Time passes, days go by

It was, and is, my intent to do a posting at the very least once a week. I was working on a post right after my last one, and then I got the idea for a different posting to do instead, and then my life sort of came apart at the seams. But here I am, back for more and as it turns out that is the perfect lead in to my next post.

Sometimes with chronic pain and the medications that go with that diagnosis, marking the passage of time is a difficult thing. Your sense of time can become very skewed, which can be monumentally frustrating. It's even worse when you subject another to your lack of chronological capacity.

A couple of weeks ago, a fellow chronic pain sufferer sent me an e-mail. Four days later, I received another message from her. She said she had mailed me A COUPLE MONTHS AGO and thought she should maybe check in on me since she had not heard back from me. I actually had to go LOOK to see when she HAD mailed me. I was honestly afraid I had just lost two months, and was perfectly willing to believe it was true.

Because it has happened.

This can be a difficult thing to discuss with family and friends. Some may not believe you. Some may not understand the full extent of it. Some might not understand at all. The key is to try to be as patient with them as you hope they will be with you. You may have to explain it to them several times. You may have to explain it to them every time it becomes an issue. Frankly, some of them may just give up on you "until you're better". We all know that may or may not happen, depending on your diagnosis, but we all hope for the best.

The real problem occurs sometimes when a friend or loved one waits for you to realize it's been awhile since you've spoken. It may have been weeks and it only feels like days to you. Sometimes it's only been days and it feels like weeks and you end up smothering them. Now more than ever, you need people to be patient with you and you need to make sure you convey this.

In the end, all you can do is try to help them understand and hope for the best. It is not your fault, try not to get bogged down in guilt because that only makes it worse. Do your best, leave yourself reminders, keep a calendar, if you have a PDA make note of what you did and when, keep a journal and look it over often. Do your best to keep up, but don't knock yourself out when you slip up, because you will. If your friends and family are not willing to do their part and reach out to you if they haven't heard from you for a bit, then you need to realize that is out of your control.

I am sure this won't be the last I post on this topic. It's a life-altering one and the impact on a chronic pain sufferer's life is massive.

Declaration of Intent (Or "Hello and welcome to my corner of the world")

I started this blog as a place to talk, but I do not always know what to say. I had an ugly falling out with one who was a friend and I have not posted since.

Maybe I haven't written because I had been hurt so badly. Maybe because I was afraid to open up.

Since then, I have been mulling over the possibility of re-creating this blog as a place to talk about Chronic Pain and the effects of taking pain medications for long periods of time.

I feel as though if more people had known how to deal with what I am going through, it might not have been such a catalyst for isolation and disaster. And if I had known all that went with it, I would have been better prepared for what came to pass. Or so I would like to think.

One of the worst feelings is to feel that you are the only one, you are alone, nobody understands and nobody is trying. I attended an intensive pain management program and that was when I learned firsthand that there are others out there struggling too, and that was very cathartic for me. That momentary sense of connection, of knowing I was not alone in this and there are others who do understand. If I can give that to even one person, then I would feel I have partly succeeded here. The other part would be to help the reader realize that some of the people around you are doing the best they can, to the best of their ability, to understand and to help.

It is important to remember that the ones who really care about you will do the best they can, but sometimes people don't even begin to know where to look for information or help. They might not associate the term "Chronic Pain" with what a loved one is going through. The person suffering might not think "Chronic Pain" either when they think of what is happening to them.

Regardless of availability of information, some will choose to leave your life. Some people are not equipped to help you through this. Some people are inherently selfish. Whatever the reason, you need to take care of you, and you need to remember: no matter how bad the depression gets there are those who do understand what you are going through, and there are friends and family who will be there for you no matter what. Sometimes it takes a crisis to find out who your support structure is.