May 29 2008
There’s no enlightenment here
I also continue to find absolutely no meaning in the pain itself. (I find the Headache to be as profound as a malfunctioning car alarm that just won’t shut off…)
From All in My Head
May 28 2008
Activists in pain
Trying to save the world, in your own particular way, is very important. But the world will not save you.
From All in My Head
May 27 2008
For a reference point
In general, headache sufferers are worse off than people who have arthritis, roughly similar to those who have congestive heart failure severe enough to interfere with walking up and down stairs and only slightly better than people with AIDS…
From All in My Head
May 26 2008
Loneliness
With headaches, you’re alienated from yourself because your pain is so bad, and you don’t want to be there. At the same time, you’re alienated from everybody else because you have headaches: “I don’t want to go and be with people.” If I’m on meds, then I’m kind of spacey and can’t quite communicate my ideas. So there’s this kind of way that it becomes very selfish and self-centered.
From All in My Head
May 25 2008
What is it?
Thernstrom described chronic pain as “a pathology of the nervous system that produces abnormal changes in the brain and spinal cord,” meanwhile basically sucking up feel-good seratonin and leading to chemically induced depression and anxiety.
From All in My Head
May 24 2008
Looking for relief
“I didn’t want to kill myself, but I wanted to die.” Dying sounded fine, just for a little while at least, to get some relief - but suicide was too drastic. After all, the desire for self destruction and the desire of wanting pain to end can be two different things.
From All in My Head
May 23 2008
Some days are like that
“I am having a bad day,” she wrote me. “I realize that the past three years have been totally lost and the past ten years have been straight from hell. It seems like the smallest things throw me into disequilibrium. I am very depressed and exhausted.”
From All in My Head
May 22 2008
Mind Over Matter
“The idea that I can make my body do anything I really want it to do, such as making the pain go away completely, is a form of the myth of control, a childish belief in the omnipotence of what I want…”
….
In reality, there are limits to how the mind can influence pain, with mental distractions and emotional cues sometimes working temporarily, but not able to endure over long periods of time. The truth is that distraction and emotion can help relieve any problem in the short term, not just pain. A soldier on the front lines can temporarily forget about his divorce or financial problems or gonorrhea - at least while a hand grenade is being lobbed in his direction.
From All in My Head
I have often been told to meditate to learn to control my pain. It doesn’t help.
May 12 2008
Pain Relief
I was thrilled and scared at the same time. I marveled at how everything in life was now so incredibly easy with this relief: returning phone calls, doing errands, cleaning up. I remember stopping in the middle of the aisle at the Jewel grocery store and feeling as if I would float away to the paper goods section because of the ease of my movement.
From All in My Head
May 11 2008
On living with chronic pain and having a social life
If I went out, I was drained. If I canceled plans, I felt detached and guilty. When you’re in pain, hell is other people, and hell is also the absence of other people.
The stark reality is that you basically have to suffer your pain alone and in silence. In the beginning, you can talk about chronic pain to friends, but then it gets old, fast.
From All in My Head
