Tag: pain

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short stories

Calming Pure Anger

If you are one of my readers, I’m sure you have noticed that I haven’t written a post of my own for a couple of weeks. I want to apologize, and I have decided to let you know why. I did get some great guest post writers during this time to make sure that you guys had something to read and learn from. I would like to thank Laura Moseley and Julia Mitchell for their great post, especially during this time. I believe they are both outstanding writers and feel you should go to their websites and see what else they have to offer. I hope to have them both back very soon.

Some of you know that I suffer nerve damage from an accident I had while working in a copper mine in Arizona. This is not an excuse for not writing, however, it has something to do with my absence. Just about everybody understands what nerve damage can do and the pain that goes with it. Things such as burning, losing control of extremities, itching, tightness and swelling to name a few. What those that have never experienced nerve damage don’t understand is the anxiety, depression and anger that come along as though the pain alone isn’t enough.

My anxiety has been through the roof, as of late, but that I handle with medication. The problem that has sidelined me has been pure anger. How can I write an uplifting post for my readers if I can’t even uplift myself? You may ask yourself why the anger? This I will try to explain the best that I can. Those of you in this position understand, but may not be able to find a way out of it. Although, I myself have been having great struggles with anger as of late, I have also been able to finally curtail it, but it has not been easy.

I have always been a person who jumps to get done whatever it is to be done in the safest, yet fastest way possible. I may complain and use some choice words during this time, but I was always working to finish the job, even while using the childish “complain phase”. Furthermore, I’ve done jobs that I hated, but I still got the job done. After becoming disabled, my whole world got turned upside down. All of a sudden, I can no longer jump right in and get the job done. No longer can I do what I want and speed through any situation. I now have to slow down and not do the things I used to be able to do, without major struggles. This alone makes me angry. And yet there is so much more to it.

Some things that I go through, have no explanations, and I will not try to explain to you what I can’t even explain to myself. The focus of this is to explain what I do know. I know that when I lose control of my hand and drop or crush a can of soda, anger is quick to come. I know that when I fall down in front of someone, without an obstacle causing it, first comes embarrassment, but anger is not far behind. The falls I keep to a minimum using a cane, yet even the stick fails me now and then.

So, throughout all my rambling and complaining, am I looking for sympathy? No, I am not! I am getting angry just admitting some of the things that make me angry. Crazy, huh? The only reason I decided to write this is to help others, in the same situation, to know there are others of us, and we need to be open about it and stop allowing the anger to get the best of us. Holding the anger in just multiplies it, however, we don’t want it to come out on others around us. I have found going to be by myself is the best I can do.

There are things like mindfulness that help in these situations, but I have found, I still must be alone for it to work. So alone time is the way to go in my opinion. The only thing to keep in mind, is don’t allow negative thoughts come in while relieving myself of anger. This is what I have been going through as of late. I believe I now have it under control, for the meantime. I am generally a kind person and when the anger hits, it is a shock to my system.

Most people that read this post will have no real idea of what I’m explaining. I would like to tell those people, there are people you know that are dealing with this and if they say to give them some space, time or to leave them alone, please give them this time to refocus. There is very little you can say to help other than you are there for them when needed.

Once again, I want to apologize to my readers for my absence. I will try to get back to my normal writing soon. I also am in the mist of creating a second website, where I have been writing short stories in various genres and will attach it to this website for those that have an interest, once it goes live. Furthermore, I want to thank you for sticking with me during this time, and I hope to bring more followers on board to help C.S.I grow. Take care, my friends, and remember, we are all in this together.

Categories
short stories

Pain dealt with using humor

     A person in pain with no sense of humor is a miserable person indeed. However, a person in pain that has a sense of humor, may still be in pain, but is able to deal with it a lot easier. Is it not true that laughter is the best medicine? Try to laugh (I don’t mean fake laugh, I mean a true laugh) and think about being miserable at the same time. Can’t do it, can you? You are trying to cause two opposite emotions to invade the same place at the same time. So a person who has a great sense of humor has a hard time not laughing at something or someone that is funny, even if he or she is in pain at the time. This in turn will, even if for just a few seconds, will allow the pain to be forgotten. This few seconds are worth a million bucks to someone who lives with pain all the time.

Laughing baby

     As someone who deals with pain on a daily basis, I am always looking for the next laugh. Heck, there are days that a small chuckle would be worth its weight in gold to me. The days that I can’t find something to laugh about are the worst days by far. Now I’m not saying I have a great sense of humor, I’m saying I have a great sense of humor for me. Everyone has a different kind of humor, but we all started out with the same kind. You heard me right, have you ever seen a baby’s first laugh? Anyone who can watch a baby laugh and not smile themselves, has completely forgotten whatever sense of humor they ever possessed. How many baby’s have you known that never laughed? I will await your answer……

Okay, I’m done waiting. We must move on now. So since we all agree that as babies, we have a sense of humor, then where did some of us lose it? Was it a bad childhood, something happened after growing up, or was it trained out of us? That is a question you must answer for yourself. I had a few years that my humor left me, it was the heartbreak of divorce. It took a few years for me to locate it again, and oh, how I missed my old friend (humor). Once I allowed my humor back into my life, my whole life returned to me. Shortly afterwards, the love of my life entered my life, and we have been married now for twenty-two years and still going strong. It was up to me to allow my humor back and because I did, the pain I once went through with heartbreak has now been replaced by the love of my life. Why must I tell you this, easy, because I want to show that it is very possible to regain the humor you may have lost somewhere along your lifespan.

After getting injured during a mining accident, even though it caused a physical pain and not heartbreak, I find my humor helpful. The days that are my worst are the ones without a good laugh. Now I look for ways to laugh every day, regardless how bad the pain is. It works, my friends, it really does!

Lady sitting in chair, with hands on her head, looking very happy.

The whole point of this post is to let you know, pain exist, and it hurts, but humor does help. No matter what you are going through in life, a little laugh now and then can only help. It most definitely won’t hurt. You don’t need to be happy all the time, and humor won’t fix a broken heart or broken bone. It will, however, make the situation a little easier to deal with. I leave you with this final thought, why not take humor for a spin and see if it helps you? Take care my friends and remember to smile, besides it takes more muscles in your face to frown.

When all is lost, you’ve looked amiss

Ever have that feeling that all is lost and there’s nothing you can do to fix said situation? Well, if you haven’t, you either aren’t human or you haven’t done anything at all your whole existence.

How is it that some can jump right back on the horse, yet others can only huddle in a corner, feeling desperation creeping in with every tick of the clock? Where do these people come from that always find the good in all situations? Do these people have some form of supernatural powers, we don’t know about? And if they do, why are they keeping their powers a secret when so many others are struggling? These are questions that even the most level-headed people have asked themselves at some point in their life.

Man sitting on floor with hands on his head showing despair.

If you feel that the whole world is coming down around your ears and cannot see anyway that things can get any worse, I have some sad news. If you are feeling this kind of pain, you are keeping it from getting any better. Hard truths are hard to believe until we want to see things change for the better. Negative thinking brings negative things to come to pass. You must change your thoughts before things can get better! In this post, I will attempt to help you out of your negative world and into a more positive outlook on life. Many people may have tried to help you before without success, this is because you have not been willing to listen or accept what I am going to share with you today.

When you smash your finger, does it hurt more before or after you say ouch? Stupid question, I think not. The way we treat any situation has its own form of therapy to the situation at hand. If we convince ourselves of something, i.g pain, we will feel more of it. I’m not saying it doesn’t hurt, but the way we react to it determines how much we will put up with. This is called human conditioning. From the time we are born until the time we die, we are being conditioned either by the world outside or what is within ourselves. Our body is set up to feel pain, so we know when to remove ourselves from a given situation. If we didn’t feel pain when we touched that hot burner on the stove, we wouldn’t know to remove our hand before the smoke detector told us our hand had just become well done. Pulling away is our body’s way of reacting to what the hand is telling the brain. So we pull away, grasp our hand and head to the sink to run cool water on it. Once the pain eases a little, we inspect our hand then put something on it. This usually consists of maybe some burn ointment and a bandage. But wait, I missed a step. What about the step to yell ouch? This is where our conditioning comes in.

Toddler leaning against her crib, crying.

We are not taught to cry or to grasp our hurt hand. These are natural responses by the body during pain, however we are taught to yell ouch, kick, cuss, scream and run around in circles waving our hurt hand around before doing what is best for us, which in the burn case would be to put cool water on it. How do we learn these other things? By watching the grown-ups reaction when they get hurt or see their child get hurt. This usually starts between nine and eighteen months old. I know that you don’t believe me right now, but just give me a little more time to change your mind. When a child first starts walking, what is the number one thing that’s going to happen? If you said, they will fall down, then you are absolutely correct! What is the second thing that happens? If you said the child will cry, you have maybe mistaken.

Ninety percent of the time, the child will first look around to see if Mom’s watching. If the child doesn’t see Mom, more than likely the child will just get back up and try the walking thing again without the slightest tear being squeezed out. If the Mother runs to her baby, picks him or her up, the waterworks and screaming will begin. Most parents learn this by the time the second child comes along. With the first child it’s run and pick up the child, with the second it’s turn your back before the child sees you looking. You may want to run over, but you have learned the fine art of parenting. This is why the second child is tougher than the first. Let me insert a sentence here now before J get lynched. I’m Not saying to not take care of your child. I’m saying to learn when the child is hurt or when the child just got a bump on the rump by the six-inch drop to the bum. And of course, your precious little toddler has three inches already taken care of by the huge diaper padding he or she has covered that little bum. All you first time parents calm down and before torching my house, read on, and you may learn something. You can get mad all you want, but when that second child comes around, make sure to write me. You can tell me you didn’t change anything raising the second child after you raised your first little bundle of joy.

I guess you noticed by now how I jumped from having the world falling down as an adult to a small bump on the rump of your toddler. Believe it or not, this is not because I’ve been drinking. This is how this post is supposed to be written. I wanted to take you to a place and a time when we wanted to help the little one, to the time when we learned to hold our breath and not run to the child. Now we will get back to the time where your world is falling down around your ears as an adult.

As adults, we have more responsibilities and have already been conditioned all our lives how to react to pain. This is not just for physical pain, but mental pain as well. Once again, I must insert a small sentence here. I am Not saying that people with mental health problems are because of conditioning! I am only talking about people in perfect mental health and causing things to be worse than need be. Furthermore, I don’t need you highly educated doctors giving me the “What to be and Where for’s” about it. Taking us way back to the beginning of the post, there are people that tend to breeze right through the struggle in life. Do they have superpowers and if so, why don’t they share their secret with us? I am now going to answer that question for you. Are you ready? Do you really want to know? Okay, here goes nothing and yet everything in one simple step. Their superpower is within their own minds. They have decided to think positive instead of following the negative worldly conditioning.

Woman with hands on her shoulders, smiling with great pleasure

These people will succeed in the hardest of times because they refuse to let the conditioning control them. It’s as simple as that. I applaud these people for standing on their own two feet, getting done what needs to be done, and refusing to run around waving that burnt hand yelling “Ouch, ouch, ouch!” This goes for their mental state as well. I challenge you to tell one of these people that they can’t do something! Then stand back and watch them figure out a way to accomplish it. These people won’t be poor, or if they are now, they won’t be for long. These people have decided to live above the conditioning. I say bravo!!!

As always, I welcome all comments. I do monitor them, but only to keep this a family oriented blog. As long as you don’t use cuss words or get off-topic, your comment will be posted for all to read. If you want to cuss and or get off-topic, please email me and I will get back to you that way. I want to wish each one of you God’s blessings. Take care, my friends, and don’t forget to sign up for my emails. Might as well, it’s free!!!

Not writer’s block, it’s writer’s pain

      I have to admit, this has not been one of my best weeks. In fact, it probably ranks in the lower half of all weeks that I have lived through. I started writing a few years after a work injury ended my career in mining. Along with helping keep my mind busy, I found that I was also helping others along the way with my thoughts and experiences put in print. Having nerve damage can be very painful at times. Even after years of dealing with this up and down pain and learning to handle what comes with it, there are days and sometimes weeks that are just too much to function with, let alone have the peace of mind to concentrate and write. This has been the case this week, no matter how many times I sat down to write this week’s post, I just couldn’t get started, let alone finish. Don’t get me wrong, I have many post in my head just waiting to come out and share with you, I just couldn’t sit still and concentrate long enough to get it done.

     The problem this week has nothing to do with writer’s block, more like writer’s pain that has been holding me back. I’m not the kind of writer who can create a lot of material and stockpile it for a later date to publish. I am the type that has to write at that moment of inspiration. It is true, I have a few posts started with the possibility of continuing at a later date. In these unfinished posts, none are more than two paragraphs long. I guess you could call them ideas more than posts. These will sit by the wayside until inspiration hits, and I can finish them. Some of these posts will never make it any farther than they are right now. I took some time this week and looked these over, with not even a hint of inspiration to grasp hold of. This is not to say that I couldn’t finish them as we speak, but they would not have the heart and soul I like to poor into my stories. If I ever finish a post without a small trickle of sweat on my brow, I know I haven’t put enough of myself into it yet.

A picture of a starry night with a quote by Billy Scaggs "Why look to the darkness of night when looking at the stars show the light?"
I’m reminded of what I was told about not seeing my inspiration. Thanks Doc

     Today, a very wise man (one of my doctors) suggested I write about how I have felt this week and be true to my word about it. He said that inspiration has been with me all week, I just wasn’t paying attention. I never realized pain could be a form of inspiration, especially someone who deals with it day-to-day.

     After starting this blog to help myself, a little over a year now, I have come to write more for your benefit than mine. This has done more good for me than it did when I started, I now have a reason to write other than keeping my mind busy. I now feel I’m maybe helping others who take a few minutes to read my posts. I feel almost selfish writing this post because I keep thinking, in some way, I am letting you down not posting my normal stuff. At this point, I’m not even sure that I will even publish this.

     I have never and will never believe the pain I go through is in any way worse than someone else’s. There are multitudes of people that are much worse off than I am. I can only write about what I know and let the others tell their own stories. I do, however, share a bond with others suffering from nerve damage. My sciatic nerve was damaged and there are many times I have parts of the left side of my body go numb, itch, ache and worse of all is the burning sensations that come to me. Real bad weeks like this one is when all of these symptoms come on at once and includes not just parts, but the whole left side of my body. When this happens, my normal insomnia becomes super insomnia, which, of course, stacks pain on top of pain without rest to break it up. Alas, here is where the problem of writing becomes huge, or as I like to call it, writer’s pain.

     The more I think about it, I’m becoming convinced that maybe, just maybe, there is someone out there that may get some good out of this post. If this is true and not just me over thinking, I would do that person an injustice by keeping this from being published. As long as I find this to be true and as long as I don’t convince myself otherwise, I will publish this as soon as I finish writing. I want to let others who deal with nerve damage know, I understand. I know how it feels when a slight change in temperature, change in barometric pressure or even a slight breeze can set off the pain in your body. This is no carnival ride, for sure. I guess the worst part about it is when people can’t see your injury, they sometimes don’t believe how you can possibly be hurt. If you’re not wearing a cast, you must be faking. Then comes the time when you find someone else who is suffering from the same thing, and you realize, “Hmm, I’m not crazy after all!” Just because an injury cannot be seen from the outside, doesn’t mean it’s not very real on the inside.

The last paragraph is for those who have nerve damage. Those who don’t share in this infliction, have no idea how it truly affects you. We, who do, learn to hide it the best we can for those who don’t.

I guess I should wrap this up now. Once I got started writing, it was hard to stop because while writing, the pain seems to disappear or at least, I don’t notice it quite so much. Thank you for allowing me to get away from my normal writing this week while I get my body to calm down. I will be posting again next week, going back to my normal writing. Take care, God bless and as always Remember, we are all in this together.

Your choice – cause pain or blessing

Every choice we make through life will leave ripples throughout the rest of our lives. We can make up for mistakes but there will be some sort of ripple like dropping a stone in water. Using this same prospective with good things we choose, once again there is a ripple effect that will spread. With these so called “ripples“, there is cause and effect to others around you. Others will fall within these ripples of your life choices. So not only are you affecting your own destiny, you are in turn, causing changes in other destiny’s as well. The sooner that you come to this conclusion, the sooner you can change the outcome of not only yourself but many of those around you.

Splash in green water making ripples

Most people look at these things as affecting your immediate family but that is just the tip of the iceberg. If you make a decision to drive your car while under the influence of drugs or alcohol and wreck into a store front, you have just changed the lives of several people. One event of your own choosing can and will cause the ripples to spread, not only to the ones who happen to be at the store but to their families, the store owner, the stock holders, the police and fire departments and the list goes on and on. Now this maybe a drastic way of explaining the bad but it gets my point across.

Let’s take a look at the good that can be spread. If you help someone in need, whether it be with cash, food, clothing or a roof over their head, you have started a good set of ripples. Not only have you helped this person in need but others have probably witnessed your kindness. This will not only help the one you helped but the ones that seen this as well. All of the sudden these witnesses will want to help someone too. This is because, whether we want to believe it or not, people tend to follow other people’s lead. A kind heart will help others find kindness in their own hearts. And, of course, the person that you helped will want to help someone in need somewhere down the line.

I said earlier in this post that the choices we make in life will affect the rest of our lives. I stand by this, now let me explain why. Once you choose to do good or bad, it is done. As of yet, we don’t have a time machine to go back and undo what has been done. All we can do is learn from these things and decide whether we want to continue doing the same things. History is History and cannot be undone but we can learn from it and take a different path if we choose to. Key word here is “Choose“. We must make an effort if we want a different outcome next time around.

The question you must ask yourself is; what kind of ripples do you want to be known for? It doesn’t take any great feat to change the lives of others. One simple choice can cause a world of hurt or a world of blessings. The good news is, we have the ability to choose a different course of action! We may have caused ourselves and others pain but we can choose to change and hope for forgiveness from those we have hurt. On the other side of that, if you have been hurt by someone’s actions, will you hold a grudge or forgive them? One piece of advice I will give you, holding a grudge will do nothing good for you but forgiveness will free your soul. Take care my friends and Remember, we are all in this together.

Pain is inevitable, misery is an option

I believe the title to this post says it all in a short and sweet manner. I will explain further what this means.

Lady rubbing her shoulder because of pain

When we are put on this earth, we live by alot of the earth’s rules. One of these rules is we will experience pain in life while we are here. This pain will come in different forms and affect us in different ways. There will be the physical pain which can be as simple as a thorn in a finger or can be as major as losing a leg. Either way, the pain will exist.

We can experience pain mentally from being bullied or a broken heart from losing that person that you love so much. These are examples of the first part of the title. The second part is the most important.

When we experience these so called pains in our lives, how do we react afterwards? Sure stepping on that Lego hurts but did you allow it to destroy the rest of your day? Maybe within a few minutes that pain goes away and you forget it ever happened.

Lady crying on her bed because of breakup

The mental pain is usually the worst kind of pain. Did the love of your life find someone new? Did that bully do something so bad that you are walking in fear? How did you react after these pains? Are you going to allow them to control the rest of your life?

Are you going to allow any kind of pain to turn into misery for you? This is when pain is at its worst but you can decide how far you will allow pain to go. Don’t allow these pains to turn into making you miserable. When it seems like all is falling out of control and you are allowing these pains to turn into misery, just think, there is someone that is going though the same thing as you. There are also others going through worse situations then you are at this point. The difference is how we pick ourselves up, put the pieces together and continue on. This is where the second part of the title falls.

The winners in this are the ones that make up their minds not to allow these pains to manifest themselves into misery. The ones that allow misery to take over are the losers. Do you want to be on the winning or losing side? This is completely up to you.

We all go through pain, both physically and mentally. You are not alone! Sometime, somewhere, there is or has been someone who has had the pain you are experiencing. Some will or have allowed misery to take over, others have refused to let misery in and have made it through with their head held high and much wiser for the experience. Don’t allow misery into your life, it’s a cancer you don’t need and it is up to you to stop it before it takes hold.

Lady's silhouette showing joy

As we learn from our mistakes, we can also learn from our pain. Keep misery out of your life and stay on the positive side of things. Take care and Remember, we are all in this together.