How To Support Someone With Chronic Pain
Chronic pain is one of the products of the modern world . Before these cases were very rare, however now their incidence is increasing. There are those who suffer from it because they have a disease, also chronic. Others, on the other hand, suffer intense and persistent pain for which science cannot find a direct cause. The worst thing is that in all cases, life can become a real hell in which the pain does not go away and the room does not occur either.
Just a few decades ago serious diseases led to relatively rapid deterioration. And people died without remedy. Today, science has various ways of prolonging the life of a seriously ill person. Some diseases have also appeared or worsened, many of them of nervous origin. The result of this is that many people can live many years ill and with a high degree of suffering.
Physical pain is one of the most frequent manifestations in almost all diseases . And some of those pains are very disabling. You can’t abstract yourself. You can’t ignore it. You live to feel those pains or to alleviate them with sedatives so strong that they cut many of the channels you use to communicate with your body and with the outside world. They leave you with the feeling of being, but without being.
This is a tragic situation. Not only for those who suffer from chronic pain, but also for those who accompany them. The pains severely affect the mood and over time generate great changes in the personality. Someone in these conditions sometimes becomes intractable. And those who are by his side, on many occasions, do not know how to proceed to improve the situation of their loved one. Therefore, today we want to help you with some keys.
Become aware of your limitations in the face of the chronic pain of another
If you are next to a person who suffers from chronic pain, it is usual that you begin to develop feelings of guilt. You don’t realize it, but it happens frequently. You see someone suffer and you can only offer them palliative care that doesn’t always work. You are burdened with pain, but you can’t do much about it.
All of this causes him great anguish. Strong feelings of helplessness are experienced. The fantasy that “there is something else you have to do” also often appears. You try something, then something else, but in the end you only manage, at best, to offer temporary relief.
The first thing I tell you is that you try to reduce the feeling of helplessness, withdrawing your strength from those fronts where you have been for a long time and do not produce results. It is important that you inform yourself well about everything you can do and that you are very clear about the limit. Your thing is to do, in the best way, what is within your power. Beyond that, whatever force you use will turn against you just like the ball you throw against a wall does.
Sometimes all you can do is be there, in silence. With this act you communicate that you are by his side and that you are willing to accept his suffering. What you can’t do is take it off. Perhaps it is enough simply that you ask him how you can help him and if it is in your hands, do it. In many cases, for example, the patient would prefer that you spend more time with him, rather than looking for alternatives or working to try to compensate his pain with expensive gifts.
Help yourself first
We cannot give to another what we ourselves do not have. It is about bringing the person who suffers chronic pain to greater well-being. Not otherwise : enter and immerse yourself in the discomfort of the other. So the first responsibility you have is to yourself. And that responsibility consists of being well, the best you can.
This involves acknowledging your own needs. Surely you can give a lot to that person, but there are also countless things that you cannot do for them. Neither you nor anyone. What you can do is strengthen yourself, be firm and improve your life, to, at the same time, improve the life of the other.
In particular, it is important that you learn to safeguard your own spaces. You need to know how to say “no” in certain circumstances. A patient with chronic pain can be very absorbing. He can also try to put his own frustrations on you. That person is facing a very difficult situation and sometimes they will have no escape but blame you, or demand more of you than you can give. All of that is understandable. However, that does not mean that his reproaches are true or that you are as he describes you in his moments of rage.
It will help you a lot to learn to recognize when you need to remove yourself from the situation. With kindness and affection you will be able to make the patient understand that he can also help you, respecting those spaces in which you are not with him. Your own well-being depends on being able to provide healthy and firm help to those in pain. Even if that person denies or tries to infect you with his bad mood, without a doubt your presence and your good disposition are a balm for his life. Remember it.
