out for a long-sleeved tee? I haven’t been able to run since. And despite some improvement, thanks to my friendly neighborhood acupuncturist and chiropractor, the “screaming” persists. I’ve been lying around with a heating pad down my pants for all of December.

(Incidentally, on the 7th, I hit 65 months sober from alcohol. 💪🏻)

If there was any doubt that all forms of habitual distraction can be highly addictive, the jittery jonesing I feel to just cram my feet in those new kicks and hit the canal path, come hell or permanent handicap, is skin-crawlingly real. I suppose it tracks, that a recovering alcoholic would be willing to make an impulsive decision, risking my overall wellbeing in the long term, in exchange for instant relief from mental/emotional distress.

But the key word there is recovering. I’m actually trying to grow and change. I am trying to practice what has been preached to me — “You are not a robot, and you need rest!” “If you don’t take a break, your body will take one for you!” — and what I preach in session with my clients — “Listen to your body!” “Give yourself grace!” I’m trying to engage my “higher self” and actually use the wisdom I’ve gained through all the trial and error and pain and suffering I’ve been chronicling here in this space since 2019.

Now, here I sit, letting reality sink in: I’m pretty much f*cked for the foreseeable future.

The worst part is that I should’ve been able to foresee it, this crash I was careening toward. A visit from the Ghost of Thanksgiving Past turns up my very own blog post from three years ago, when I was coping with the stress of grad school and unemployment by relentlessly pounding the pavement. 👀⬇️

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Clearly, I did not “understand the assignment,” because this year’s injury comes courtesy of the same basic coping mechanism: Pushing forward at full speed when I should pull back, take a beat, be still. It’s not really about the physical motion; chasing a runner’s high, like draining a tequila bottle, is a behavioral symptom of a psychological problem.

The problem is that I cannot stand to sit with my thoughts and feelings. They move too fast and feel too much, and being with them has always felt like being trapped. If you imagine the way a little kid copes with feeling overwhelmed by their busy and vibrant inner life — spinning, running, skating, hitting balls, singing, drawing, making up elaborate stories (and occasionally trying to pass them off as truth 🫣), gobbling up treats, playing music or “books on tape” all day and night in my room, then re-playing the lyrics/words in my head wherever I went — well, that’s pretty how I’ve been coping all my life. Movement and noise. Perpetual distraction. Getting the hell out of the prison of the present, however humanly possible.

The big difference now is I have a smartphone, so I might be even less attuned to my natural rhythms than I was in the 80s and 90s.

Gotta admit, writing this blog is taking some of the wind from my self-critical sails. If you’re highly anxious and highly sensitive — and a Gen-X girl who feels they were missed with an ADHD diagnosis because they were deemed “gifted” in elementary school — you can understand how the desperate need to self-soothe in order to function in the world might come to manifest itself in addiction.

It makes sense that I never learned to manage my anxiety or soothe my sensitivity, and didn’t understand what it meant to “practice self-care” in a sustainable way. I always had some kind of intense exercise to keep me occupied, and then, I found alcohol. So even when my body was “at rest,” my restless spirit could still escape into blissful oblivion. I either went to the gym or got drunk (when I wasn’t at work), and thus, I never did the hard work of “maturing” by truly dealing with my discomfort.

And here I am, 5 1/2 years sober, realizing that “never” includes everything up ’til now.

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“Slow down” is my therapist’s go-to interjection when I’m going off about something in session — would it surprise you to hear that this happens often? — and every time she interjects it, I want to leap across the room and strangle her. Of course, the therapist in me knows that this outsized aggression is a defense mechanism.

“Slow down” feels like an admonition because it speaks to a hard truth: I do not want to “slow down” because that is hard work!

It requires actively challenging old ways of thinking and being that take the wheel and drive when I’m not paying attention. It’s easier to operate on autopilot, allowing myself to be hijacked by anxiety and zooming ahead with my knee-jerk reactions, instead of pumping the brakes, pulling back, taking the time to engage my wise self, reflect, and form intention before taking action. The middle-aged woman who falls right back into childish patterns when her family-of-origin re-enters her orbit is the same one who allows the noise in her head to drive her into the old cycle of insanity, over and over. My body whispers, “Stop. Rest,” but my inner child is too worked up to hear. My default response is “act out,” avoid, run away, repeat.

Until my adult body hits a wall and says, “Nope!”

Will my mature mind finally step up and discipline that hyperactive kid so the whole being can find some balance?

Maybe it’d be better to show the kid some compassion.

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My higher self still gets overpowered by this judgy “Inner Critic” part that tells me I need to perform in order to be “good enough” or worthy of love, and I can never “just be” if I want to be safe and secure (oof, that part did a real number on the Inner Child!) My brain starts spitting the same antiquated distress calls — 🚨if you aren’t moving, and moving fast, you’re lazy and worthless AND you’re going to get fat ‼️— and in the absence of intervention by the Grown-Ass Woman Who Knows Better (the GAWWKB?), my anxious “Protector” part instinctively obeys.

Well, we see where that leads: Flat on my back — in a new long-sleeved tee! — confronting the same issues I’ve been trying to run away from for 40+ years, and that I’ve been repeatedly writing about under different titles for the past (almost) 6.

It all boils down to, “Wherever you go, there you are!” and “God [as you understand Them] keeps sending you the same lesson over and over until you learn it.”

We’ve established that the old approach, of using these timeless truisms to pick myself apart and beat myself up, has not produced meaningful change. Trying to fight against all invitations to “slow down,” from both higher powers and helping professionals, and impose my childish, impulsive, addict will on circumstances that call for mature, grown-up mindfulness and contemplation is really just “adding insult to injury”…with a dash of insanity, given the repetitiveness of the cycle despite evidence it’s not working.

There is simply no way to heal my body, other than to stop pushing it, honor its needs and treat it with tenderness. I now see that the same goes for the rest of me. The real progress I’ve made in sobriety has occurred slowly, subtly, internally, through a better understanding of my pain and empathy for my “parts.” Recovery isn’t a destination I can reach, or a race I can win, through sheer force of will, skillful performance or faster movement.

I think, now that I’ve actually sat still and thought about it, that it might be necessary — maybe even OK — to give all that sh*t a rest.