Nobody is coming to save you (and here’s why that’s a good thing) part 2

If you missed part 1, you can go back and find that part of the story here.

A few years ago, I had an abdominal surgery due to a shattered abdominal wall and multiple hernias, which had come from my transplant surgery. A few months after this second abdominal surgery I was still having pain, so I was sent back to see my surgeon.

I wanted him to tell me I needed another surgery. It sounds crazy that I would want the answer to be more surgery. What I actually wanted was a clear “here’s what’s wrong with you, we can circle it on a scan, here’s what we do to fix it. cut, stitch, you’ll feel better.”

My surgeon, whom I respect greatly, didn’t tell me I needed more surgery. Instead he gave me some suggestions for things in my lifestyle I could change to help. I left that appointment devastated, and it wasn’t until weeks later I realized how wise this surgeon was.

It would have been easier for me to hand my power back over to a doctor, to undergo another major surgery, than it would have been for me to admit there was anything I could do about my situation, and then actually do it. My surgeon did tell me at some point, because the structural rerouting of my intestines was so intense, it might get to the point I would need another surgery, but he also told me that a lot of my pain might be from the fact I was eating foods that irritated my newly curved intestines, that I was holding so much tension and fear, and that I had such intense scar tissue build up because my body was holding something so tightly.

We live in a fix it culture. Western medicine is all about the next pill, surgery, treatment. And dare I say we live in a culture that profits off of your ability to stay stuck. Staying in that nervous system activation loop is really good for capitalism. It keeps you dependent on a system that actually profits off you being in it, or it turns you into a workaholic, or offers you some other kind of outside source of comfort that you can use to numb out from the fact your life sucks.

We’re not taught, as a society, that we actually have any power. Especially if you exist as anything other than a cis gendered, straight, white, able-bodied man. And no, this isn’t a screw the system take back your power and never go to the doctor again kind of blog post. though there was a time I thought that too.

The day my doctor told me I could actually do something about my pain was the day everything changed. It made me mad, it made me confused, and then it helped me get free. Because for once I wasn’t just a participant in my own medical care.

You don’t go to therapy, just sit there and expect the therapist to fix you. You put in the work. It’s the same with any form of medical care.

Here’s the other side of that: that capitalistic system I mentioned that wants to keep you in a nervous system activation loop doesn’t want you to know that. And when you’re in a nervous system activation response, you can’t just think your way out of it.

If you’re in a collapse state, or chronic fight or flight, or chronic appease, you can’t just shift and say “I’ve decided I’m fine so I am.” That would be nice, but its just another way of shirking your power and responsibility without actually doing the work.

So what do we do?

If you’ve been here long enough, I bet you can figure out where this is going. It comes down to embodied safety. Not just thinking it, not just deciding it mentally, but feeling it in your body. Your nervous system has to pick up on it. And that isn’t something you can force.

So what can we do about that? That’s what I’m talking about in part 3