Kenny with friends at his laptop
Straitjacket Kenny's Page
Straitjacket Kenny's Page
claus·tro·pho·bi·a (klôstr-fb-) n. - Abormal fear of being in narrow or enclosed spaces.
Claustrophobics are pansies. Just kidding. Well, sort of. I was claustrophobic at one time, back in the day. You want a cure for claustrophobia? Try being paralyzed. Seriously. That will alleviate all of your concerns about confined spaces. There is no tighter space to be trapped inside of than your own skin. It’s enough to make the strongest mind go crazy. It’s like a straitjacket for your entire body. You can’t feel much of anything, and what you can feel is extremely hypersensitive. I swear I have some sort of Spidey-Sense in the parts that I can feel. Every sound is magnified, every taste glorified, every vision clearer, every touch intensified.
Before I was injured, most of the things I notice now I had never even thought twice about. I lay awake at night, driven absolutely crazy by the smallest itch I can’t scratch. For example, with any sort of air movement, I can tell you precisely where I have a piece of dry skin on my face. At any given moment, I can also tell you exactly how many eyelashes have fallen out onto my cheeks, as well as their exact location. I can tell you literally every part of my shoulder blades that touch the bed at all times. Just the slightest discomfort can bring you to tears at times, because you lay there helpless, with no way to fix whatever the problem is.
Since that is the situation I find myself in quite often, and mainly around three in the morning when everyone is asleep, I have become a master of my own style of meditation. I have somehow figured out how to ignore the things that make me want to claw my eyes out, for the most part. And I thought I was a strong-willed and focused person BEFORE I got hurt. Now that’s laughable. I should be a Buddhist monk by now, considering what I am able to endure. It’s amazing what you can handle when you when you literally have no choice. Become a quadriplegic, and you become a freakin’ Zen master, I swear.
Claustrophobics are pansies. Just kidding. Well, sort of. I was claustrophobic at one time, back in the day. You want a cure for claustrophobia? Try being paralyzed. Seriously. That will alleviate all of your concerns about confined spaces. There is no tighter space to be trapped inside of than your own skin. It’s enough to make the strongest mind go crazy. It’s like a straitjacket for your entire body. You can’t feel much of anything, and what you can feel is extremely hypersensitive. I swear I have some sort of Spidey-Sense in the parts that I can feel. Every sound is magnified, every taste glorified, every vision clearer, every touch intensified.
Before I was injured, most of the things I notice now I had never even thought twice about. I lay awake at night, driven absolutely crazy by the smallest itch I can’t scratch. For example, with any sort of air movement, I can tell you precisely where I have a piece of dry skin on my face. At any given moment, I can also tell you exactly how many eyelashes have fallen out onto my cheeks, as well as their exact location. I can tell you literally every part of my shoulder blades that touch the bed at all times. Just the slightest discomfort can bring you to tears at times, because you lay there helpless, with no way to fix whatever the problem is.
Since that is the situation I find myself in quite often, and mainly around three in the morning when everyone is asleep, I have become a master of my own style of meditation. I have somehow figured out how to ignore the things that make me want to claw my eyes out, for the most part. And I thought I was a strong-willed and focused person BEFORE I got hurt. Now that’s laughable. I should be a Buddhist monk by now, considering what I am able to endure. It’s amazing what you can handle when you when you literally have no choice. Become a quadriplegic, and you become a freakin’ Zen master, I swear.
by Kenny Salvini
