With the “gift” of experiencing some of my SI pain again, I find myself wanting to write many of the things that I thought when I was in pain ALL the time down. I have had so many conversations with other friends in chronic pain about the things we think, and say to each other, but never say to the people who really need to know. Most of us are just scared if I really told you how I felt or what I really need that you’d just walk away. We are afraid if we share the nitty-gritty of how hard it is, that you’ll disappear, and it will be too hard for you to handle because it’s hard for US to handle most of the time.
To those in pain: You have heard me say it to you a thousand times – you have to let others in… they need to know, tell someone.
To those that know someone in chronic pain… here is a snippet of what your friend might be thinking. We try to be strong for us and you… it’s going to be hard to read, but please read it anyway.
The sad fact is, many of us in chronic pain don’t have people we can talk to about how we REALLY feel. We, the person in pain, want to protect you – our loved ones. We know you care and you sacrifice and you love and YOUR life has been changed because of us. Most of us get that, it eats at our souls. We hate what our pain has done to your life. So we want to try to diminish what we are feeling, or experiencing so we don’t inconvenience you or our world even more than we already have. We begin to draw inward. We pull in around ourselves, because… well… we feel like a huge burden. Do you know what would mean the world to us? Trying to find a way we CAN participate. Don’t ask me though, tell me. Talk to my family and come over and let me lay down while we talk, come over in your yoga pants with no makeup on so I don’t feel like such a schlub, let’s order in, so I can contribute to the meal without having to make it. I can’t go out to dinner with you, I can’t even eat sitting up, but I can lay down and talk with you, just like when we were teenage girls lying around our bedrooms, listening to music, watching tv, and talking about the boys in our life….. can you be that friend? Can you handle my mess? Cause I am…a mess… a huge mess…this emotional chaos of living in pain and never being sure when or if it will end or how I am going to make it through the day… it’s a mess inside my head. I have lost my ability to reach out to you, to talk about much. I research my problem, I talk to others that are in pain, I have no other life, but I love to listen, it’s not that I don’t care about other things, I just run out of energy, time, and ability.
Can you help me? Can you love me like I am, can you stand to be with me… cause honestly… I can’t. I hate who I have become, so small, so burdensome, so insignificant. A shadow of who I once was. I am trying you see. To be positive, to learn to live as I am. But I am so afraid. I have no idea if I should hope for more, or just learn to live as I am….. this affects all of me. I no longer know who I am, or what I am supposed to do. Do you love me enough to help me see myself differently? To love me through my mess? Because really… that’s what I need… I need to be shown I have value to you and that we aren’t just friends because of what we DID, but because of who I AM… in or out of pain. I need you to show me these things because while they are still obvious to you, they are hidden from me. Do you realize, by coming into my mess, you have the power to change the course of my life? Do you realize by climbing into this huge mud puddle with me and sitting down in the middle of it that you can help me, just by allowing me to talk, to change your expectations of what an adult friendship is, by laying some truth on me… you can help change the course of my life.
Do you know how I know? Because I had friends that did it. They changed my life, they came into my mess, they played in my mud, they loved me through my secrets, and they helped me see who they see. There were a very select few and being with them made me feel more normal, more whole, and more helpful than I had been in years. I never missed an opportunity to spend time with that type of friend. They helped me heal.
It’s time to reach out… to share the secret burden of your chaos… you can do it, I know you can!
