A Journey Through Chronic Pain

I have neglected this blog for some time now mostly just taking a break and taking stock in a lot of things in my life. The physical pain is unchanged. But physical pain is only one part of this life we lead as humans. Emotional pain is a huge component and maybe more significant than any physical pain we feel. Much of it is unavoidable. Much of it is part of how we lead our lives. And those around us share in much of the pain we perceive, physical or emotional. And there are times when we are mired deep in the grip of some sort of pain, physical or emotional and no one sees it. When we keep our feelings close to our chest. Other times, it is out there on our sleeves, for the whole world to see. One way is no better or worse than the other, just different.  Different for me, different for those around me. And I know that from time to time, the emotional pain overwhelms any physical pain imaginable .
Anyone who has known this kind of psychic pain knows that it is the worst. And no amount of any drug can ease it.  It cuts to the core, pulls us into the depths of depression!! And climbing out can be a very slippery slope indeed.  Physical pain can be tempered with drugs, even OTC drugs. Psychic pain does not respond to Advil or Tylenol.  Never has, never will.

As a chronic pain sufferer, I often wonder if something like 100% of those in the same boat suffer with emotional pain and distress. It seems quite universal, yet some times you meet someone who seems so unaffected by the ravages of pain. Someone who embraces it with such grace and grit that it hardly seems an annoyance.  How can that be? How can one person wade through the dregs of depression and the one next to them be floating, flying??  The proverbial $64, 000 question.
Some days I believe that it is all for show in those who eternally have a happy face. That it is what they want people to see, not what is really on the inside. That giving in to the pain, allowing themselves to feel the lows of depression just might be too much to bear.