Honoring My Body’s Needs: Tracing My Journey with Chronic Back Pain
Growing up in American society, I have always struggled with the pressure of diet culture. This is especially true in the beginning of the year, where all social media ads, daytime TV programs and even my yoga instructor can talk about are the weight loss goals they have as a New Year’s Resolution.
Thankfully, I don’t let this impact me anymore because of the support of my dietician Diana Lipson Burge. From thirteen to eighteen, I wanted more than anything to lose five or ten pounds. Diana helped me come to the realization that the toxic standards of health epitomized by the sensational Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show were no longer serving me.
But at sixteen, when I started to experience pain in my lower back, my body started to change, and this made the path to loving myself hazy. I felt a lot of anger and frustration toward my body’s constant ability to cause me pain, and this caused me to revert back to my past beliefs that my body was not good enough.
The stabbing, shooting and aching pulse caused by a herniated spinal disc made a mark on my identity since I arrived teary eyed at the waiting room of an orthopedic specialist. Two years after having a microdiscectomy, where the surgeon shaved off part of my disc that was pushing against my nerve and causing lower back, hip and leg pain, I want to take a moment to reflect on what pain and health means to me.
For my first year in pain, I fought off the symptoms with high dosages of ibuprofen and epidural shots like nobody’s business. At the time, I was playing competitive club volleyball, still attending tournaments but only occasionally putting my uniform on. Growing up in Manhattan Beach, California, the home of beach volleyball, there was an expectation that I, a 5’10 young woman, would fiercely engage in the sport. There was also the assumption that I would train outside of the nine hour a week practices and twelve hour long tournament days. I cannot remember a year when I did not see Olympian Volleyball players practicing on the sand courts.
To be completely fair, I was not exclusively a product of my environment — I fell in love with volleyball at thirteen. Being a lanky young girl left me feeling isolated, but smacking a volleyball to the floor was the first distinct source of confidence I felt rise within me. Volleyball fueled me with adrenaline, endorphins, sense of self and community that it took me two years of playing on and off with back pain to finally quit the sport. I am more than blessed to say I had some of the most incredible coaches in the history of the sport thanks to the investment and endless support of my parents.
So I did everything I could do to get back on the court — whatever the doctor ordered I tried. Luckily, a lot of these were covered through health insurance, a rarity for most Americans today. Jumping from one physical therapist to another, I found little long-term relief. Sometimes I would go consistently, do my exercises, get stronger, and feel less pain. Yet around the period of final exams, sitting and studying for hours on end left me in pain for several days. I had no trust in my body and felt like volleyball defined me, which made me feel hopeless and as if I had lost myself.
One major contributor to my pain was my menstrual cycle. Realizing that my period was about to arrive and knowing the stabbing pain and muscle tightness that came with it could bring me to tears. Over the years I have tried several types of birth control to regulate my menstrual cycle in hopes it would weaken my back pain with little success to this day, but that is its own story.
But there was always a physical therapist who wasn’t afraid of talking about pelvic pain — Heidi Gastler at Mountain to Sea Physical Therapy. During the three rounds of the treatment I received from Heidi, I gained unprecedented strides in my hip, lower back and glute strength, alleviating an incredible amount of my pain. Heidi introduced me to a love for yoga, reminding me that love for movement can come in many different forms. By providing me with the stretches and exercises to sustain strength and flexibility on a long-term basis, she gave me a sense of stability in a moment where I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted to do with my life.
Another force of healing I am endlessly thankful for is my savior and massage therapist Laura. At my highest levels of pain, I would walk into her office to a curious, attentive and loving gaze on the angle of my ankle and the shifting of my hips as I walk. She knew from the way my body moved what type of pain I was in, how intense it was, and the perfect massage technique to relieve some of the tension. Laura’s approach to massage therapy is personal, collaborative, caring and extremely effective. Years of work from Laura blessed me with close knowledge of my own body and quite a few massage techniques I use on a lucky friend to this day. Her ability to empathize with me, herself fighting a neck injury, reminded me that identity is fluid, constantly changing and not dependent on pain.
These two incredible women introduced me to the importance of having an active awareness of my pain and how to translate my body’s signals into its needs. I would feel pain shooting down my left leg during class and immediately my hands would massage the knot in my hip flexor with my elbow, a painful but effective technique of Laura’s. With Heidi’s advice, I bought a heating pad and Magnesium supplements and kept it by my bedside for use every night, brought Advil or muscle relaxers in my purse and backpack and would stand in the back of my classes stretching during lectures if I was having a flare up.
All of this healing and growth would not be possible without the constant support of my family. From doctor’s appointments to dropping off medicine at school, I cannot imagine experiencing chronic pain without the love and constant encouragement of my mom and dad. My sister Clare, having experienced the same injury — also from volleyball — was always a source of validation and care. My younger sister Eve and dog Finn always put a smile on my face, even through tears of pain and utter hopelessness.
After countless physical therapists, acupuncturists, muscle relaxers and stretching, I decided to have a microdiscectomy with Dr. Wang at USC Medical Center last January. From our first meeting in early December to my post-operative appointment, I felt supported and informed in my decision. Although returning to an icy Montreal winter posed barriers to my ability to navigate McGill’s campus, I healed with immense success. This was the best decision I have made in my entire life, but I do not wish for a second that I had done it earlier. The knowledge I gained about my body and the healers I connected with made me the person I am today. I rarely have back pain nowadays because of the surgery and my commitment to listen to my body’s needs. Those skills did not come easy, but they were worthwhile.
In my first few years living at McGill, I felt pressured to socialize in accordance with the city’s club culture, translating into hours of drinking, smoking and dancing into the early hours of the morning. What took me a few years to recognize is that doing this every weekend did not serve my mind or my body. Undoubtedly, these kinds of nights have been some of my favorite memories in my four years of university. But, once I started to host friends for a Savage X Fenty fashion show viewing or a tarot reading night in my own space, near a heat pad, my CBD vape pen and foam roller, I began to reap the benefits of my relationship with myself and others in new ways.
In 2020 I am respecting my body and cherishing the strength I have been able to build up these past two years since surgery. One of the most helpful tools that I have used to assert my experiences of pain into this season is to reclaim value in my body’s needs. By honoring the signals of pain and discomfort that my body sends me, I will incorporate movement into my routine on my own terms. Be that yoga, meditation, dancing, stretching, or otherwise, the activities I choose will serve my goal of loving my physical existence in every stage of its growth.
About the Author
Natalie Olivares (she/her) is studying Gender, Sexuality, Feminist, and Social Justice Studies and Art History at McGill University in Montreal. She is a photographer and poet; more of Natalie’s work can be seen on her blog, Confessions of a 21st Century Chick. Natalie has radical feminist and queer centered views with an intersectional lens. She loves dogs, the ocean, R&B music and plants. She is optimistic and pessimistic about the future, given our current socio-political state, but is grateful to be a part of the inclusive-media revolution!
