New Worlds

On opiate withdrawal and finding solace

True to my word, I have been working hard on getting out on my scooter more, accepting that it is difficult and then letting that difficulty go to enjoy the sheer, wholehearted pleasure of watching the world around me for a little while. 

I have relished looking up into the masses of pink blossoms that fill the cherry trees and then, after the rain knocked them clean, looking down to see my wheels run through the bright, soft carpet that remains. I have laughed watching blackbirds and spotted thrushes run zigzags through the long wet grass with their beaks stuffed so full of worms that they could barely carry them, and rolled slowly through a day full of delicate puffed dandelion seed floating lazily in the sunshine. The Welsh poppies that grow everywhere here are beginning to flower, orange and yellow, and although denied a woodland view, I have still found patches of bluebells growing defiantly in the bricked up front yards of the terraces and in little patches of the unruly hedgerow that edge the old railway path that runs through the estate.

I have needed these things, very much. I’ve been leaning into them like an embrace. As some of you know, I am now several weeks into the process of slowly tapering off the strong opiate drugs I’ve used for pain control for nearly ten years — a chosen and necessary decision but a huge one. It was time and I was ready. These are drugs well-suited for emergencies, post-surgical or temporary acute pain or end-of-life care, but not long-term use, and the increasing damage they are doing to my digestive system, my immunity, my endocrine and adrenal systems and my mood have all been weighing heavily on me. Opiates relieve pain but also increase your sensitivity to it. I knew that if I kept taking them, my pain would only get worse and it would feel harder and harder to quit. Sometimes you just have to do hard things and this is one of mine. 

I’m now on a dose small enough that I feel no painkilling benefit at all while my body pushes against the change in its long-accustomed-to chemistry with the withdrawal symptoms that make opiate tapering like mine so challenging. Medical supervision has been essential and wholeheartedly supportive and I am very thankful to the lovely GP who is watching over me. Life has a new sharpness. I am finding myself up against the necessity of finding new ways of living and responding to the sensations of my body. Not being able to reach for a pill when it overwhelms me, not being able to escape or numb out at all, even for a little while, is disorientating, startling, and it is taking all my training to hold my nerve and my confidence.

I strongly believe I will get used to it in time, perhaps even that my pain levels will reduce as my pain sensitivity slowly recovers and as I keep working on calming my nervous system, but until then I can feel my whole body straining and craving for comfort. I have really noticed the pull towards unhelpful habits that might offer temporary, alternate relief and can see how easily I could get in trouble here. And more widely, there is a feeling of wounding. I am missing Fraser more acutely, feeling the sting of loneliness more painfully, find myself longing for rescue, self-pity and bitterness biting at my heels. It all feels like a very real battle, but it is one I was ready to fight and one I have trained long and hard for. I am well equipped and I am doing well. I know that the answer to my pain lies only in caring for myself more skilfully, in loving and being with the world and my people, and in telling the truth like this, about everything.

Whenever you have something challenging to face, there can come in the midst of it the sweetness of discovering the things that truly help you to feel better. Not the false-relief of things that only bring fleeting gratification, but the discovery of deeper, rich sustenance. Music has been one for me. Many of you will have heard me talk about my pain as sound before – this is how I have learned to think of it, as a harmless but intensely loud vibration in my body. Listening to music when the pain sounds are loud allows my body’s sensations to join with something else, blending with them, reminding me they are safe. Pulsing, droning music played through a soft Bluetooth headband that I can wear in bed is helping me at night, especially. It feels like a powerful discovery. Like finding a new weapon in a quest.

And always, outside is waiting, a whole mass of other sounds and sights to join myself up with. I am learning to take my pain with me. I find that things out there — the blossom, the birds, the delicate nodding cow parsley growing where it’s not supposed to — affect me more than they ever have; I am so profoundly grateful to see them. On my scoot the other day, I found the hawthorns full of white stars, ready to bloom, and knowing that I have that to look forward to next is a very real joy to me. They always make me think of Fraser, they were flowering the first time we met on that mad, romantic trip that so many of you have read about now. Seeing them has reminded me how I have learnt to carry so many things with me as I move about the world. I have learnt to carry our long times apart not as resentment or despair but as a deep reminder of how much I love him and as an opportunity to be strong. I think I can learn to do the same with this pain too. I think maybe it can be a conduit to even more tenderness, openness, gratitude, empathy, and – honestly – I’m quite excited to see who it can help me to become next.

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