Pain as a part of the human experience

I am diverting a little bit from the proposed topic I had originally thought about doing. I was inspired this morning because I was having a bad pain episode. I thought I would write a thoughtful post about the experience of pain, both physically and mentally. Pain is a universal experience. I know everyone has experienced pain at some point in their life. On multiple occasions, I’m sure. Pain can come in many different forms: Physical, emotional, mental. All are very unfortunate experiences, but to be honest, it is a part of the human experience. I have Cerebral Palsy as most if not all of you know. I have always experienced pain because of my disability. In case you are not aware, when you have CP, your muscles contract 24/7. As you can imagine, this can cause a “squeezing” sort of pain, and it can also cause your legs to tremble. The trembling does not cause pain. In ALL people who are effected, but it has always been a little tender to me. This is a pretty normal happening for me to be honest. Even though, it does make me wince, I am used to it. I do not make a tremendous deal out of it. I learned to just keep going despite the little annoyances. When I was younger, of course, it took a lot less endurance for me to get around. I honestly think being young was the reason I could keep chugging along as normal. I never thought much of it because I had an innate understanding that this was common among my disabled population. I did my absolute best to live a normal life despite the challenges I had to endure. It had become second nature to have to work harder than most. I had grown accustomed to thinking about the simplest things. Let me clarify what I mean by that: If you are able bodied, you do not have to think about taking a step. For you all, it is at natural as breathing. However, when you have Cerebral Palsy in particular, you have to really think about taking a step. CP is a central nervous system disability so it tends to take a little longer for the messages to travel from the spinal cord to brain. Of course, this is what I had always known. I had no different experience so to me this was normal. As I got to be around 17, that is when the fatigue from my disability and the pain from the contracting muscles kicked in. This is essentially because as a person with CP, we tend to expend 3 to 5 times more energy than an “able bodied” person when moving around. This can lead to extreme amounts of exhaustion. The exhaustion can also be linked to the fact that I was a high school student who was under tremendous amounts of stress and depression. As time went on and I reached college age, I had gotten used to the feeling of being tired all of the time. Of course, this was a big annoyance. The amount of sleep I got each night did not even matter. No matter what, I would just have to deal with the fatigue while working hard to make excellent grades and function as a normal college student. Even though this was a rather difficult hurdle, I accomplished my overall goal of obtaining a degree in my desired major of social work. It wasn’t until 2015 when my pain became a lot worse and became chronic. Yes, the pain is there each day, but some days are better than others. It is a very unpredictable beast. I have had to rely on medicines to help me function so that I don’t have to suffer quite as much. Some days, the pain is bearable and other days, it forces me to have to take extra rest and just take it a little bit easier. This is one of the huge reasons why I cannot hold a job. I cannot predict when the pain will bring me down. On the days when it is extreme, I can only describe the feeling of having the flu ache in my muscles and joints excluding the barfing portion of the flu. I will be honest it is miserable and very frustrating, but it is a part of my life now. I just have to come to terms with it. In addition to having spastic quadriplegic Cerebral Palsy, I also have acquired arthritis of the hip and hip dislocation or hip dysplasia. My hip is flat instead of rounded and it is out of its socket. I have developed arthritis in the socket and this can cause an inordinate amount of pain. I have been living with this pain for 2 years now. Sometimes, it can become way too much to bare. I cry and scream out in frustration, but after I get my breakdown over with, I usually feel much better. I like to call it an emotional release. Dealing with chronic pain has hurt my spirit. I try my best to not let it consume me, but it is hard. I can no longer kick my legs so I can no longer participate in swimming like I used to enjoy. I am limited now more so than before. This is just a fact I have come to accept. I refuse to let it drown me into a pity party. My strength has always been a huge asset for me. It has never abandoned me and I have needed to rely on it now more than ever. I am stronger than most and I refuse to give up. I’m a stubborn partner for the devil on my shoulder, but I’ll be dammed if it is not worth it! I have a lot of life left to explore, and I am looking forward to it. I cannot wait to see where my journey with writing and expressing myself will take me. Chronic pain will not prevent me from living my life! I will not let it because at the end of the day, your life is a gift to be treasured!