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Help for Chronic Pain: When Friendship Heals

7/25/2018

So often we withdraw into loneliness and isolation when we're living with pain. Remembering that we are still loved and still needed, and that we can offer friendship to someone else in need can make a world of difference. (One-Minute Meditations Video Series)

Sarah Anne Shockley has lived with nerve pain from Thoracic Outlet Syndrome since 2007.
She is the author of The Pain Companion: Everyday Wisdom for Living with and Moving Beyond Chronic Pain (New World Library June, 2018).

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The Separate World of People in Chronic Pain

7/18/2018

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This article appeared in its original form in this blog as "Life on Planet Pain" (2/4/16) and in The Mighty as
"The Separate 'Planet' We Live on As People in Chronic Pain" (6/9/18)

Living with chronic pain is like living on another planet with a completely different atmosphere.

Other pains can usually be pointed to or clearly described. They are polite enough to stay within certain physical or emotional confines, and have a reasonable shelf life.

Chronic pain, on the other hand simply refuses to leave, and often roams around the body wherever it pleases.

To add insult to injury, instead of keeping within the physical body, it sort of oozes out of its original borders and takes over more and more of the territory of experience, eventually seeping through and soaking into the entire fabric of one’s existence.

Pain Becomes the House We Live In

What was originally on the inside, now feels like its taken over the outside, too. Like you are within it, instead of it within you. At that point, pain isn’t just here or there, it’s everywhere.

It’s really very strange, and challenging to explain to others who haven’t had the experience. It’s like nothing else. Sometimes it feels like an unwanted house guest who never leaves, but eventually it feels like the house itself.

You’re surrounded by a field of pain and everything you see, do, hear, express, or receive must pass through the ever-present fog of the pain zone. I think this might be the most difficult thing for others to understand.

Pain is no longer just part of our experience of life. Life must now take place completely immersed within it.

Too Late For A Band Aid

I think this is one reason it’s so hard to find treatments and modalities that actually work for chronic pain. It’s complex and has become interwoven with the whole self and the whole body and the whole nervous system and everything that is offered is just way too small, or too specialized, or too directed to a single aspect of this all-encompassing thing, called chronic pain.

It’s sort of like calling in the plumber to fix the leak in the kitchen sink when the whole house has just fallen off a cliff.

The well-meaning plumber focuses on the kitchen sink and says, here, let’s change the washers or whatever and you’re living in this disaster of a house that needs all kinds of different and simultaneous attentions and the plumber just can’t see past the broken faucet.

Or something like that.

Looking for the Door that Lets Pain Out

I’m looking for the door that lets the pain out, like on a spaceship and you open it and everything is sucked right out — the whole atmosphere of planet pain – and then you get to close the door and start over.

But I think the door I’m looking for doesn’t open out like that, it opens in.

Anyway, I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve found it.

Images Courtesy of Pixabay

Sarah Anne Shockley has lived with nerve pain from Thoracic Outlet Syndrome since 2007. She is the author of The Pain Companion: Everyday Wisdom for Living with and Moving Beyond Chronic Pain (New World Library June, 2018).

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Getting Past the Sadness and Isolation of Living with Chronic Pain

7/11/2018

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This post was originally published as a guest post for Counting My Spoons, June 18, 2018 LINK

All of us living with chronic pain are aware of how difficult it is on a physical level. Very aware, most of the time. But what we sometimes don’t acknowledge is the immense toll living with physical pain takes on our emotional life as well.

We are usually so immersed in the demands of our body pain, that we feel we don’t have the energy or capacity for dealing with our emotional hurts at the same time. These include: sadness, frustration, blame, shame, resentment, anger, hopelessness, isolation, and loneliness to name a few.

Sometimes we’re not dealing with them because we feel like acknowledging them will take us under. It’s just too much. Sometimes it’s because they seem like feelings we just have to live with while we’re living with pain. And sometimes, we simply don’t realize they’re there because they’ve become the ocean we swim in every day.

But if we don’t recognize and begin to work to relieve some of our sadness, loss, anger and shame about being in pain, we might find ourselves trapped inside the weight of our own grief and hopelessness. If ignored for too long, the emotions we don’t find a way to acknowledge and express can lead to depression, bitterness, and despair.

Let’s not go there. Let’s see what we can do to relieve the sadness and isolation of living with chronic pain and create a greater sense of ease and well being, even while we’re still living with pain.

Suggestions for overcoming the intense emotions of living with chronic pain

Find someone to tell your pain story to –someone who will listen without trying to fix anything or assign blame. If there is no one you can trust to do that, talking to a pet is a surprisingly good second choice.
Find creative ways to express your pain. Your physical and emotional pains can be expressed through art, writing, singing, dancing, or even howling.
Find someone you can help, either through sharing your insights, becoming a companion, or being an understanding listener.
Don’t isolate yourself. We all have days when we don’t want to go out. That’s understood. But human interaction is a basic need. Find ways to reach out and be with others, even if in brief amounts of time.
Stay engaged with life. What did you used to love to do that you’re not doing now? How can you participate, if only for a short time or in the most minimal of ways? What new things can you learn about and participate in?
Connect with the greater part of you that lives beyond this pain. This can be done through prayer, meditation, music, or other creative expressions with the intention of accessing the greater You.
Re-connect with your dreams of the future. Create a dream that includes the person you are becoming through this journey with pain.
Don’t stand still either on the inside or on the outside. This leads to a feeling of stagnation. Find a sense of movement, no matter how small: physical, emotional, creative, or spiritual.
Be kind to yourself. Speak to yourself and to your body soothingly and with love.

Remember, as I often say, pain is a landscape we’re moving through. It is not the totality of who we are. We only lose our way if we sit down and give up.

As we travel along our path through chronic pain, let’s remember to be kinder and more compassionate toward our bodies and to our whole self, feeling what needs to be felt, expressing what needs to be expressed, and loving the parts of ourselves that are asking to be loved.

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Sarah Anne Shockley has lived with nerve pain from Thoracic Outlet Syndrome since 2007. She is the author of The Pain Companion: Everyday Wisdom for Living with and Moving Beyond Chronic Pain (New World Library June, 2018).

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Help for Chronic Pain: When Friendship Heals

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The Separate World of People in Chronic Pain

Pain Becomes the House We Live In

Too Late For A Band Aid

Looking for the Door that Lets Pain Out

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Getting Past the Sadness and Isolation of Living with Chronic Pain

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