No Help Is On The Way

I've written about the potential connection between seeking a remedy to emotional pain by claiming or self-inflicting physical or psychological pain. In the past, I've resisted the pat analysis of just doing "it" to get attention. But now, it makes more sense than I'd like it to.

I've been aware of a nurture gap between what I would like in my relationship with Trey and what she's demonstrated over the past four years. I've felt badly that I don't receive the kind of affection or support or expressions of attraction from her that I would like to receive--even though she is very clear in her mind and words that she loves me whole-heartedly. I dove off my bike in the middle of Market Street in rush hour traffic and sprained my wrists as an experiment to see if she could take care of me in a crisis: and she got mad at me for being in pain and selfishly going to bed. I've understood this experience as a failing on my part for looking for support from my lover and potential (attempted, deferred indefinitely) life partner.

Which it is true. She's not ever going to make me feel better when I'm down or nurse me back to health or improve the quality of my life. There is nobody coming to save me from myself or from the world. No call to the suicide hotline, no session with my therapists, no doctor, no prayers, no spells, nothing is going to heal me. Nothing from without can touch the perfect pain of life within me.

And there's a certain sad comfort in this awareness. All of my past attempts to seek external remedies to abuse at home, relationship pain, and self-doubt have been futile because they could only be so. There's nothing outside myself that can improve conditions inside myself. All my base are belong to me.