It Pains Me to Say
Chronic pain is debilitating. It comes out of nowhere and shatters your existence. I would know, because I live with a chronic illness. In 2007, my world fell apart when I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. The diagnosis ripped apart everything I had ever known. All my beloved fast food restaurants? Gone to me, as I had to eat a strict paleo diet. The convienece of cheap groceries? Gone, as I needed to eat fresh organic, gluten free, blah blah blah. My ability to work was gone, forcing me onto disability as I steadily lost weight, spent time in and out of “specialists” offices and ended up having surgery to remove a foot of my bowels.
The after effects of this have left me in daily pain. I’ll spare you the details, but what matters here is that I see you. I know what it’s like to have to explain to people constantly “thank you, but I can’t eat those delicious brownies you made or I’ll get sick” or “I have to get 10 hours of sleep to be a functional human being…so I don’t end up sick.” Or telling people “I came down with a horrific migraine and I have to cancel plans” or worse, having to push through at work with the migraine. Life is delicate tightrope that I have to walk daily.
I’ve tried it all - supplements, a healthy diet, acupuncture, chiropractic, massage, and a very sad diet of veggies and protein. Yet the pain persists. While I don’t have a magic wand to make my pain disappear, I learned some valuable things along the way about my pain, and want to help others do the same. Making meaning where one can only see suffering and pain.
My diagnosis was partly caused by trauma. Our bodies keep the score - unresolved trauma gets stored in the body. For some it looks like anxiety attacks or food allergies. For some it looks like fatigue or fibromyalgia. For others it can look like Crohn’s or migraines, or a myriad of other problems. Understanding why I developed this illness and learning how to process through the trauma I endured helped me make sense of it. While it didn’t fix my pain or cure me, it does allow me in my daily life to take bring awareness to trauma and its effects, to help others.
Sometimes mindfulness techniques really are helpful. Things like deep breathing, a heart math or exercise help fortify me mentally for the suffering I’m enduring. It helps me bring awareness into my body in the spaces that hurt and help me work through them. I am much less fussy with my family when I realize that I’m in pain and can take some steps to mitigate it (or take a nap!)
My psychological state really does impact my physical state. When I’m stressed, overwhelmed, angry or upset, these emotions affect me physically. Why does my gut hurt? Yes, the gut is the second brain. What is my gut trying to tell me. Learning how to slow down in these moments and take inventory of where I’m at can really help me.
My wife experiences the grumpy, “I’m at the end of my rope with pain” side of me. And she’s still learning when I’m in pain and how to help me when I am. It’s a hard road for me, but it’s hard for her too. Watching me suffer and seeing how it impacts our days wrecks her. And she married me knowing what she was in for with this. So many people develop these conditions after marriage, and their spouses have no way to help them. The spouse can experience their own grief and sense of loss. That’s another area that we can help - supporting the spouse and family of those who suffer with chronic pain and illness.
So there you have it - my grad school education told me that I shouldn’t self-disclose with clients, but I’ll be honest, self-disclosing this has brought freedom to the clients I’ve worked with who suffer to this magnitude. You are not alone. And you can become a healthy, thriving person who has meaning in life, despite what the pain tells you. I’m here to help.
