Friday
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Pain is the body's way of saying : No! Don't do that!
It's super useful evolutionary wise (there are rare people born without the ability to feel pain, and they usually die young), and socially (we have to teach empathy to children: associating either physical pain or emotional pain... Those who don't have that association -to oversimplify- are sociopaths and psychopaths).
So... Academically: Pain is a good thing. Because it hurts, we don't want to feel it. Which is exactly as we're supposed to be.
Which I have to remind myself a lot... Because
- Pain is my #1 trigger
- I'm in constant / chronic pain
(Lovely catch22 there)
My biggest trick / foundation with my particular flavor of PTSD = good pain management.
I've used all kinds of unhealthy things (sex -sex can be healthy, but not the way I was using it-, street drugs, sensory overload, intentional pain to supersede the pain I can't control, violence, adrenaline junkie, becoming a hermit)... All kinds of things that = self destruction and throwing my life away. Where the ONLY focus on my life is avoiding pain.
There's no balance whatsoever.
I'm not always able to follow the middle road. There are times when my pain becomes the sole focus of my life. That's just the way it is. And I go to extremes to meet it. An over active sense of survival. Even when I'm suicidal, it's a sick kind of way of trying to survive.
However, the middle road exists.
Balance exists.
I've had it, in the past, for whole years at a time.
Where my pain and my PTSD is manageable. A small part of my life. A facet. A fraction.
I've lost that balance.
I'm furious (or wracked with guilt), most of the time, that I have.
But when I step back, I know it's a blessing.
To know that balance is possible.
To know that as gutted, torn apart, nonfunctional... As much pain as I may be in today?
It doesn't have to always be that way.
If you haven't had that balance in your life before...
It exists.
Pain can become manageable.
Without running away from it, flushing your life, or self destructing.
It's super useful evolutionary wise (there are rare people born without the ability to feel pain, and they usually die young), and socially (we have to teach empathy to children: associating either physical pain or emotional pain... Those who don't have that association -to oversimplify- are sociopaths and psychopaths).
So... Academically: Pain is a good thing. Because it hurts, we don't want to feel it. Which is exactly as we're supposed to be.
Which I have to remind myself a lot... Because
- Pain is my #1 trigger
- I'm in constant / chronic pain
(Lovely catch22 there)
My biggest trick / foundation with my particular flavor of PTSD = good pain management.
I've used all kinds of unhealthy things (sex -sex can be healthy, but not the way I was using it-, street drugs, sensory overload, intentional pain to supersede the pain I can't control, violence, adrenaline junkie, becoming a hermit)... All kinds of things that = self destruction and throwing my life away. Where the ONLY focus on my life is avoiding pain.
There's no balance whatsoever.
I'm not always able to follow the middle road. There are times when my pain becomes the sole focus of my life. That's just the way it is. And I go to extremes to meet it. An over active sense of survival. Even when I'm suicidal, it's a sick kind of way of trying to survive.
However, the middle road exists.
Balance exists.
I've had it, in the past, for whole years at a time.
Where my pain and my PTSD is manageable. A small part of my life. A facet. A fraction.
I've lost that balance.
I'm furious (or wracked with guilt), most of the time, that I have.
But when I step back, I know it's a blessing.
To know that balance is possible.
To know that as gutted, torn apart, nonfunctional... As much pain as I may be in today?
It doesn't have to always be that way.
If you haven't had that balance in your life before...
It exists.
Pain can become manageable.
Without running away from it, flushing your life, or self destructing.
