Please Help Stop this Physical and Emotional Pain

Alice, pain is a part of life.  Physical pain is bad but spiritual pain is worse.  Much worse. 

If your doctor said to take a medication, take it.  Tell him about all the other symptoms you have. 

Eventually you and I and your neighbor and everyone else who ever lived find that life ends.  But every day -- no exceptions to that iron law -- we all learn something new. 

It helps to start a log.  Not a diary -- instead, a well kept log.  Go hour by hour or day by day, but keep it as impersonal as you can.  Put the personal stuff in your diary.  That is why you have these records.

In your daily log, put down what time you got up, what hurt, how badly (1-10) what your blood sugar concentration is and how long it took you to get off the pot.  Record all the meds you actually took, when you took them, and the results.

Log what you watch on TV, how long you spent on Yedda, and who sent you email.  Write down all the letters you got, from whom, and a one line summary of what they said.  Log down when you got bills, what you owed, and how you planned to pay them.

Most important, log down when you feel your emotional best during the day, and when you felt your worst.  Relate that to the time you rose and when you planned to go to bed.  Finally, log down what you ate and drank during the day.

Now, once a month, go through that log and mark down the patterns you see in your daily routine.  Chances you will see a daily pattern emerge and secondarily, a monthly pattern. 

That will tell you what to do.  Take good advantage of the good times during the day.  Nap during the bad times.  Et cetera.

That was the way I beat PTSD.  It takes an effort, but it works.

dear,dear Alice, pain is a part of life, that is true; however, i don't think that it needs to make living unbearable.  is there a pain clinic near you? they can work with you on pain management with drugs, meditation, etc.  also, if you do not have a single doctor that is coordinating your care with rheumatologist, psychologist, neuro, etc., i would urge you to find one.  then take all of your meds and sit down with her/him and come up with a plan of action. by the time i did this several years ago, i had an entire bag of meds from various specialists. we even found through further testing that my fibromyalgia is secondary to something else. i am still what i call "whiney" pain wise, but it is much more manageable than it was.  i also understand the depression part...for me, it was that there was never a letup and i did not know how much worse it would get or the ultimate effects and i felt i was letting my family down because i could not wholly participate. please talk to nurses, friends, or persons that you trust to find an advocate for yourself and then allow yourself the time to transition to a more comfortable place. you are, no doubt, perpetuating some of your pain as you are entrenched in a cycle of pain and depression as they feed off of each other.  and if the first doctor does not listen and help you come up with a positive plan, move on to another (as big a pain as that is).  please pardon my lack of capitals as i had surgery on my hand a couple of days ago.  and if you decide to journal, talk to your doctor or counsellor so that you do not find yourself mired in the negative. take care and God bless you. let me know how you are doing.

God grant me the patience to deal with you faithless whiners.  You complain about fibromyalgia?  Depression?  What other minor discomfort you might suffer is small potatoes compared to what you lose by self pity.

"Gird up your loins like a MAN . . .."  Job 38:3.

The worst misery you suffer is that you let it get you down.  Pick up your feet, put them in motion, limber up those frozen joints, motivate yourself to overcome that misery you suffer, and TAKE CHARGE!

If I can overcome 20 bayonet wounds, a La Forte III skull fracture, 250 rads of ionizing radiation, near lethal heavy metal poisoning, rattlesnake bite, anaphylactic shock, assorted gunshot wounds, and a near-fatal stabbing in my home, then what you are going through is nothing!

I had a General Contracting outfit, and ran it well for eighteen years.  Then I completed my Doctorate and went to work in a place I can't tell you about because here, we're defusing the nuclear nightmare you wimps feared for so long and were too gutless to do anything about it!

One reason we have encouraging mottoes like, TELL IT TO THE MARINES is so that you know that someone else has actually done what you consider impossible, and lived to tell the tale!

In short, get over it!  Get out of the house, into the sunshine, tinker in the yard, push yourself to greatness, and don't let any vile contemptible old LOSER tell you that you suffer a condition that forbids you to make the best of yourself and your surroundings!

In short, MOVE IT!

Or we could just be nasty and spew your kind of "help" when someone asks for it. But you know what? Your laundry list of "things I have overcome" was just that...things that could be overcome.  These things have an end to them. They did not start out at the least pain and get worse with no end in sight.  You may have physically pulled yourself up, but you must hurt badly to strike out at someone the way you did.

And I am really curious how you came to decide that Alice does not hold a high power job, work in her yard, give tothose around her,but has no relief from the pain.  I worked through pain until weakness put a stop to it, but I get up every day and take care of my daughter and our home. And I moved every 15 mos to 3 years largely alone.  Point is that neither of us knows her situation and should try yo help her solve the problem she came to this group.

I grew up in a Marine house and married one after that and my observation from living that life is that instead of ever offering compassion, you turn the attention to yourself.  You make it all about you and your accomplishments.  I am happy for you to rise above; however, your anger is not helpful to anyone, least of all someone who opened her broken heart in search for someone to help her have some quality of life. She did not whine about how bad she feels and then finish by asking you to hand her a bon bon.

It baffles me still when I see someone trot out a Bible verse to substantiate views, while ignoring the very root of Christianity.  Maybe something more uplifting in your Bible study. If compassion is hard for you to muster for the sick, don't read things that are offensive to you.  Look for Vets or business questions...something you feel comfortable reading and answering. There really is something here for everyone.  Take care and God bless. P

Purefaith, self pity has cost you too dearly already.  The cost will go up daily until you figure out what self pity has done to you. 

Is that existence of yours a life?  If you let your pain get the better of you, then you will wish that you had done something worthy of the Christian life.

Self pity is the worst evil that ever existed.

Until you get up the gumption to make something better of your life than it is now, then what you go through now will be what you have for all eternity.

What do you take with you but your memories?

If your memories are that you let pain control you, instead of you control it, then that is what you will take with you.  And nothing else.

Alice, there is one question here that needs an answer: do you want to heal or not?

The idea is to get up out of your bed, into the yard, push yourself, and get past all the little miseries that seem to have taken over your life.  If you don't push yourself, demand exellence from yourself, and settle for nothing but the utmost performance from yourself, then you might as well give up.

The thing is, the best is a qualitative statement.  I can't go three miles with a 60 pound pack in 22 minutes anymore.  But I don't let it stop me from getting the exercise I need.  If I just laid back and went frozen -- or my God even worse, gave into self pity -- then I'd probably end my life.

That's the coward's way out, but God knows, it's better than becoming a prisoner.

Are you going to let sympathy seekers turn you into a vegetable?  Is that what you would consider a friend?  Sympathy is like a narcotic: it becomes addictive.  In time, it becomes such a cloying and cripling addiction that you cease being a human entirely.

There are people in this world who are low-down enough to sell you on sympathy, and they are so faithless that they can't tell the harm they are doing you, by turning you into a vegetable.

That isn't faith, lady.  That is the bitterest and coldest form of malignant slavery that ever existed and you know it.

Your friends will help you get past the need for cloying self pity and sympathy.

Your enemies will not, because they don't care about you.  They only care about maintaining their sympathy games.  Sympathy pushers, like drug pushers, make you into a slave.

If you have faith in yourself, you will break those slavechains and start fresh in the new and potent light of freedom.