We are what we eat. Damn true. What else would we be, if not the result of our digestion and our breathing? I am taking care of the breathing part, and as an Italian have always been raised to eat healthy. But one major incident two years ago compelled me to take the eating very seriously. It’s all connected, I see it now. But when I had this issue in 2017 it caught me very unprepared.

I had always suffered of some colitis, sometimes digestion irregularities and constipation. But in december 2017 something broke down there and it felt like my physical body had started a war against me. Never in my life I had felt such a pain, so pungent, like 1000 sword blades piercing my anus. Sorry to be so graphic, but that’s how it felt. Every time I went to the loo, it hurt yes, but it was only 30 minutes later that the real pain started to occur, and would not leave me for hours. Sometimes 2-3-4 hours. I had to live with it for a year and a half. It’s called anal fissure. You don’t know that half of the adult population has it, until you have it. It’s not something you tell to someone to start a casual conversation (“Hey nice to meet you. Got anal fissure too?”). It’s one of those experiences in my life I would have gladly given up, if I had had the choice. Interestingly, it all occurred as a build up of circumstances, a mechanical one (I am sure of it, cross fit and interval training had never been part of my normal sport routine), and a few (a few!) emotional ones. I had broken up with W. a year and a half earlier (worst decision of my life, I thought at the time, in part I still do), I had fallen for a guy who didn’t love me (and that hurts), and my job was a disaster (reason why I had returned to Switzerland). All in all one failure after another in a couple of years. The world completely turned around, slowly, constantly, inexorably. W. didn’t want to speak with me after what I did to him, and I have been mourning his loss since summer 2016 (although technically I quit); A. was present and absent at the same time (a psychological case I was not prepared for), K., who came before A. and after W. , was a real mistake in my life, and my bottom couldn’t take it anymore. It broke just like my heart broke for losing W., for not being loved by A., for mistaking great sex for love with K.. The pain that I physically felt from december 2017 until last month (way after the surgery) has been my body aching for my soul. I know it now, and thanks to the emotional distance I am taking through the Fluoxetin tablets, I am capable of discerning, study my situation, analyse what happened from distance, and learn from my past. I am learning a lot. 46 years old and still learning. I hope to live beyond 80 and learn some more.

I started this post with the intention to write about diet and the importance of balanced nutrition to heal from my depression, but I guess I had to take one step back and tell you about my fissure. The pain I have carried has been terrible, it has impacted my everyday life for over 18 months, and it is the perfect symbolism of my internal, deeper and more invisible pain that hasn’t been able to surface properly, a pain from the core, a wound that didn’t know how to heal, and it kept breaking, breaking, breaking until I had to fix it surgically. The proctologist is the doctor specialised in the digestive tract all the way to the anus. I found a funny one (he once told me no one was taking such good care of my butt like him, ha!); the surgery was less painful than the daily pain I had to endure until operation day, but boy it hurt the first night after surgery, when I didn’t time the pain killer effects right. I remember calling my yoga teacher in tears, begging her to give me some breathing techniques so I could just embrace the pain. I tried, I swear, but I felt so much pain I cannot describe it to you now. The only thing I can remember is that I wanted to hit my head as hard as possible against the wall, so I could fall unconscious and not feel that pain for a while. Tramadol started having its effect 1.5 hours later. 1.5 hours of pure hell. But once Tramadol (an opiaceum) kicked in, it felt real, real good. I was drugged and I was so grateful to the whole medical population on Earth.

Since the beginning of this anal adventure, I have started drinking much more water (at least 1.5L per day) and I am taking good care of what I eat. I’ll write more soon in a new post. Gotta go iron now (Coronavirus side effects).