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How to Suffer and Love It
Making Chronic Pain, Stress, Anxiety, Fear, Anger, and Depression Your Friend
When you’re visiting a doctor with pain, the doctor asks, “On a scale of 1–10, how’s the pain?”
Had I seen a doctor yesterday, my answer would have been nine at its peak. I’m hurt, and I’m not sure why. But I’m learning from the experience.
I woke up a couple of days ago with pain in my right shoulder. It felt like I had slept on it wrong or as if someone had punched me hard with a big, fat fist of concrete.
Over the next 24 hours, the pain got worse. The next day, yesterday, I was in agony. I tried to work and type and could barely hold myself up. The pain was so bad. My wife heard me moaning as if I could let the pain leak out of my body into the ether.
Pain is my friend. I know it well, especially the Grandfather of pain, Chronic Pain. He’s a real bitch when he’s at his worst. And believe me, I know that dude well.
Most of my chronic pain life-to-date has been in my lower back. When I was a kid, I remember my mom talking about my dad’s lower back pain. It was chronic.
But Dad didn’t talk about his pain much. He was a lover, too kind to let his pain leak on others. He was a classic suppressor and repressor of his pain…
