Guestblogging today - Why am I in pain?

I got the oppotunity to write on the beautiful, most inspiring LeAnns blog today. You can find her at memyselfleanne.com. Let me first of all say that it's an honor, thank you so much! I came in contact with LeAnne through instagram, and let me tell you, she is so inspiring, educating and honest. Just a truly lovely girl!
And here's what I wrote to her blog.


Why am I in pain, is it real?

Many of us who live with chronicall illnesses have probably met all kinds of characters in hospitals (such as doctors and nurses) or/and in healthcare of any other kind (such as physical therapists, lifecoaches etc..). And we all know there is both water and wine in that pot, right?
I don't really know how many times I've heard the words "It's all in your head" - "Try to relax, and you'll feel so much better, have you ever listened to those relaxationcd:s, they're really good" -  "Have you heard of the word psychosomatic?" - "Have you tried working out or just taking walks? Seems like you mostly sit inside, and that it self can cause depression, and depression can give these kinds of physical symptoms" - "Do you want me to remitt you to a psychiatrist?" Yadda yadda.......
Everytime you leave an appointmet with one of those so called educated people (and maybe a prescripiton for some new kind of painkillers) you're a bit... devastated. You feel, once again, that nobody believes you, nobody truly listens to what you say, there's never going to be a change.

The pain is real, the pain can be overwhelming, the pain can prevent you from being able to live the life you should be able to live. It is real. No doubt about that.

Yes. I do however believe in the word psychosomatic. I do believe that you can make yourself worse. I do belive that bad happenings can be manifested in your body as pain and other symptoms. I do believe that a change sometimes is possible. I do believe that we can make ourselfes better too.
Sometimes. Not always. Because everything surely isn't a product of our own minds, no.

I can here only speek for myself, and tell a litte bit of my story. I ask you to remember, that my point of view is just one of many, many opinions. Everybody have (or has had) different lives with different problems and illnesses.

My problems with persistent pain started somewhere around my early teens. I remember as a ten year old, not being able to get out of the bed because my body hurted too much. I rembember my neck being stiff, like molded in concrete, and I remember that everytime this occured I didn't really have a clue on why (unless I hadn't been beaten up again).
Several times at school I fainted, several times my teacher thought it was from low bloodsugar, and yes, sometimes it was. But sometimes it was from pain and overexertion. (As you can read in my blog later on, my childhood was nothing but ordinary and easy, although I didn't realize that back then). This affected me on many levels off course. As a child, I often was a bit affraid to go out and play with the others when I had my days of pain, but when I was painfree, I was a pretty wild kid, much more of a overactive boy than a wellbehaved, cute girl. And of course this led to grownups being convinced that I lied or pretended being in pain on some days.

Pretending to be ill is something that I've heard a whole lot, far too many times. Depending on who's saying it, I get really devastated some times. My own family (here i mostly refer to my mother and sisters) has never believed in my physical problems, although they've seen it every day, and seen what it's doing to me. That has been especially hard on me. Being called a liar, trying to get of the hook, hiding from commitments because of laziness, all that and more, that is most hurtful when the words comes from those living under your roof , and are those you love the most (not to mention you'd do anything for them, even though you don't really have the strength to, although your "no" have been ignored by them far too many times). Not being able to depend on your family when living with illnesses really tears you up, inside and out.

I too have tried to keep up with the rest, doing the same as everyone else, although I didn't have the full strength. Much because I didn't want to look weak, didn't want to be yelled at, beaten, didn't want to be looked down at... For many reasons, I have refused to take my "resting time", the time I really needed to maybe get back a bit on my feet, just because of the opinions of others.
Nobody wants to be looked at as weak, lazy, or someone not to be counted on. So. I grinded my teeth, put my head down and went for it. A lot. For far too long.
What I didn't understand then was that it was my mother who should have cared for me. She should have respected my problems, and helped me. But that was never the case. Being raised like I was, I learned at an early age to not respect my own feelings at all. I learned to push every bit of "weakness" (my mothers words) aside, not caring at all for my self. My "no" was never, ever accepted, not during high fever, not when having my arms in bandages, not when being hospitalized, not ever. And that is very dangerous. Instead I was forced into something most similar to "battlepreparation".

Among the first things I got to learn in therapy as an adult, was that a body always being on this "battlepreparation" is tense 24/7, and it is sooner or later going to crash. It took my body and mind over 30 years to break down, and when I finally hit the famous wall, I hit it hard. Everything in my life litterally came down on me, everything that I've been through so far just caught up with me in what felt as seconds, everything I'd tried to keep a big distance to, everything I'd forgotten about. That...was....hard.
Right then and there I never expected myself to live through it all. I was down, deep down, never saw a light anywhere, never understood how this so called life was ever going to be ok again. When I was at my deepest darkest, I never thought this (being able to write about it from a different angle and level) was going to be possible.
But the life came back to me, if ever so slowly.

Now I understand where some of my bodys problems comes from. The perspective has changed a lot (thank God for that). I've had some really good therapists and physiotherapists along the way to guide, educate and inform me about all this.
Always tense in my case means never relaxed, not physically, nor mentally. This leads to that the muscles in the end are cramping, leaving very little room for my blood to pass through. That leads to (amongst other problems) that my muscles were wasting, dying from loss of blood and lack of oxygene. And due to all this, my levels on adrenaline was shooting so high that my body constantly thought the war was upon us, and reacted, both mentally and physically, after those signals. Me not knowing or understanding this (until the age of 36), not being able to do anything about it, ended up in severe pain, cramps and deep depression for numerous of times, and so the black circle went on an on. Until about four years ago that is.
It took me one year to be able to leave the house without severe anxietyattacs (I really don't remember so much at all from that year). It took me two years to be able to take a walk in the woods and not being terrified of sudden sounds behind me (here I remeber more, I also wrote dairy). It took me three years to finally try to work again (oh, the relief when I finally got my first paycheck and could pay my own bills again...).

The tension and the pain slowly becomes smaller and smaller, but I still have to work on it pretty much every day, but I'll be damned if I'm not getting there eventually.

Off course I sometimes feel that my childhood has been wasted, it could have been lived so differently. On the other hand, I've learned a lot. No, not the learning I would have preffered if being able to choose, but this is my life, can't change the past, can however change my way of looking at it and what to do with all this further on. This is one of the reasons I blog about it, hopefully it can help others with similar lives, hopefully I can make someone see that there is a brighter future ahead if you work hard for it.

This is my first year without me having to take medications on a regular basis. I eventually take painkillers to be able to get some sleep, but far from the amount I ate earlier on.
Yes, I still have fibromyalgia, I still have arthritis. But they are not having me. Not yet...