I vant to suck your energy!
A common misunderstanding about chronic pain is that it only affects the body, a physical ailment that causes pain. The other less understood side of chronic pain is how it affects one’s mental capacity over time. I’m going to illustrate this concept for you with a classic Canadian example.
Imagine being stuck by a mosquito. Annoying, right? But not harmful. A small prick to your skin and some irritation that will go away with time. Now imagine being stuck by a mosquito every few seconds. While you’re not in any immediate danger (assuming there’s no threat of a virus), your brain’s reaction to the miniscule pin prick is to murder the thing that’s trying to drain me! You swat and flick and dodge and hunt the bastards down. If you’re lucky enough to be near shelter, you will likely give up after a short while with a huge sigh of frustration and declare “I’ve had enough!”, then stomp away to your refuge.
While the mosquito was attacking you physically, you ended up breaking down mentally. You didn’t succumb to the cumulative pain of all the mosquito pricks by fainting or crying out in agony. It was your mind that couldn’t handle the onslaught of sensations and, after failing to fight off the attack, it put you on a path to flee (flight) to safety.
Relentless nature of chronic pain
Chronic pain can be incredibly debilitating. I’ve certainly had moments when I couldn’t physically handle the pain and needed to seek out medical help. However, I feel that the it’s the consistency and the relentless nature of the pain that eats away at my ability to cope with it on a daily basis.
The mosquito example is essentially what happened to me last year. I’ve been swatting away at pains for over 18yrs since my car accident until the mental anguish got to be too much and I broke. I just couldn’t fight any longer, so my brain threw in the towel.
Chronic pain is like a child tapping your shoulder trying to get your attention while you’re trying to focus on something else; a task, work, or catching up with friends. There’s only so long that you can ignore it while trying to carry on your conversation before you have to acknowledge the distraction. The goal is to do so with composure, but often it ends up being an abrupt “What do you want from me!?”
Hitting the reset button
As I’m finally giving my body and mind the attention it’s been asking of me all these years, I’m noticing that my limits are much less than I had previously believed. It feels as though someone hit a reset button in my brain which removed all the pain filters and defenses I had built up over the years. Now, with every sensation demanding my attention, it takes very little to drain my mental capacity for the day.
The most reactive sensation for me turns out to not be a physical one, but a mental one: stress. Not all stress is bad stress either, but my body-mind connection can’t seem to tell the difference.
I’ve noticed this most recently while trying to navigate the enormous volume of information regarding disability assistance. On a call with my union representative this week I found myself nodding off during our conversation. Not because it was boring, it was critical information I needed to hear. But, rather, it was because my brain just felt full, heavy, overwhelmed from input. The fog started drifting in and my mind decided that was enough for the day. Thankfully, Josh was also on the call so together we captured the information we needed before I tapped out and retreated to the couch for a nap.
Honouring my new limits
Learning my mental limits has been vital in helping me both in recovery, but also in accepting what my body needs from me right now. It’s not always easy to tap out. As someone who has always been very driven and accomplishment-oriented, honouring my newly-appreciated limits can be downright depressing at times. Especially when it means having to say no to something that I know I love to do. But it does seem to be getting easier with time and practice.
Let’s keep the conversation going. What things drain your energy? Your mental capacity? How do you honor your limits and recharge?
Samantha, your insight into how a person’s tolerance buffer is eroded by constant or constantly intermittent aggravation is so true. While I realize the substantial physical pain has affected you in a profound way, your telling of it makes me think of emotional pain and how it can also culminate in a “thinning effect” on the ability to absorb life’s irritants.
You’re absolutely right Rebecca. Our mental capacity, or capacity to cope, with life’s stressors has it’s limits. Be it from environment, social, work, economic, physical pain, or a combination. I have hope that our culture is learning how to recognize and honour these limits to help people recover faster. The pressure to get back to “doing” again feels enormous, especially from legal/insurance perspectives.