Resistance, Rebellion and Death

I am feeling better after yoga. I had missed it on Tuesday night while I got drunk to drown out the overwhelming anxiety, anger and fear. I still have anxiety, anger, and fear, but I feel more in control and empowered.

What do I have anxiety about? Surgery. I am not afraid of the unknown. I’ve had surgery three times before, and every time I hated it. One of the earliest things I remember is being five years old and being told to "blow into a balloon." It had a funny taste, and my head started swimming in a kaleidoscope of colors, and when I woke up my tonsils were gone. But in those few seconds, while those colors swam, I experienced the most extreme sheer terror that I was losing consciousness. Even now, my body shakes at the memory of the fear. Then there was the time I was 16 years old and had optional oral surgery. I thought it was going to be a simple procedure, and I woke up in the ICU, my jaws wired shut, puking up blood in a tube, certain that something had gone wrong with the surgery and that I was going to die. Finally, there was the uterine ablation I had several years ago. That wasn’t so bad, because I was in control of that surgery, and because they gave me some kind of really mellow, tranquilizing cocktail before I got put under. The worst part was that I had no rapport with the doctors. They were mad at me because I declined to have a hysterectomy, and researched an alternative on the web, by myself. But events have proved me right. Given my intersexed state, a hysterectomy would have been a psychological and hormonal disaster for me, not to mention that I’m sure they would have removed the testicular tissue, and never told me. One of these days, I know that they have got to come out, but I want to be in control of when one of my sex organs is removed, and not have it yanked out and not even be told (which I’m sure they wouldn’t have, but I would have known something was wrong, and it would have been a psychological crisis).

Then there’s the waking up part which is the worst. And when Dr. Allen says that there is pain and swelling, I believe him. I bet I’m going to wake up wishing I were dead. But the worst part is always being under the influence of the drugs. People don’t realize what a panicky feeling it is for me to be doped up. And when I wake up in a strange environment, and I am doped up (i.e., mentally out of control), I have to fight back hysteria. Then on top of that, I am in pain, and I am more like an animal than a human. When I am in pain or sick with nausea, I just want to be alone and outside in the fresh air somewhere, and instead I’m half-naked in a chemical smelling, sterile kind of place, surrounded by a bunch of people who are as sick and miserable as I am. And empath that I am, I have to spend my healing energy to block out the suffering I feel all around me, instead of focussing on myself. Yep. I’m anxious all right. But if I prepare myself now, hopefully, it won’t be that bad when it happens.

And yes I am angry. The impotent fury I feel over being sick due to IC and their drugs (I wouldn’t even have swollen optic nerves if it wasn’t for them), and unable to heal myself is starting to crystallize into a genuine active resistance against the circumstances that make this possible. I don’t care what the mitigating conditions are, or how noble the end, it is never right or acceptable to strip away my God given right to determine my life, or my Constitutional right to privacy and pursuit of happiness. I am rereading Albert Camus, Resistance, Rebellion, and Death, and atheist though he is, I recognize a kindred spirit. Camus (like his French compatriot, Simone Weil, recognizes what a threat to human liberty the State has become. I have been a patient, suffering victim, ready to tolerate, endure, and forgive. I am not by nature, politically partisan for I believe that salvation and hope for the world’s ills come through the spiritual domain, and not the political one (and in the political domain, I most emphatically include the institutional Church). Yet, there comes a time when reflection and intercessory prayer is not enough, and active commitment, however fallible or limited that I know it to be, is necessary and called for. There is a homeless man who camps out at the corner of 6th & Central, holding up a sign with uncanny perspicacity. Every time I walk by him, I wonder if his mute witness is doing more to help the world than I am. For at least he proclaims something in the realm of truth, instead of constantly struggling to "feel better," or "more free."

Obviously, I am not going to feel better or freer, because the doping is not going to stop. So I have to learn to live with it and endure. But it is time to quit being neutral and join the fight. Camus apologized for the French late resistance to Fascism by stating that France had to dialogue with itself, its principles, and its love of humanity and life, before emphatically, yet conscientiously coming down on the side of resistance, rebellion, and death. I make the same excuse for myself.

I wish I had time to go further, but I have to go to work now, and I am starting to dread what I know will be upcoming involuntary layoffs from work, as the work volume decreases. On top of everything else, I have to deal with financial worries, as I owe the IRS a huge sum of money, and have a $500.00 price tag on the impending hospitalization. But I am going to leave everything in the hands of my God in whom I trust.