A Journey Through Chronic Pain

I keep coming back to this whole idea of sharing how I feel with those around me. I have started to make a mental note whenever someone tells me how they are feeling. And this note is intended to register whether or not I feel like I am getting an honest answer!! Guess what?? Not very often do I truly feel like there is a genuine attempt to be “real” about pain.
We all try and ” protect” those we love from our pain. We try and keep how bad we are really feeling bottled-up inside us in a futile attempt to put on a good face. To appear as though nothing is wrong and in many ways, I guess appear to be superhuman! But we aren’t fooling anyone. You can see when someone is hurting, see it in their eyes, hear it in their voice, in the often weary tone that accompanies a day of feeling miserable.

But who are we really fooling? Who are we protecting when we keep things to ourselves?? Is it our own sensibilities that need adjusting? Do we need to in the words of my generation, “let it all hang out”? I don’t know that I can answer that. Dealing with and sharing how we feel is in intensely personal thing. And when you open yourself up completely, whether it is about your pain or something else, then you are vulnerable, open to the world of criticism, advise, fixers, etc who descend upon us when we hurt.