Chronic Pain & Setbacks

[ToreyP]

So I've not long ago started EMDR therapy with my psychologist.  I have to say I haven't found it particularly helpful (we only did one session, and I got the impression I wasn't "doing it right" - nothing was happening that she seemed to insinuate would happen).  She hasn't done it with me again which makes me think I've failed at it and she's moving on to something else...

Anyway...

I feel like every time I make some stride forwards, my issues with chronic pain kick in and leave me feeling exhausted.  I have terrible joint issues and had major shoulder surgery in July after being in pain with it for a year.  Since the surgery, aspects of the pain are better - but I'm still having some (recovery?) pain and nerve pain.

When I'm trying to do the mindfulness exercises, for example, at work when the 8,000+ people are crowding in the store - it's almost instantly vaporised by the interruption of pain (whether it's my shoulder or some other joint because I am having issues standing for long periods of time - and my shifts are a minimum of 4 hours standing in place on a hard concrete floor).

Does anyone else with chronic pain have this issue and how did you overcome it??

[silentrhino]

I've had chronic pain for decades, I would do almost anything to get rid of it, I flirted with addiction for a while but never got full blown with it.  I don't think I deserve pain but my body seems to remember pain very well.  I think it remembers the pain of my growing up when I had untreated broken bones and severe illnesses untreated due to abusive FOO. I don't address it to much in therapy.

[Libby12]

Hi ToreyP.

I am so sorry to hear of all the pain you are suffering and it is something I really relate to.   I remember a lot of physical pain as a child,  which was always invalidated by my abusive parents.   It worsened over the years until I reached my 40's.  It was at this point I finally accepted that my parents had and continued to affect me so badly so contact was cut completely.

It has been a slow process, and I have gone through some awful periods of debilitating pain, but after five years I am feeling less pain and coping better with the pain I do have.

I really feel for you with regard to work causing pain.   My attempts to work were unsuccessful.   I wish that everyone here could be adequately supported so that they had time to heal, but I know that is just a pipe dream.

I don't know if my experience will help,  because everybody is so different,  but I will try to explain how I got to this relatively good place.

First of all, having been prescribed so many different anti-depressants and pain killers and hormone treatments over the years,  I have decided to stick with my current one, which is an SNRI.  In the past,  I always worried that whatever I was currently taking wasn't working (when I was low and in pain).  Now I just take it regardless.   I take no painkillers of any sort - I have accepted that they simply don't work for me, for the type of pain I have.

Secondly, I have given up completely on the medical profession.  I honestly don't believe that they understand or care.  The last GP I saw was completely dumb-founded by the idea that depression etc could cause physical pain and even more confused by the idea that any of this could be linked to an adverse childhood!  He prescribed two medications that don't go together (tricyclics and SNRIs) and pressed me to take more painkillers.

He seems pretty standard with regards to the medical profession and knowing someone in her last year of medicine,  I don't see things improving.   She is one of the most invalidating of my dd's circle of friends and yet she is the one who will be a doctor next year!

I have decided to seek no further support for psychological issues.  In the UK there is nothing much available,  with very long waiting lists.   I have had CBT,  which gave me some ways of helping myself,  but did not address the root causes. Basically,  for me, all professional help has left me further invalidated and damaged so no more of that.

Thirdly,  I have given up on the idea that anyone other than my husband and daughter (and to a lesser extent,  my sons, because they have life long difficulties themselves)  understand or care.  Although not enmeshed and cruel like my parents,  my in-laws have always shut me down if I ever tried to talk about myself and my difficulties with my FOO and how hard it was caring for twins with developmental difficulties, they would just shut me down and tell me they knew people in far worse situations to me. They weren't but it was enough to shut me up.  The last time I saw them,  I was so triggered that I had the worse bout of pain,  lasting weeks,  that I've had in ages.  Instead of trying to make things better with them,  I have said to dh that I will just follow his lead with them and it has relieved the pressure and the pain.

I am getting much kinder to myself in all ways. That has been a huge change bought about by reading all the posts and advice here and any other resources I come across.   This has been more life changing than anything any professional has been able to offer me.

I don't know if this helps at all, but I would like to add one more thing.   My dd who is in her twenties, doing a PhD in neuroscience,  living with her partner and with a good social life,  also suffers from chronic pain. She doesn't have c-ptsd,  so it's different from us, but fits with endometriosis or IBS or CFS or who knows what.  But she really suffers.  We talked at length yesterday and completely unprompted by me she tells me that she has decided against seeking medical opinion as her symptoms could be so many things, probably a mix of things,  all inter-related and so beyond the scope of the medical profession.   She is highly educated, with degrees in psychology and neuroscience,  and has read all around her symptoms. She has no faith in doctors - believes mind and body are just too complex. Being so completely invalidated by her long standing soon to be doctor friend has further strengthened her current view. She says her boyfriend validates her pain, as do I,  and so for now she is going to manage her pain as best she can and see how things go.

I hope people don't think I am encouraging others not to seek medical help when they feel they need it. It's just that for me, it didn't help and really made things worse.  To seek validation of my pain, after a lifetime of invalidation just led to more layers of trauma.  Getting out of the cycle seems to have helped me, but I am sure this is not the case for everyone.

Sorry for such a long post and hope that there might just be a little something in it to help you.  Even if that's not the case,  please know that I really feel for you,  and understand your suffering.

All the best to you.

Libby

[ah]

Hi ToreyP,

I have chronic pain too and it's a challenge. I guess the biggest hardship for me was understanding which parts of it are physiological and totally out of my control, and which parts are strongly influenced by stress. If I'm overly tired, stressed, not to mention anxious... the physical pain intensifies.

Like Libby, I too sort of decided to give up on doctors. Of course it's just my personal experience... but in my experience, they can have little to offer when you have a complex or slightly out of the ordinary condition. Chronic pain in particular is an area where medicine isn't that advanced yet. I go once in a while to be sure there aren't any new treatments available, but mostly I do mindfulness meditation, take my regular pain killers to take the edge off, pace myself, then start over. I try to be patient with pain.

Mindfulness helps, it does take time to work though so if you're overwhelmed by noise and distraction it can be hard. What I did back when I worked was I'd take 5 minutes before the beginning of each shift to breathe and during the shift, if I was allowed bathroom breaks I saved those up too to take a minute or two to myself. The key is watching what's happening in the body even when it's painful and not withdrawing it, but staying perfectly still while acknowledging the pain. It's more subtle than I thought at first but it really does help.

I do have to take pain killers on a regular basis too. I hate them but they're a necessity. I take as little as possible just to take the edge off the pain, every couple of hours so the pain levels stay relatively low throughout the day. When I know I have to do more I take a bit more beforehand to counteract the extra pain.

It's possible to live with pain. Not recommended, tiring, but doable. I hope your pain will eventually go away.

[Rainagain]

Toreyp

I have had chronic pain for many years.
I thought it was caused by surgery which went badly wrong but lately I wonder if trauma contributed to it developing.
In the past I took meds for the pain and eventually was treated as an outpatient at a pain clinic.
For the last 20 years I have coped without painkillers by trying to 'feel the pain and do it anyway'.
Basically I decided to get angry with it and stop hoping for a cure.
My emotional state affects how well I can cope with the pain, or possibly how bad it appears to me.
It is wearing and uses up your strength, I'm sorry to hear you have it but it is possible to handle it, most of the time anyway.
Pain is the body telling you to rest an injury, if the pain is chronic and the injury is healed then getting angry with it seems appropriate somehow.

[sanmagic7]

hey, torey,

speaking to your emdr experience, i am an emdr therapist, and it doesn't work the same for everyone.  just because you didn't experience some or all the things your t may have mentioned doesn't mean you did anything wrong.  for one thing, you can't do it wrong - not emdr nor therapy in general.

therapy, no matter what kind, is different for everybody.  there are no grades, no pass or fail, no wrong or right way to do it. 

as to chronic pain, i, too, suffer from it.  it's gotten worse as i've gotten older, and especially these past few weeks surrounding my surgery.  i'm convinced it's an accumulation of emotions i haven't expressed.  unfortunately, i don't exactly know which they are.  someone mentioned anger, and i don't doubt there's still a lot of anger in me about not getting diagnosed and treated properly for 10 yrs.

i just don't have the energy right now to pummel my bed and get some of it out.  but it's something i want to keep in mind.  come to think of it, as i've expressed my anger to several people, the overwhelming response has been 'well, that's in the past and you're getting treated correctly now'.

hmmm . . .   i think i'm ticked off about those responses as well.  funny how that works.  i can feel it now, p.o.'d up to my eyeballs.  gotta take a nap now, but i'm thinking later might be a good time to pound some out.

big hug filled with comfort and relief - to all of us here.