Overt & Cover Pain: A concept & a photographic expose

BACKSTORY:
I was on my way to take photos for a project I've been working on for over a year. Our hollyhock plant is devoured by insects, but in an artistic way. I've taken THOUSANDS of pictures of it... every day I take a set so I can sometime later do a presentation of how the plant or any given leaf has changed over the course of time.

To the right you see an example image. Note the interesting patterns created by the voracious vermin.

As I was walking down the driveway, I noticed my shadow as it fell across some cracked parts of asphalt. I was blown away... the cracks in the asphalt seemed to speak to the existential reality (yes, your mind should be locking up on that ) I and so many others like me and my wife live, and- let's just say the humidity was about 457%, so it was a very bad hair day- so my head's shadow had a very interesting look to it.

I took two sets of pictures to reassemble with Microsoft's Image Composite Editor, and a few stills of just my head. This project grew out of the best set.

Here are the constituent images:

Left 1/3 image

Right 1/3

Bottom 1/3 - Torso

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MS-ICE assembled these into this, using the rotating mode.

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I used PhotoFiltre for each of the variants save one, where I used Image Analyzer. The details of the fx are in the file name and captions.

The Process of Choosing FX:

It was an ongoing interplay between my eye and my heart/soul/psyche. I know pretty well which sort of special filters will work well with a given image, I have done this a lot for a long time (going back to my early solarazing and sepia toning using volatile chemicals in my darkroom.)

I methodically went through the various ones which would work well. When they were harmonious with the inner concept behind the photo, I kept it and honed it. When they were dissonant, I kept on going.

Therefor, each image you see represents a facet or element of the concept of "Overt and Covert Pain."

I will tell you that, but I will not tell you what those facets are. I am expressing this visually precisely because words utterly fail when attempting to convey such things.

Additionally, I do not want my descriptions of my work to become prescriptions for how you are to interpret or be affected by it.

The Concept of Overt & Covert Pain

This is something which just came to me as I was wondering how I could possibly convey the enormous and far reaching effects of overwhelming, constant, chronic pain to people who have not experienced it.

The term "covert pain" seems to have some currency in relationship to hypnosis, but I am not up to schlogging through that. I've asked someone I know who is wise in the ways of such things if he can find me a good summary about its usage there so I can determine whether that use has any relationship with mine. This article did look intriguing though.

I put "overt" and "covert" in apposition because I am using them to describe two very different aspects of the reality of chronic constant crushing pain.

OVERT PAIN = the sort of sensation all people are familiar with, the sort which makes you say "ow" (at least if there are children around ) With chronic pain such as that I'm discussing, it is far more intense... as, say, a machete to a cheese slicer, but you get the idea. Its located somewhere, feels like something in particular.

COVERT PAIN = the other effects pain has on the body/soul/mind/psyche ... these are not different from the pain, but rather they are when the overt pain is so great that it overflows the pain receptors of the mind and is experienced as other unpleasant sensations.

Indeed, it is not uncommon for the covert pain to be greater than the overt pain simply because the body's nervous system is so shot from the never ending deluge of overt pain, such that it cannot feel more.

I dare say this concept might also be applicable to other sorts of pain- emotional and spiritual for example- but as it just came to me the same time as the photo, and I've spent the better part of this weekend in "strategic retreat" (I'll have to explain that some day) I've not given any energy into pondering that, but I'd be interested in others responses.

As indeed would I especially from other chronic sufferers- do you find that this concept helps explain the overwhelmingly vast amount of agony you are in, pain which goes so far beyond pain...?

My first art photo as a Fibro, and about starting these projects & "coming out" as a fibro sufferer- the scariest thing I've ever done

First, the art

This image is the first one I created for the project.


And here is the original

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First off, I love taking pictures of things in shadow (not just myself) because its visually compelling and has nice symbolism to it.

The concept of the shadow is a powerful one.

In Jungian pyschology, the shadow is the part of our "self" (id, psychae, what ever) which is hidden, repressed, not integrated into the whole.

Scripture talks of this world itself as a shadow, as in 1st Corinthians 13:12, the verse which lent its name to my "Word Pictures" project. A compelling image I did with this verse is here.

The top image was created from the original by running it through one of PhotoFiltre's engraving filters.

The result is exactly what I was after, for it conveys quite vividly how the pain and related aspects of fibro distort reality, darken and warp the suffer's experience of it.

Yet you'll notice the gold bits. No matter how thick the fog or overwhelming the pain, there is yet good to be had and embraced. This is a good practice for anyone, but for someone living with a chronic disease/syndrome, its essential.

My 2nd eldest brother would appreciate that black and gold are also the colors of his alma mater- Purdue. Don't think that was in my mind when I created it, but its a fun thought.

So this image depicts what is for me the most oppressive and distressing aspect of fibromyalgia- "fibro fog."

I can't say that working with photography clears the fog... rather it renders it irrelevant. For some reason, no matter how thick the fog, how heavy the pain, I am always able to tap into my dynamic creativity.

I become lost in the project, and in this, I find my greatest relief.

Besides showing how I cope with and transcend Fibromyalgia, it is my hope that these blogs have the following effects:

• They encourage others to likewise tap into their core, embrace and express it
• They give expression to the experience of chronic suffering more effectively than words are able to.

Now why it was scary

It was a difficult decision... coming out of the medical closet about this.

The two reasons above are very compelling ones. It has always been my way that when life dumps a load of manure, I compost it and grow flowers from it. This has not changed with the onset of fibromyalgia, only the means available to me to do so.

I'm not easily scared either...

• When I did my chaplaincy residency, I was the resident for the Trauma and E.R., and relished the opportunity to be in situations most people would give anything to have nothing to do with.
  
• When we lived in Chicago, I embraced the city
• When the opportunity came to preach my father's funeral sermon, I was honored to take the task upon myself.

Things don't scare me, what scares me are more existential concepts- injustice, xenophobia, hatred, and the like.

Yet... anyone who has been needy or suffering knows the pain which comes when people turn away from them in their time of need precisely because they are needy.

As a Christian, when this happens I find myself thinking that in this I share something in common with Christ, of whom it was prophesied

Isaiah 53:3 (English Standard Version)

He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

That doesn't make it fun or pleasant, nor something I wished for myself.

I never woke up and said, "Why should my wife have all the fun! I want to have an incurable complex and ruthlessly painful condition too!"

(You see, my wife is disabled with migraines, has been for half a decade.)



A Psalm of lament describes this experience most vividly.

Psalm 22: 6
But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by mankind and despised by the people. (ESV)

When we lived in Chicago, I conducted an informal ministry to the street volk, of whom this is even more true. I saw people not even bother to step over them... they literally walked ON them.

I was honored to receive permission from many to share a bit of their life and story online. A lot of it is pretty raw and graphic, this is one of the few fit for a family audience:

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I'm sure anyone who's ever been in a time of need and found friends fleeing fast as their feet can carry them understands.

Here is an artistic project I did with photos with this fellow, whom I miss and for whom I pray ever day.

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But this is more than a collection of symptoms, a medical term, this is an opportunity...

• to speak words of comfort to others who are suffering,
• and to use the skills with words and the visual arts to give voice to our experiences.

I hope it does at least one of these for you.