About six years ago I dropped a fire extinguisher on my toe.
Yes. It hurt. A lot.
It was only a mini one, but still, it was not cool.
After the initial droppage I crumpled to the floor and wailed, thoroughly freaking out my dog, Rory. After a few minutes of crying, I calmed myself and decided to continue my day, making my way to work, not even all that late.
Over the course of the day, I felt a steady ache in my toe. On I worked. But the ache persisted, gradually getting worse. After a few hours, I was having trouble concentrating, so I decided to take a half day and head out. On my way home I dropped by a friend’s house to drop something off.
She graciously invited me in so that we could visit and catch up. Not long into the conversation, the persistent pain in my toe overwhelmed my brain and I started wincing involuntarily every so often. I took that as my cue that I needed to get home.
You may be able to tell from this story so far, I don’t necessarily take my own pain very seriously. I have it in my head that I should be able to manage it myself. Whereas I’d offer much more compassion to someone else in the same situation. It took me far too long to determine that yes it was worth going to the hospital to deal with this situation since the pain just kept getting worse. Even when I was there I probably downplayed it.
But despite my ineptitude at seeking appropriate help and effectively describing my predicament, the medical staff were able to easily figure out that the source of my pain was the blood pooling under my toe nail creating increasing pressure with every passing pump of my pulse. They were also able to quickly devise a straightforward solution. One, that I found out later, was a go-to for my grandfather when he’d drop something on his toe in the shop.
Poke a hole.
The technique of the doctors was a little more careful and sanitary than my grandpa’s drill, but the concept was the same. The blood was trapped under the nail, building up pressure, so the solution is to poke a hole in the nail so that the blood can escape.
The doctors warned me that I would feel a puncture that would probably hurt a lot, but it would be brief and then the pain would improve drastically. I prepared myself, tensed, breathed, and bam! Nothing.
“Was that it?”
I didn’t even feel it. All I felt was the relief as the pressure and pain dissipated almost instantly.
Recently I was reminded of this incident again and a friend helped me draw a parallel between it and the anxiety that I had been feeling over the past several months. It’s not unreasonable to expect that anxiety has been heightened due to the current global crisis. But anxiety is a little insidious, the same way the toe pressure pain was. It’s a constant gradually increasing pressure, not a one-time intense injury. For that reason it can be easy to ignore, or downplay. But dealing with that constant ache, the constant drone… eventually it overwhelms you, and you cross the threshold of being able to keep it together. That’s where I’ve been hanging out lately. Right on that line.
So my wise friend asked me, “Okay, what do you need to poke the hole?”
I knew the answer right away. Though I didn’t want to admit it. It felt too cheesy, too Sunday-school-answer-y.
He went on, “What has helped in the past?”
I pursed my lips defiantly.
“The Holy Spirit,” I mumbled.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to over-spiritualize, or imply that mental illness is in any way related to a lack of faith. Mental illness connects with the physical, emotional, and spiritual, and needs to be treated in all of those ways.
But in this case, I could sense the Holy Spirit whispering in my ear, “Put me in, Coach! I can help if you’ll let me.”
So what does that look like? For me it meant inviting the Holy Spirit into my pain, anxiety, and stress. And I was nervous, for the pain of the puncture. But unsurprisingly, God was gentle with me.
It wasn’t quite the flood of relief that happened with the toe incident. But inviting God into my anxiety has given me a little bit of calm. Part of God’s gentleness with me in this is actually not fixing everything, but just being present with me in it.
I may not be floating in pools of tranquility just yet, but I think I can say I’ve dipped my toe in.
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