Learning Compassion Through Pain

How do you find sunshine through the rain?
How do you find smiles through the pain?
When life itself is getting you down
How you do find a way past the frown?
If just getting out of bed is a chore
How can you try to handle much more?

If you, or someone you love, suffers from chronic pain you will understand completely the words I’ve written. Those who have never experienced it may think that chronic pain is like a really bad headache, or a broken bone. They may consider it a temporary intense pain that feels crippling.

Chronic pain is so much more than that. Chronic pain doesn’t just affect you physically. It affects your mental status too. After a while the pain takes over your life. Chronic pain is just that – chronic. Permanent. Never going away. Rest of your life pain. There can be many different causes for it, but all of them have the same results. Chronic pain cripples the suffering person to the point that life in general is hard to face.

One of the hardest things to face with chronic pain if you are afflicted is the knowledge that this pain isn’t going away. In fact, it’s quite likely this pain will only get worse in time. The once independent woman may now rely on canes to walk, or the hand of a friend or loved one. There are certain every-day things that are now impossible for her to do.

Within my personal circle there are a few chronic pain sufferers. I, myself, am afflicted. I have osteoarthritis in the ankles. Getting around on a daily basis is growing harder and harder without help. My cane, which my husband lovingly fashioned for me out of hardwood, is my almost constant companion. Some days are better than others.

I’ve come to deal with the fact that I have to accept this is my life. I’ve been trying different healing methods to “cure” the pain. Stubbornly I insisted that I could find the answer, that THIS wasn’t my life. I was just temporarily suffering with this.

Do you know how long you can lie to yourself and believe it? If you are me, a VERY long time! I’ve been suffering with arthritis since my early twenties. I paid it no mind then. It wasn’t severe enough. I could still walk around, even if I woke up every morning stiff enough I couldn’t walk without a hobble to the bathroom.

It is now twenty years later. What I wouldn’t give for the ability to hobble unassisted to the bathroom when I wake in the morning! What a blessing that would be for me to not have to use the cane for the first hour of the day until I could more easily flex my stiffened ankles.

I look at all people differently now because of how people look at me. I am still stubborn enough I don’t use a motorized shopping cart when I go shopping. My husband holds my hand until we get a cart and then I use the cart to help support me as I walk.

But there are the looks. The glances. Sometimes even the stares of pity from people who watch as I attempt to walk on my own. And I don’t want to be one of those people, because now I understand.

When someone is moving too slowly through a crosswalk it won’t be me honking the horn for them to hurry, because I can remember the last time I was hobbling through a crosswalk feeling guilty for holding up traffic because I have useless ankles. When an older woman is walking too slowly in front of me in the grocery aisle and I can’t get around her, I simply wait it out until we are at the end of the aisle. I’ve been that woman some days.

Instead of being impatient at people who do things more slowly, or more carefully, now I take the time to understand that it might be all they can do just to handle things the way they are doing them. If someone looks like they might need a hand but are too embarrassed to ask, I try to offer one. Because all too often I’ve been in their shoes, needing a hand but not wanting to ask a stranger, afraid to impose.

People are quick to judge. I’ve heard them. Some say I wouldn’t have so much pain if I didn’t eat so much (because I’m overweight) or if I weren’t so lazy. More tactful people are likely to suggest that more frequent exercise will combat this pain. It must be the foods I’m eating. Or why don’t I just take a pill to get rid of the pain.

Diets won’t cure it. Pills won’t ease it. Exercise won’t fix it. Chronic pain is here to stay. The best one can do is live life despite it as best as one can. Find the little pockets of joy in each day and celebrate those, letting them overshadow the moments of pain that knock you down.

And if you know someone who lives with chronic pain, be more supportive. What can you do to help them? How can you make their lives easier? Take it from one who knows … every little bit is appreciated much more than you can imagine.