Making Injuries Worse-can Anyone Relate?

[Sally sue]

Hi all,

I've been in various for my ankle, tendon damage that the dr can see on the MRI, but i struggle to believe my own pain and issue!

What do you call it when you hurt yourself further after you've already sustained an injury, or take risks with the injury to see if it's still there, or just keep touching it, bugging it, checking to see if it still hurts? I wrote in my journal I thought it might be called "stupidheaditis."

I just DON'T understand!!! Am I just wanting attention? Sympathy? A more definite do-something-about-this issue? Proving its real? I can't stop focusing on my ankle and thinking about it!!!!! Stress? Unhappiness? It hurts like a splinter and so I just keep touching it? The doctor won't believe me? I don't believe me? Sigh :(

I am fighting a compulsion to take the brace off and run around the block or not wear it at all to see if it's really a problem or not!!! But the dr said leave it on until I see him Wednesday ahhhhh!

My mind is spinning, I need to hear someone else thoughts on this...please! Oh, this happens with other injuries, or problems too and I am a bit adhd...

Sally Sue

 

[franciemarnie]

Maybe you are having problems trusting your experience is real. Trusting what others say is real.

Maybe you feel numb and/or not in your body a lot and you understandably want to be able to feel what is real and true or how can you feel alive.

Did people doubt your reality growing up? Perhaps you left your body in or after trauma. Trauma is in the body so we tend to leave it unconsciously and involuntarily though that is distressing too.

 

[Definitely..maybe]

This could be way off but..

Sometimes I feel like my ptsd is so invisible, no one knows I struggle with it unless I tell them, some days I hate that I look perfectly fine. Sometimes for me at least it's a huge relief to be able to point to an obvious injury and people automatically understand that you're struggling, rather than feel like I have to convince people that I'm struggling internally.

I hope you're doing alright besides all that mess! Please don't hurt it further, you don't want to look back in the future and be annoyed that you had stupidheaditis and you ruined your ankle permanently!

 

[fly away home]

All I can say is that you are not alone @Sally sue

I remember being like this as a young child and I am still like this.

Hadn't really even thought about it much but reading what you wrote just brought it all to the fore. Thanks. It's certainly worth thinking about. I know for me it was and still is full of shame so I doubt it's an attention seeking exercise.

 

[Deleted member 19804]

but i struggle to believe my own pain and issue!

This. I have serious trouble taking myself seriously when it comes to my (mental) health. I always feel like I'm exaggerating and that I'm being a wuss. With me, it's probably because I've been raised with the idea that toughness is very important. That, together with trauma and many years of extremely low self-esteem, added up to the way I feel now.

When it comes to your health, take yourself seriously. It's better to visit a doctor a few times too often than not often enough.

 

[Sally sue]

@Snowwhite ya I know it's true, but I was raised to believe that my emotions/pain were not real and I only learned how to stuff them and ignore them...now, I just don't know how :(. And I feel so judged by others, especially doctors.

My T says it makes sense to her, but how does one learn to believe their own experience? Sigh!

I have a doctors appointment tomorrow to figure out what to do about the ankle, and I'm scared...I'm scared that I won't know what to do.

You know what else is weird? If they need to operate, I want/plan to hide it from everyone so they won't think I'm making it up :(! Do other people feel this way???

Thanks to all for sharing your thoughts and support with me, I really appreciate it, hugs!

Sally sue[DOUBLEPOST=1399439882,1399439598][/DOUBLEPOST]@franciemarnie "Maybe you are having problems trusting your experience is real. Trusting what others say is real."

Yes, that's it!!! But how do I learn to trust myself and my experience? It makes me feel like such a failure, and then that feeling makes me mad at myself...ug! It's an ugly spiral.

 

[Mercy]

I need to hear someone else thoughts on this...please! Oh, this happens with other injuries, or problems too and I am a bit adhd...

Some times, it is easier to fuss over a relatively minor incedent( no broken bones) because it keeps you busy and protects you from learning the truth of your trauma. It sounds a bit like the only time someone was tender with you was when you were hurt as a young one. Now this is not attention seeking to me...maybe this ankle stuff just a habit that you can retrain yourself away from. I hope this doesn't feel cruel. I don't mean it like that at all. Do you have some other ways you comfort yourself when you hurt.....a warm bath or hard shower, sitting on your steps, anything that sooths you and gives you comfort. I sleep with a stuffed animal even though I am 64.

 

[xena21]

I think I relate but in a different way. I used it as an extreme version of self injury whenever I got injured. I was injured a lot because I played college sports and was in the military. I broke my leg in college and I used to hammer the cast to make it hurt more after I knew it was broken. In the Marines I had a stress fracture in my hip, and I i would jump rope on that same hip.

I think I wanted to feel the ultimate pain I could get from the injury to make sure it was real. I had endured so much pain in my head as a child and teenager that the physical pain was something palpable I COULD CONTROL. I wanted the control. Maybe you want the control?