This is not a cry for help
Pain. First thing that flows through your consciousness when you wake. You spend the day fighting it down, pushing it away, as you struggle to do the things – get out of bed, walk up the stairs – that many people take for granted. Its tentacles are wrapped around you when you sleep, filling your head with nightmares you don’t like to talk about.
Wash, rinse, repeat. And repeat and repeat, because you are not terminal (thank you thank you thank you). You are Just In Pain. Words can describe it, but do not do justice to the awfulness of it. Stabbing, shooting, gnawing, throbbing, sucking, aching, burning, searing, flashing - they’re just words. Pain that makes you constantly sick to your stomach, that makes you want to sob – what does that mean to someone who hasn’t been there? There is no place to go when everything hurts. No matter how much you try to disassociate yourself from your body, from what it is doing to you, you always have to come back to it sometime. And the pain is always there. You never really get used to it, no matter what you say. This is what chronic is. This is me.
But enough of the descriptors; as the title says, this is not a cry for help. Think of it as more of a call to arms. The Internet should be a beacon for those of us in chronic pain. The very nature of the beast makes it hard to find outlets to talk about it. We may not suffer from the same illnesses. We may find mobility a challenge, to say the least. It can get very lonely, sitting at home, watching the world go by and longing to be a part of it. The Internet gives us a way to get out and use our minds, and hopefully, a chance to see that we are not alone in our bubbles of pain.
I hope that this site will eventually become a place where people can come to express how they feel from day to day. I don’t know about you, but I find it incredibly difficult to talk about how much pain I am in. But I think it is helpful, for us and for others, to see that we are not alone - to share not just the bad days, but the good ones, too.
So, poke around. Use the links - if something isn't clear, wtf will tell you what it means. And don’t be afraid to say what you feel.
Continue...
Wash, rinse, repeat. And repeat and repeat, because you are not terminal (thank you thank you thank you). You are Just In Pain. Words can describe it, but do not do justice to the awfulness of it. Stabbing, shooting, gnawing, throbbing, sucking, aching, burning, searing, flashing - they’re just words. Pain that makes you constantly sick to your stomach, that makes you want to sob – what does that mean to someone who hasn’t been there? There is no place to go when everything hurts. No matter how much you try to disassociate yourself from your body, from what it is doing to you, you always have to come back to it sometime. And the pain is always there. You never really get used to it, no matter what you say. This is what chronic is. This is me.
But enough of the descriptors; as the title says, this is not a cry for help. Think of it as more of a call to arms. The Internet should be a beacon for those of us in chronic pain. The very nature of the beast makes it hard to find outlets to talk about it. We may not suffer from the same illnesses. We may find mobility a challenge, to say the least. It can get very lonely, sitting at home, watching the world go by and longing to be a part of it. The Internet gives us a way to get out and use our minds, and hopefully, a chance to see that we are not alone in our bubbles of pain.
I hope that this site will eventually become a place where people can come to express how they feel from day to day. I don’t know about you, but I find it incredibly difficult to talk about how much pain I am in. But I think it is helpful, for us and for others, to see that we are not alone - to share not just the bad days, but the good ones, too.
So, poke around. Use the links - if something isn't clear, wtf will tell you what it means. And don’t be afraid to say what you feel.
Continue...
posted by KS at 3:23 PM
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