Pain and Pleasure, Heaven and Hell

Many of you have probably found out that pain could be divided into two kinds of it. It’s mental and physical pain. Both of them are not to be wished for. There’s one thing I’m not sure about, namely what’s the opposite of pain, relief from it or just simple pleasure? There’s a catch as pleasure is very personal and subjective feeling, however I think we could agree that there are things or some aspects in our life that bring pleasure, joy and happiness.
Mental Pain:
First of all is to mention those individuals who just don’t understand what living with chronic pain is. It could be very frustrating if we meet such a people working for doctors or being doctors. I’m sure there are times when you just want to draw a picture or find some other, better way to tell those people what your life is truly about. It might be easier to live if they really understood what you deal with. I’m just guessing it might and I’m not sure, but there are numbers of times when I just want to hit somebody in the head and shout THINK YOU @#%#$@!
The worst thing for me is to deal with people who think they know what’s best for me or they give me some ‘wonderful’ solutions. I hate that, and sometimes probably them as well. I’m a grown up girl and I can do my own choices and decisions. Do not even try to assume you know how I feel, it’s a lot simple to ask me. I come up with several opinions about how I feel, what I am able to do and what is simply out of my reach. Don’t treat me like a child or an idiot, I found it several years ago, when my 50 hit, that young people tend to treat older people like they do not understand a thing! What the heck? It’s nothing pleasant! There was one day after meeting with young woman at the video store, I get into my car and look into the rearview mirror wondering if I look stupider when I’m getting older and older? Geez, I really hope not.
There are some little things during the day that really irritates me, the most when I’m not feeling well. In my opinion the very first place belongs to the unsolicited phone calls that get me out of the bathroom or tub just to find out that it is some poor guy who has to offer me lower interest rate; cable TV, switching to another phone provider, insurance or actually anything I don’t care about. I don’t know what’s the deal with those ‘do not call lists’, they just seem not working at all for us and probably for anyone. Another thing are surveys, ohhh how I hate them, sometimes I just feel I need to scream or shout or just simply with calm voice tell them where they could put their survey. What’s the worst thing is that they call you back again if you simply hang up, putting the number they tell me to put to be out of their list is just not worth doing as it never work. My ‘favorite’ one is that which keep saying “this is your absolutely last chance…” for at least two years. Sometimes when I feel that I just talk to these recordings saying things like, “oh no, are you serious?” or “What’s wrong with you people??!!” Well… maybe it will be enough for now such negative thoughts and let’s go to the ‘pleasure’ section of this post, shall we? Ok then.
Pleasure:
There are days that look so overwhelming, I think almost every one of us comes up with special coping skills that help with finding pleasure and happiness. For me, I need some creative expression to function. I know there is plenty of things that give you pleasure and make you happy, after several years I found out that we, people who live with chronic pain are moving towards beauty of the world, visual and audible. There are people among us that love gardening and love colorful flowers and plants. Even if gardening is out of our reach we are looking for some flowers in pots to be growing in home. We just look for life in different forms that could be found in our closest environment.
Those of us who are lucky to be parents, grandparents find joy in the children we love and we are happy to play with them. Some of us, including me, are trying their best in the poetry or prose, letters or blogs. A lot of us pain very beautiful images, others quilt wonderful shapes or become creative in different way.
A lot of us love music and sound. We listen and try to play or sing. To be honest, it does not matter if we are great or we seem to be not talented. If we simply fool around trying sing or play on lame plastic keyboard it’s great every time it makes us happy. I cannot explain what I feel about music, there’s something very unique in it that lifts you form the place you are and takes you to the wonderful journey wherever it wants. Helen Keller said, “The best and the most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart” and it’s the most wonderful sentence to say, thank you Helen.

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