A lot of eloquent, heartfelt and authoritative words have been written about pain, from every age and every culture on the planet. It takes real chutzpa to think I might be able to add anything to the extensive literature on pain. So let me start this section by telling a blond joke.
A blond went to his doctor and said, "Dr. G., you gotta help me! I've got pain all over my body! I don't know what's causing it and nothing makes it better! I can't sleep from the pain and from worrying about the pain! I'm at my wit's end! You gotta help me!"
Dr. G. knew his patient pretty well, and after sitting down and crossing his arms and legs he said, "Show me."
The blond lifted his trembling right hand to his forehead and touched it with his finger. Immediately, tears sprang to his eyes and he began to whimper. The doctor said, "Again." The blond repeated the same process, this time touching his left shoulder. Again the tears and whimpering, this time with a groan thrown in for good measure.
"One more time," said the doctor. The blond gingerly touched his knee with his finger and almost crumpled to the floor, weeping and gasping, his face white.
The doctor stood up, closed the blond's file and started out of the examination room. "It's very simple, Trey," he said as he walked out the door. "You broke your finger."
Funny but cruel, like most good humor. However, there's a lot of truth to the blond's predicament. We each have different tolerances for pain, as we have different tolerances for everything. When our tolerance is exceeded, things start to pour in and in the flood of sensation you can lose your bearings. I referred earlier to the "screen burn-in" phenomena of chronic pain, and when that pain is diffuse and of unknown origin, the "burn-in" can seem to permeate everything. Every perception becomes filtered through the burned-in lens of pain. Even if it IS only a broken finger, when all your perceptions come in through that avenue, as far as you can tell you have pain everywhere. And for a variety of reasons, it can be hard to develop new avenues of perception, especially when you are under siege by pain.
I have been clinically depressed before, and am familiar with its spiritual and psychological alienation, disorientation and isolation, but this physical pain response is something different. Although it is curious and provocative that anti-depressants are frequently prescribed for sufferers of chronic pain and seem to help somewhat... Still, clinical depression is associated with a lack or deficit (of connection, love, concern, energy, motivation), while the disorientation of chronic diffuse physical pain is due to an excess of sensation -- it's not just white noise, it's white noise amplified until you can't hear or see or feel anything else. Chronic physical pain tends to paralyze you, while depression makes you inert. In other words, chronic pain is an unbearably oppressive yang state, while depression is an unbearably passive yin state.
Yang, being active, has many faces and many personalities, while yin, being passive, is her own unmoving, cold-blooded self. Yin pain (depression) is itself, obviously and inevitably. Yang pain is every pain, and so is difficult to pin down. Do I have a Lyme flare, multiple spinal injuries or a combination of specific exacerbations to existing chronic injuries and dysfunctions? It feels like my right radial biceps tendon is ruptured, my left sacroiliac joint received a serious injury and my thoracic vertebra are all messed up. It also feels like I have polymyalgia rheumatica, or maybe fibromyalgia. My chronically painful knees haven't been anywhere close to right since last July. It feels like I have an aggressive crystalline blood stagnation borne of blood deficiency and exhaustion -- systemic gout, more or less. My hands hurt all the time, but especially in the morning -- I can hardly open jars, turn my car key or hold an acupuncture needle. All in the last 6 months. What I'm saying is: whatever it is, it's more pains than I can process. Maybe it's everything, or maybe it's four or five things and I can't tell the difference.
Fortunately, I am human. I can stop and consider my situation.
I can breathe.
I can get feedback from other people I trust.
Maybe I’ll learn something from my pain and maybe I won’t, but I'll deal with my pain and see you in the morning.
I mean, what else is a blond to do?
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