Chronic Pain

Wow, I’ve felt a real turn about in my thinking where the presentation is concerned today. I’m getting further into my essay, 1000 words so far and it is really firing up my enthusiasm for the subject. Being a subject that is close to home is really helping too. I am a chronic pain sufferer and my essay is on counselling the person with chronic pain so some of my own stuff has to come in there and add to the presentation.

Not a day goes by when I don’t have pain. It affects everything in my life. I can’t do what I used to do and I can’t do what other people take for granted. I have learnt that I have to think about things before I do them. If I go shopping I have to think, okay, I can do a certain amount but I’ll have to concentrate on say, getting the groceries and that’s all. I can’t do any other shopping combined with that otherwise the pain level will be too high.

My whole role in life had to be rethought out. People who might not understand that I can’t do as much as I used to suddenly became different in my life. Their role in my life was redefined. People who understand that I need to pace myself are like gold. I don’t have to push myself because I don’t think they’ll understand why I have to sit down. I don’t have to try and push past the pain and keep going when it becomes so hard to do so. And I’m getting more in the mindset that if someone doesn’t understand that I’m not putting it on, that I will have pain if I do too much, really doesn’t have a role in my life anymore.

Work is another area where things had to be rethought. Where I was once defined by my work, now I didn’t have a ‘role’ like everyone else. I was a nurse, which was how I was defined. For a long time, before I started Uni and probably before that I struggled to find a place in the world again. For a couple of years I felt like I was nobody. Then came the volunteer work of teaching computer and at least I could answer that this was my role for the moment. Then I became a student and now I can feel that I am something that my role in life is as a student. And that I am striving for something.

We can be very judgemental about anyone who is different in life or who doesn’t conform to the norm. If someone has a broken leg, it is obvious and you can assume they are in some pain. Someone with pain that can’t be seen outwardly is sometimes viewed with suspicion. Are they putting it on? Are they just malingering? How bad is their pain really? And perhaps that is all in the mind of the person who has the pain but it is very real. And it adds to the anxiety of the person who has the pain. It can’t be seen therefore is it really happening? I live by myself so there are things that I have to do, regardless of the pain. I find myself getting very paranoid about what others are thinking. I find myself thinking that I can read their mind. “Look at her, bending down and doing things normally – I wonder how bad her pain really is”. Maybe until I can really think to myself, I don’t give a stuff about what anyone else is thinking, I know what I’m feeling, there will be that little bit of paranoid thinking there.

I know I do avoid doing things as well because I know they will cause pain. Mopping the floor is one thing that kills my back. I will avoid it until the cows come home!! But eventually it needs doing and I have to do it. But it puts me out of action for a while. And the problem is I normally need to sweep before I mop, which already begins my back aching. It all comes down to trying to do as much as I can and resting when I need to. What they call pacing myself. But it’s hard because it becomes a bit of a cycle – it’s going to hurt, I want to avoid it but I have to do it, it gets to the point where it needs doing – NOW, it’s more painful because if I did it regularly it wouldn’t be so hard and then it causes more pain.

So, I am getting excited about presenting something, which for me I’d really love to educate more people about. Everyone has had pain in their life at sometime and everyone has an opinion on what pain is. But not everyone has suffered chronic pain and not everyone understands how different it is to acute pain. If you hit your thumb with a hammer it will hurt but the pain will eventually go away. Imagine hitting your thumb constantly with a hammer so that it never stops. That’s chronic pain – it never goes away.



Kaz