I was kind of nervous the night before the Truth Seekers Syndicate meeting were I would be performing my pull, so first a special thank you goes out to Stevie for making me feel relaxed again. Because of that I slept like a baby, I got a solid 7 hours of sleep so that was good. When I woke up I had a huge knot in my stomach, I was really nervous. I forced down a sandwich and walked down to the train station. It was pretty cold outside and the short walk calmed me down.
At A Glance Author psychonautje Contact psychonautje@bme.anon IAM psychonautje When It just happened Artist Truth Seekers Syndicate Studio Vendex building Location Maastricht, The Netherlands I'll spare you the details of me waiting at the train station for over an hour before someone came to pick me up and all that, and move straight on to my experience. First I saw a bunch of other people doing their suspensions and they all did a very good job which made me feel more relaxed about my own hooks. My stomach gave a little jolt when Kor came to me to tell me that if I was ready I could go get my hooks. But I was also confident that I could do this so I went up to the piercing room. Hellbaby came up with me for mental support and for taking pictures.
Roel and Jimmy were going to throw my hooks, and Kor talked me through. They disinfected my back and started drawing lines and mark the entry and exit points. Then it was hook throwing time! The hooks that were used were 4 mm (6 ga) titanium hooks, made by Kor. Roel put the first hook into a 8 ga needle, lubed it, Jimmy squeezed my skin together, and Roel pierced. This was the most painful part of the entire experience. A 8 ga needle followed by a 6 ga hook going deep under you skin needs quite some force to be put in place. It was way more painful than I had expected. We took a short break before going to the next hook, and then the same procedure followed. I sat there for a few minutes, drinking an energy drink and getting accustomed to the feeling of the hooks in my back. The painful feeling subsided quickly, and when the hooks felt comfortable under my skin it was time to go down again – time for action!
First I warmed myself in front of the fire (it was pretty cold in there). Then I got attached to a big fixed pipe, so that I would be able to control the pressure myself. The attaching was a little painful, as Kor had to fumble with my hooks a bit. I started slowly leaning forward, increasing the pressure bit by bit. This felt good! I was doing it! I was on top of the world. I continued leaning until I was afraid that my feet would slip away, I guess it was about a 45 degree angle. I stood straight up again and Kor started pulling my arms, slowly moving more weight from his feet to my arms up until he was hanging back from my arms with his full weight (and Kor is quite an impressive guy). After that I pulled a bit more by myself, by putting one foot in front of the other and putting pressure on my back like that.
Enough of the pulling away from a fixed object, time to actually move some things! I warmed myself in front of the fire again, before Kor attached me to a big chain. First I walked up and down with the chain, which was easy. I needed more weight. So a stone was attached to the chain, and I started walking again. Pulling the weight with my back while moving felt so good. After every round, an extra stone was attached. First six little ones, that weighed 40 kg together, and after that 3 huge stones. Nobody knew how much these fellas weighed but it must have been at least another 40 kg, if not more. At least that's my estimate. By every additional stone, it got increasingly difficult to get everything moving. Once moving, it was easy though. With the last stone attached it became almost impossible. I'm only 57 kg myself, and the floor was kind of slippery because there was some sand on the concrete. I'm not really sure whether I pulled it off (pun intended) myself, or whether someone gave me a hand to get the entire burden moving, but I did it! I think my left hook ripped a little during the stone pulling. I didn't feel it actually ripping, but suddenly that hook felt different than the right hook.
Then we were out of stones so we had to think of something else. A huge chain with huge shackles was hanging down from the ceiling, it was really heavy. I was attached to this chain and tried to move away from it. It was impossible to do a step forward, the chain was simply too heavy. Because it could move freely it worked kind of like rubber or elastic. The more force I used to pull away from it, the more the chain pulled me back. I bounced happily up and down for a while, the swinging felt really nice. And people told me it quite impressive too, I had the chain moving back and forth quite a bit. Slowly I started to feel tired, pulling takes quite some energy. I signaled Kor that I was ready to stop and have my hooks taken out. Kor freed me from the chain and I went upstairs to the piercing room again.
Jimmy lubed up my hooks and removed them from my back. This didn't hurt at all, so that was good because I expected it to hurt. There was hardly any bleeding, but I had a lot of air in my back, from my neck all the way down to my lower back. Jimmy pushed it out and that felt really good actually, it was like a wonderful massage. Only that feeling would be reason enough to pull again. Jimmy cleaned me up and put square white sterile plasters over the entry and exit points. Then Kor gave me my hooks in a little metal box with a see-through lid. In the box were a nice piece of fabric and a metal "badge" with the Truth Seekers Syndicate logo on it and the text "Truth Seeker", and my hooks of course. "Now you're part of the Truth Seekers". This makes me really happy and proud.
During the remainder of the evening I could feel my back stiffening up, moving my arms too much was slightly painful but at the same time it was nice because it reminded me of what I just did. I was on cloud 9, on top of the world, I felt euphoric. This was an ultimate adrenaline/endorphine-rush. What an amazing feeling. Amnesia and 11 were sweet enough to drive me home, which was so much better than spending a lonely 45 minutes in a cold train. When I went to sleep I couldn't lie on my back, but that was ok because I sleep on my side anyway. I woke up after only 6 hours of sleep, my mind felt totally refreshed. I expected that I wouldn't be able to move that morning, but actually my back was less stiff than the night before. I removed the bandages (that was hard actually, seeing that they are right on the middle of my back and that I was pretty stiff) and took a long hot shower. So far, there is no bruising at all (at the moment the pull is about 24 hours ago), and my back is still slightly stiff and aching, but the entry and exit holes look really good. There hasn't been any more bleeding and I still feel very euphoric that I did this. Such an amazing experience! It was so much better than I had expected before... This is one of the most intense things that I have ever done. These were definitely not my last hooks!
As a final note I would like to thank Truth Seekers Syndicate, Kor, Brigitte, Roel, Jimmy for making this possible, hellbaby for taking pictures, Nana for sharing your cigarettes with me and all the wonderful people who were there and supported me. Thank you all. Without you this experience wouldn't have been as good as it has been and still is. Next time, I will fly!