Dealing with chronic pain can, and does, bring out a myriad of different emotions in everyone who deals with it. People express anger with the condition, confusion as to what is actually happening with their bodies, depression at the change in their lives. But is there a bright side to having this condition? I can only speak for myself, or course, but I do believe there is.
Now, "bright side" is probably not the best terminology, but for me, there have been positive aspects to it. Sometimes the positive aspects can be very hard to find, but I assure you that they are there. It has taken me a long time to find them, but I am trying to embrace the positives. Staying angry all the time isn't good for anyone, and the stress from carrying that anger around only makes the pain that I deal with worse. I had to try and find something positive about the situation.
For a long time, I was so angry about what had happened to me. I thought that it was so unfair that I was having to go through all of this, and I spent many hours in tears over the loss of my old life. I was angry with God, too, for allowing this to happen to me. "Why me" became a mantra for me, and I couldn't find any answers. But today, I am tend to think "Why not me?" far more often.
The more I searched for a reason, I learned that sometimes there are no reasons. In life, sometimes things just happen, and we have to try and accept those things, and move forward from them. Accepting my condition doesn't mean that I will stop fighting it, I am just learning how to live with it.
I am now more sympathetic to the suffering of others. I used to work for a company which administered medicaid for the Commonwealth of Kentucky. I worked in customer service and daily dealt with recipients. Quite often, people would call with problems filling prescriptions, or complaints about the way they way treated by a doctor. I am ashamed to admit it, but quite often I thought that these people must be exaggerating the amount and severity of pain that they had. I also thought that anyone that concerned about pain medication must be a drug addict. And then my journey with back pain began. I started suffering severe pain every single day, and there was no relief in sight. I understood what these people were going through and I was able to treat them with far more kindness and compassion than I did before.
Because I am in pain so often, I have learned to appreciate the small things in life. Now, just being able to clean my house seems like a gift, because it means that my pain is at a tolerable level. I feel joy when someone asks me how I am doing, because it shows me that they really do care about me. I appreciate the time that I am able to spend with my husband and children, because there are days when I don't want to even deal with them.
I am also developing a true appreciation for the people in my life. I belong to on-line support groups for both my chronic pain and my fibromyalgia. It brings such comfort when someone asks me how I am doing, and I know that they mean it and really want to hear the truth. I have developed a circle of friends that I wouldn't have met without these conditions, and they mean the world to me. I also feel better when I am able to offer words of comfort to another person. I don't know what I would do without my "cyber" family, and I would never have met them without my illnesses. I am learning what it is to approach everyday with gratitude.
I will never stop fighting to find a cure to my condition. I will not accept the fact that I am going to have to live the rest of my life in constant pain. And yet, I am grateful for the experience of living this way because it has made me a better person in the long run. I am learning what it means to face each day with gratitude and compassion towards my fellow man.
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