Understanding: Pain, Love & Life

[JoshuaY46013]

Chronic pain is something that will break you, again and again!  Chronic pain is a disease that's very misunderstood and taboo in today's' time.  Will it ever be accepted?  Will we ever be as important as the diabetics or the people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder?  Life in the shoes of a chronic pain sufferer is difficult, searching for acceptance and guidance, it's like a constant begging for your life back.  It's grieving process, we've lost someone or something, we deal with grieving as one does with death, the five stages: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.  The length of the process is all circumstantial, none the less, we all must deal but we can all learn acceptance.  All 5 stages are just as important as the others, I've learned this myself, I've grown as a person and I will never be the same.  With all this pain, I have come to love, I have come to understand and appreciate everything and everyone. How things grow into a positive will never cease to amaze me, this life, as painful as it may be, I would never trade!

Life is hard, we know this, to come to terms with your new "life" isn't a cup of tea, but we can all do it.  Never settle for less, never settle for a doctor that doesn't have hope, a doctor that doesn't treat well, a pharmacist with a dirty smirk.  We ARE in charge of our lives, we've learned more so than anyone else how to move on, so do just that and MOVE ON!  

Thanks for all of the help and hope, you guys are truly amazing, great people and I am so thankful to be here :)

[Tuckamore]

Yes we all are lovable. I can hear it in all your words. Life is never fair, never. It's a crap shoot. I know I have said this before but it's like a card game. We have to play with the cards we are dealt. We, dear friends, got crappy hands. So it's how we play these cards or the "game" that is important. None of us are damaged. It's what's in our heart that matters.

Eliminating unnecessary things from life is helpful. I've done the same. Finding the ways to work around your limitations can be challenging. I've tried to make a game out of it, calculating obstacles and removing them, like anticipating the moves of my opponent in a chess game.

I won many an amateur dance contests before this pain. I can't dance anymore but I still can listen and enjoy the music. When I couldn't participate in my much loved softball games, I still could watch and sometimes add what I have learned. I played on a local championship dart team and when I could do that I still cheered on my fellow teammates. I could continue but I think you get the picture. And last but certainly not least, when I couldn't continue my career I came here to MedHelp.

Early on in this journey of chronic pain a therapist told me that I would make it. "You," he said, "are a survivor." That single word meant a lot to me, a survivor. We are all survivors.

Set short term, reachable goals. They may only be a daily goal. "Today I will......" Think about what we have learned and what we have gained not what we have lost. Because with loss comes strength, wisdom and knowledge.

Some of us may be "looking" for mates and wondering who will love us. For those of us that had mates when we were struck with this pain we are "looking" to keep them and wondering if they will continue to love us. We are struggling to be good wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, daughters and sons. So we all have challenges, there just different challenges.

Michelle you are so right, amazing things can happen...and do every single day.

[Dshell]

I have ALL of those feelings and can so sympathize.  When I was little when you asked what I wanted to be when I grow up it was pregnant.  I spent my short  (maybe someday to restart) career working with abused and disabled children.  

I have spent the last 2 years off work waiting for that day I would wake up without pain.  I also spent the last 2 years thinking about all the things I would to do when that day came, love, children, work.  I am slowly accepting and adjusting my life and dreams.

My new task is eliminating as many unnecessary things in my life as possible so I have more time to do "other" things.  The cat and I are eating off paper plates and recycling to cut down on dishes, stools in the kitchen, anything I can do to reserve my much needed pain free moments and energy.

I too feel damaged and wonder who would want to love me...talk about baggage.  But I try to keep hope alive and think about the word adjust when thinking about me new dreams.  Some days are dark but they are fewer and farther between.

Everyone is lovable.  When working with the severely disabled, I saw people living really terrible lives with every diagnosis you can imagine and unable to communicate.  But I also witnessed many acts of unbelievable kindness and love.  For me, the most important thing is re-entering the world I left behind a few years ago.  

Keep your chin up, amazing things can happen.

Michelle

[Lexy485]

I keep thinking the pain will go away someway, somehow. I have memories of how I was once "normal", thinking I will wake up tomorrow it will all be gone. I often have feelings of being damaged. Who would want me, self defeating thoughts, and fear of what the future holds for me. I haven't had children yet, and I fear that I will have increased back pain and more complications with my lumbar spine due to the stress pregnancy inflicts on your body.

[Tuckamore]

Joshua,

You are correct that Chronic pain brings the same stages of death that were initially identified by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. They are commonly now known as the five stages of grief. It has been correctly applied to other events in our lives. Certainly we all grieve for the former "us." What use to be. We miss the things we use to be able to do.

I thank you for bringing it up again on the forum. When we reach the final stage of acceptance I beleive life gets easier. Some of us never do. Some times we go back and forth between stages, that is normal. I lived in angry denial for years. It kept me going...or so I thought. The acceptance of my fate brought "peace" to my life. It's sad that some of us never make it to that stage.

Michelle you are perfectly normal. I still have some pity parties. It is a party of one and never any fun. They are less dramatic and farther between but I think to some degree there will always be a little sadness. Don't beat yourself up if you bounce back and forth for awhile. Most of us do.

As Brain stated, we never give up. That's one of the keys to dealing with this disease.

I doubt it will ever be seen as diabetes is seen, at least not in the near future. Just as alcohol or drug addiction is too often not seen for what it is, a disease.

The DEA and FDA are in a war against drugs. In my opinion, too often we and the physicians that treat us are unjustly their targets.  

Again thank you for posting. It is a great subject that should be discussed more often.

    

[Dshell]

Wow, your post was so poignant for me. I have been experiencing acceptance the past week or so and haven't been able to articulate why now. I received my diagnosis a few years ago and yet it has only been this week I have moved into acceptance and started to re-organize my life.

I silently wondered, what have I been doing since my diagnosis that I have just found this acceptance...I was grieving.  Grieving for the life I dreamed about as a child, grieving for not being able to get this stinking body to do what I want, grieving because I feel like I am missing out and a dash of feeling sorry for myself.

Thank you for your insighful post.

All my best
Michelle  

[NoMoMeth4me]

Thank you for that inspirational note. You are 100% correct in how you describe what we battle with daily and will for the rest of our lives unless a miracle cure is found.

I learned about the 5 stages of acceptance in month long inpatient pain management program.

Life puts up many hurdles in our paths and we are challenged to figure out how to get over them, each day is different, some days we have to crawl under them, others we can get over them, hopefully for all of us, we can figure out how to get to get over them more often than not. It is a long journey to get the finality of what we've all lost with our pain issues and for the more fortunate, they get top accept and embrace what it brings and can more easily battle it.

I'm not quite there yet, perhaps half way along the journey, eking and scratching my way through life but refusing to give up hope. I echo your comments about pharmacists and physicians, it's vital that we have supportive, understanding people in our corners supporting us and showing us empathy but not sympathy.

I pray we are all willing to fight the good fight.

Take care.

-Brian.