PAIN, PAIN GO AWAY

Finally! 

A day without outrageous humidity. There was a slight breeze, sunshine and warm,moderate temperatures. It felt so good to turn my face to the sun. It's been a real long time since I've been able to feel the warmth. 

Pain is a constant in my life and I'm fine with that. What I'm not fine with is the fetal position, crying and pain-medications-don't-really-work-but-just-kind-of-take-the-edge-off kind of pain. The pain that I've been in for that last few months. 

Almost every day.

Brings you to your knees kind of pain.

Constant.

There is a truism in all of this. You can't appreciate good days without experiencing the bad ones. It's true, I never realized how grateful I could be for a day like today until the excruciating pain stopped. I'm not naive. I'm not going to believe that this flare is behind me. There are too many symptoms associated with this illness; symptoms that appear without warning out of the blue. I'm also aware that the daily stress I experience can also exacerbate every single one of them.

It's interesting that people think we have a low tolerance for pain. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I can tolerate pain and I tolerate it on a daily basis. The levels make all the difference but the pain is never truly gone. Not to pat myself on the back but it takes a strong person to tolerate the deep down severe aches and pains on a daily basis. Most of the people I've talked to feel the same way. We're not wimps. So it comes down to the difference between pain tolerance and pain thresholds. I have a very low pain threshold but my tolerance is very high. 

Pain tolerance is about the levels of pain that a person can take before breaking down physically or emotionally. 

Pain threshold is the point that the stimulus is perceived as pain. 

What this has also done is set me upon a path of self awareness. There are things maybe I knew and just didn't want to acknowledge and maybe there were issues that I just really didn't know I had but I do know some of those proverbial cans of worms I wish I'd never opened. Pain is pain whether it's emotional or physical and I know this is all about management. I've never been good at the emotional part and it's a daily struggle. There are so many things about myself that I never realized until  I encountered the pain associated with Fibromyalgia.  It gives you time to think about yourself and how you got to this point in your life. Some of it's fun, some of it isn't. Maybe I just had a severe flare and maybe I'm just getting introspective in my old age. 

When you get up in pain and go to sleep in pain it messes with your head. It robs you of your joy and it tries to rob you of your life. It permeates your whole being and wants to engulf you in it's darkness. It likes to remind you that at any given moment it has the capacity to steal your happiness and once again plunge you into the depths of despair. You can't afford to relax and let your guard down because it will try to take you by surprise. Pain will try anything. If it can't beat you physically it will try to beat you emotionally. It's power is to surround you and isolate from your friends and family you so that you have no choice but to live in it's world. It's real easy to take that step.

No one likes pain. I don't like it either but out of the two, I'll take the physical pain. It's tangible and concrete. Emotional pain is subjective and sneaky and I've tried real hard my whole life to keep it at bay. There are too many issues and I'm not in the mood to tackle all of them.  I'm much more comfortable with the physical pain; if that makes any sense. I know there are still things I need to deal with and, truthfully; right now,  I'd just rather keep a lid on it.