an ugly howling thing.
a note about pain | + recommended reading, the saddest love song, & more <3
Dear ones,
One of my favorite times to be in eagle pose—the yoga posture that requires sitting in a squat position, lifting one leg over the other, then twisting your ankle behind your standing calf, while you do a similar contortion with your arms and elbows— is when my hamstrings are very sore. The pressure of the twisting leg against the standing leg is as good as a deep tissue massage, especially if you lean all your weight into it by folding your upper body sort of parallel to the floor. It’s an intense sensation— painful, even. In yoga, like many spiritual traditions, being with the pain is part of the point. If you can breathe through the challenging part of a yoga posture, you can breathe through a traffic jam, a divorce, a child’s temper tantrum. In Buddhism, this is sometimes referred to as “having tea with Mara,” the Demon god, whom the Buddha, rather than resisting her presence, invited to sit. There is a teacher in the challenge, the wisdom goes. Even the box of darkness is a gift, and so on.
I’m drawn to these philosophies because I’ve known pain and hardship, and I like the idea of it all being worth something. And I think I connected so deeply with yoga because physical pain felt so much more bearable than emotional pain; it was a wonderfully endurable training ground. Before I had the language for it, I found ways to use pain as a tool. I used to press my thumb into bruises til they turned white and tears stung my eyes. I started filling my stomach agonizingly full enough to prompt easy vomit. Later, somewhat more acceptably, I started to get tattoos, falling in love with the gentle violence of tiny razors on the surface of my skin; I could, I think, fall asleep on the tattoo table. And then, of course, there was the discovery of submission, of ropes and constraint, of palms and red skin, of hands on throats and air constriction. I’ve also run half marathons, completed 5am “bootcamp” classes, and did I mention the yoga I practice happens in humid rooms with a temperature of over 100 degrees?
Pain became thrilling, which science has an explanation for. Chemical things happen when our bodies feel pain — endorphins on the long run, oxytocin when the ropes get tighter around our wrists. And so much of the pleasure comes from the pride of endurance. “I liked that I could take it,” explains Margo Steines of her foray into D/s in her harrowing and aptly named memoir, Brutalities: A Love Story.
So it’s been interesting to me that I feel so depressed about the pain I’m currently experiencing from surgery recovery. I hate the persistent bruising on my abdomen, the horrific sharp pains that emerge out of nowhere from nerve damage, the way twisting sends a burning sensation through my body so intense I wail. As I move into over two weeks of healing, I am frustrated that so much still hurts.
What’s become clear to me in reflecting on this, though, is that the hardest part about surgery recovery isn’t the pain—it’s the lack of control. This is really at the root of my—and I think many other masochists—positive relationship to pain play: I get to say when it’s over. The yoga class ends, the marathon has a finish line, and any good Dom(me) will tell you the sub is actually the one who calls the shots, including when to stop. All of my extreme, pain-adjacent hobbies have really been satisfying my desire to have a handle on things, a coping skill I developed through a chaotic childhood. To know I could feel the overwhelm of pain and make it stop….it’s been the only high I’ve chased. In Hurts So Good: The Science and Pleasure of Pain on Purpose, journalist Leigh Cowart confirms: “At its core, masochism is about choosing pain on purpose, for a reason. And often, in my experience, that reason is to feel bad to feel better.”
But I can’t control when I’ll feel better from this, not really. I can rest, I can avoid lifting things over ten pounds, I can take Tylenol, but my body is putting itself back together after an unprecedented experience of physical violence. It has no practice with being cut open, pumped full of gas and a medicine so strong it makes you sleep through knives. And the mending is not like a burning yoga pose in a beautiful hot room; this mending is an ugly howling thing.
What I need now more than the ability to endure pain is the ability to let go of the illusion of control. And patience, a thing I’ve historically not been very good at.
Wish me luck.
**
Below, recommended reading on fashion, psychedelics, Andrea Dworkin (and more!); the sweetest saddest song; what I’m not watching (all the shows about violently murdered women); and the weekly gratitude drop. <3
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love & solidarity,
raechel
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