Illusions

[cjsmith]

Me: My feet hurt.
Somebody Else: It might go away. Any day now it could vanish just the way it came.

That still makes me angry, but y'know what? I can also see the flip side to it, a little bit.

Yes, it would still be mindbogglingly stupid for me to plan my life around the hope that my feet will suddenly heal. Therein lies a recipe for putting myself "on hold" until my grave, waiting until I win the (medical) lottery instead of living now.

Yes, it's still mindbogglingly insensitive of Somebody Else to pretend that this is a temporary problem and thus hugely, quantitatively and qualitatively, easier to deal with than what I am actually facing.

Yes, I still feel like I'm not heard.

Yes, I still feel like I'm being called a liar, and yes, I still hate being called a liar.

But y'know what? Somebody Else might really kinda need their illusions. Denial can be a gift. I can choose to give the gift of not trying to burst their bubble.

The day will come when I'm sufficiently less angry that I can give that gift.

Comments

Re: Soapbox

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your soapbox. I need a dose of perspective from time to time, and that's just what this gives me.

Pain is such a weird thing. On the one hand, everything (except the sensing system) is in my case completely functional. The muscles work, the joints are mobile, everything is attached that needs to be, proprioception is correct, balance is unimpaired, etc etc. So I "can" technically do stuff. But on the other hand, you're absolutely correct that pain has an enormous effect. I remember reading an article claiming that some study showed chronic pain ages the brain by 10 to 20 years (measured by shrinkage, compared to normal aging) and causes brain chemistry changes as well (affecting decision-making). That's pretty darn profound.

The more I noodle on this, the more I realize that I've internalized a few too many action-hero messages.

Re: Soapbox

[airporter.livejournal.com]

Romanticized those men-in-tights too, huh? It's taken me two decades and more to realize I can just be me instead of trying to have everything the way I perceive other people (supermen) do. The only baseline to my happiness and acceptance of my pain levels is right here in this skull. The one that cries 'oh no, not again' at every twinge that repeats more than twice, and says to keep meds on hand at all times, even when they've not been needed in over a year.

Yes, I'm lucky. I'm one of those whose pain cycles up and down, and can sometimes be managed to stay down during the last four or five years. Regrettably, that doesn't help me forget the first twenty-years. Can you say paranoid?

Pain envelopes everything. The world is fuzzy, and those who care about you have little chance of understanding your pain (or you theirs.) Comparing is pointless, yet each of us does it: how come she appears so strong when I'm such a wimp? How come he's recovered so much more quickly? How come she's recovered? The questions are all there, and but for potential insight into how we each view pain are fruitlessly examined.

It's a wholly personal thing and some deal differently than others. I've never understood someone who has a headache and does nothing (ice, water, heat, pills, whatever) to alleviate it. That level of pain - bad enough to notice, but not so much as to require doing something about - is simply something I don't get. In either sense.

Re: Soapbox

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Men in tights, lean women carrying space blasters, whatever icon of the day is used the message is there: People To Emulate are not stopped by mere pain. Ever. Or the universe wouldn't get saved.

I've never understood someone who has a headache and does nothing (ice, water, heat, pills, whatever) to alleviate it.

Reading that, I'm laughing, for a related tangent. I got to talking last night with a woman I believe to be certifiably crazy. She "doesn't believe in" pain pills (although she does "believe in" a whole lot of unproven pseudoscientific bunk, so reality doesn't truly impinge here). Now she's had back trouble and sciatica -- and dear Lord she's in trouble. Her long-held principle is colliding with a reality that won't go away. Just a few sentences after the Doesn't Believe In statement, she said she's never before HAD pain. Well then! I was sooooooooo good. I didn't laugh in her face. How can someone in her late sixties or early seventies still be so damn NAIVE?