Pain

I don’t often feel pain. I’m healthy and strong. I rarely have a headache. Many years ago I fractured my wrists in a bicycle accident. That was painful. A long time ago I skateboarded, this was before I got my first car. I skateboarded a lot and from time to time fell onto the hard cement or road. That was painful.

I am accurate to say the greatest pains in my life are more about mental anguish, confusion and uncertainty. They are a different kind of pain. Unlike falling onto a hard surface that is physically painful, mental anguish is not painful.

I’ve experienced severe mental anguish when I was homeless. Not knowing where I was going to sleep day after day after day was mental anguish. Not knowing how I was going to feed myself for years homeless was mental anguish. Not having clean clothes to wear and not being able to bathe often was mental anguish.

I never got used to it. I knew I would overcome and get back into housing. I knew to not give up. I didn’t give up and through a series of extraordinary events I was given a chance to get back into housing and took it.

I had a lot of rehabilitation to do. After living outside for six years, I needed a lot of mental health rehabilitation. I started taking medication for my mental health I take to this day. I’ve been housed for the last five years and eight months.

It’s 1:15 AM. While I slept last night I had a feeling of pain in my sleep. It wasn’t physical pain. It was mental anguish. Part of my dream was of when I was a teenager living in my fathers home. It was a very stressful time.

My environment growing up wasn’t healthy in many ways. In Elementary school I took special education classes. I never did excel to the top of my class in academics. I managed to get decent grades when I tried very hard to understand the topic being taught. After one year of College I did not re enroll. I wasn’t ready to choose a major field of study and did not have enough of a reason to continue studying for a higher education.

My father paid for my college enrollment and books and for the classes I took. When I stopped going to college my father took back the car he had given to me.

I went back to work full time and other than when I was homeless have worked since.