The many treatments that are offered to chronic pain patients tend to focus on the physical problem at hand. Perhaps inflammation is the culprit in your daily struggle with pain. Perhaps your nerves and how they function are to blame. Medications are offered based on the symptoms that accompany your pain. Some medications are used to help manage and control the pain. Other medications target the physical mechanism that is causing the pain.
For those who live day to day with chronic pain, the journey to managing their symptoms can often be a frustrating one. The journey becomes particularly frustrating when the trials and treatment do not yield the expected results.
For those awaiting treatment, and for those who have had unsuccessful treatments, hope can become difficult to maintain. The world around someone who lives with chronic pain can begin to crumble. Chronic pain can lead to anxiety, depression and a decrease in self-worth. When hope is lost, the world as we know it changes. We can fail to see the beauty around us while we focus on trying to solve the physical pain. This allows the pain inside to build up.
A therapist can be added to the team of health care professionals who all share in the same common goal of giving you the best quality of life. Some may feel as though nothing else can be done to cure their physical pain once a therapist becomes involved in their care, or as though all intervention has failed and therapy is a last resort. This is not true. While a therapist may not be able to solve your physical pain, they can help to heal the pain that no one else can see. This is the pain that manifests inside of you when your hope is fading and your world is changing before your eyes. By treating your emotional pain while also having your primary care giving work on treating your chronic pain, you are more likely to regain your quality of life.
Many who suffer from chronic pain feel isolated, judged, and misunderstood. Therapy provides a safe place to express your frustrations, your fears, your joys and your sadness without being judged. Sometimes people simply need the opportunity to express what is going on inside of them, and know that whatever they are feeling has value, and they have a right to feel the way they do.
For those living with chronic pain, it can be all too easy to focus on the physical pain while turning a blind eye to the struggle that is happening inside of them. Taking the time to understand your emotional pain is as valuable as treating the physical pain.
Therapy also can work as an educational tool. It provides a platform to which you will have the opportunity to learn and understand how living with pain can have an impact on your mental health as well as your social and family life.
Meditation is something that you can practice at home, on your own time. Meditation can also aid in the emotional healing process. By taking just a few minutes out of your day to sit with yourself, and to better understand yourself as a whole person with chronic pain, you can change your outlook on life. Focusing on your mind can help to better understand your pain and as a result, regain some control over your pain and your body. Remembering that life can still be beautiful even in the presence of pain is the ultimate goal.
Treating the emotional through therapy does not mean you are giving up on healing your body. Rather, it is a way for you to also heal your mind.
