Unhealthy attachments to pain

I recently decided to come up with a daily affirmation. I designed it to be something that was going to get me into the right frame of mind to tackle the day ahead. I wanted it to be strong and I wanted it to be a positive statement about the kind of person I want to be. So here it is:

“I self manage my chronic pain. I am a wife and a mum and I honour and respect my connections (with my family and friends, with my community and to my environment). I consciously accept the things I cannot change with a non-judgemental awareness of my reaction to these situations. I am practicing to let it go”

This is now what I say to myself each morning. It has made me think about attachment. I think much of my frustration is born from my attachment to things I cannot change. For example, I get frustrated at silly little things that have already happened like spillages or accidents (when you have two little ones in the house, these kinds of things happen all the time!) I have little control over them and once they have happened there is no real point getting too annoyed. Yes, I realise there are learning opportunities and discipline to be determined but I need to let go and move on.

It can be the same with pain. I used to have unhealthy attachments around pain. These attachments (when fiercely clung to) can really hold you back when attempting to self manage chronic pain. I thought it might be useful to highlight a few of these negative attachments.

Emotional: I often harboured an emotional attachment to my pain. I cycled through many different emotions but all involved a strong feeling, often a negative, draining, stressful emotion and these were not helpful for my pain or for achieving my goals. ANGER. I would often get angry when pain reared its ugly head. I was angry for needing to change my plans or angry at my own poor reaction to pain or just angry that I was lumped with this situation. DENIAL. I think this is a common emotional reaction to chronic pain. Ignore it and it will go away? Um, no chance! But I would allow myself to be fooled that I was doing ok, I didn’t have a pain problem. In doing so, I would ignore my physical limitations; push beyond my thresholds and, in the process, further increase my pain. GUILT. This was a huge one for me. I often would feel guilty about needing help because I felt I was being a burden on others. Or I would often think I was not up to standard (some unrealistic model of perfection I has set for myself) as a mother, wife or friend. This unrelenting guilt was an emotional burden I carried which further increased my own physical pain.  FEAR. This is the reason that I held myself back from trying new things for so long (such as self pain management techniques or new physical therapies). I was scared of making the situation worse. I already felt out of control and was worried any change would exacerbate the dire situation I had gotten myself into.  Fear held me back for a long time. But once I had made those first initial baby steps, I soon realised my real inner strength.

Ideal of normal: For some reason I had a very unhealthy attachment to the notion of being normal. I was often upset that my back and associated pain made me different and I just wanted to be normal. But what is "normal"? Is there such a person? Some people may not have pain but there is likely some other challenge or issue in their lives. Comparing is not helpful.   

Past pain experiences: These experiences would negatively influence my decision making. A previous flare up from exercise may have prevented me from attempting a new daily exercise program. I was afraid I would have another flare up.  But these experiences were often based on my inaccurate  interpretation of the situation. For example, if I was to go from doing nothing at all to playing a very rough and physical game of netball, I would get a pain flare up. This does not mean that controlled daily stretches is going to flare my pain because this is a totally different approach. Similarly, if I was told to do some exercises by a new practitioner, I would do them for a while then think it was having no impact so I would give up. Therefore, my past experience led me to believe that exercises don’t work. This is just not true. My poor commitment to the exercise was the reason there was not a noticeable improvement!

A magic cure: For much of my journey with chronic pain, I didn’t realise I was being passive. I relinquished my control to another, whether it was a doctor, surgeon, drug or someone else. I was searching outside of myself for a magic pill that would take all my pain away. I had an unhealthy obsession with finding a cure. My situation may never have a cure. I have now accepted chronic pain is something I need to live with. But in doing so, I haven’t continued to be passive, I now take an active role in managing my pain, on a daily basis. 

As you can see there are many emotional attachments to pain and they all can have an unhelpful influence on our pain! Whether it is emotion pain or pain resulting from overdoing it and stress, the bottom line is, attachments to pain are dangerous and unproductive.

I am hoping that explaining some of the attachments I have had you might be able to identify with some of these and realise their negative impact. If you are truly honest with yourself, do you have an unhealthy attachment to pain? Maybe it is time to become aware that you are desperately grasping and clinging to something that cannot be changed.

 

Maybe it is time to LET IT GO (Alright, Frozen fans out there, go on, start singing!)