Home At Last

When I was 8 I fell off the monkey bars on the first day of school and broke my elbow so bad, doctors told me they would not be able to repair it. I was told very solemnly that my dominant arm would not grow to full size, and my little arm would hang limp at my side like a little T-Rex arm so I better start learning to use my left hand. I'll never forget it.

It was the scariest thing I'd ever heard.

I decided to reject that entire notion and rebel against it as hard as I could. The doctor used a power tool like the ones my dad used to cut boards in his wood shop to remove the cast and I screamed and fought out of instinct. When I went in to have the pins removed, the doctor pulled out a pair of pliers and told me to look away. I felt everything. Every day while other kids went to recess, I went to physical therapy, and pushed through unimaginable physical pain to regrow my arm.

It worked! Mostly. Mostly.....

I was mostly able to use my arm and it looked mostly normal but it was not strong and still had a huge scar. I knew people looked at the scar any chance they got so I tried to hide my arm all the time. Every physical task I worried that my hand would freeze or my arm would give out and I would fail at whatever I was doing. Maybe even fall and injure myself again.

Because of the nerve damage I woke up most mornings with a numb hand and arm. I have woke up too many mornings holding a dead hand, only to realize in my waking moments that it's me, my hand. It takes a long time to massage it, try to wiggle my fingers and wake my arm up. Sometimes it takes longer than other days and I start to panic bc I've been on borrowed time since I was 8.

There is no amount of talking to a therapist that could heal the physical trauma I experienced through that injury. The beliefs I developed about myself, and my limitations were stored so deep in my body that I couldn't have put them into words if you asked. The doubt and fear I carried were not stored in my mind, they were lodged deep in my body where my mind wouldn't trip over them in my daily life. I was able to forget, and move on. For a while.

In college I wanted to join the crew team, but on the first morning out on the water my arm locked up and I couldn't lift my oar high enough out of the water. They call it catching a crab. While the oar is stuck in the water, the boat is still moving and you with it, so you get hit and sometimes even knocked overboard.

Instantly that familiar panic returned and my body was reminding me of our agreement; the chronic physical pain in exchange for the ability to forget. I had gotten too cocky and pushed the boundary of the agreement and now my body was flooding my mind with panic. I had convinced myself that I could mind-over-matter the situation and it blew up in my face right there at 4 in the morning on Humboldt Bay surrounded by a bunch of athletes. Honestly what was I thinking?

Afterwards I was featured in a demo for a kinetics class where they performed nerve conduction tests on me while I cried in front of a room full of 100 people. After that I was deemed a good candidate for another surgery, this one somewhat experimental. I was warned that the surgery may not provide any relief, it could cause permanent damage or even death. I cried a lot but agreed to the surgery.

I did not return to competitive rowing after the 3rd surgery; instead I focused on my art. Everything I've ever created feels like a miracle, pure magic. Every day that I can build with both hands is a gift. Even if the cost was living in pain.

I've lived with so much chronic pain, I would say I'm a bit of an expert at this point.

There are many ways to cope with pain, not all of them healthy or safe. By the time I was in my 30's I had pretty much given up on trying new healing modalities and when I tried somatics it was out of a sense of fuck it, this doesn't cost much. I did not believe it would do much, if anything.

I lied down as instructed and began following the movements. 20 minutes into the 30-minute session something happened. I can only describe the feeling like descending into my body for the first time in my life. It felt like coming home. Real true home.

I'm home, y'all. I'm finally home.

This is how I found my way home to my body after I had been building outside myself for my entire life. If this makes sense to you, perhaps somatics is your way home too. If you want to try a session, you can schedule one for free as my gift to you, to pay it forward for what I am so thankful to have found in my own life.

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