As many of you know, I’ve had to cope with severe pain on a regular basis for a few years now. It doesn’t get any easier to cope with however it has got easier to “hide” it from others.
What do I mean by this? Well, if there’s one thing that I hate, that’s folk fussing over me. Therefore whenever I’m in public, and am in pain, I try my best not to let others know just how much pain I’m in. This has its plus side as it means I don’t end up with folk fussing over me, however there is obviously a down side to this too – Because others don’t know I’m in pain, they expect me just to get on with things in my usual way without any fuss or problem.
This was brought home to me again last week at work – A couple of weeks ago there were a number of us on a training course, which included an exam on the final day. On that day, one of the other people on the course was in obvious pain due to a sore neck, so folk were sympathising with them not only having to be at work, but also having to sit an exam when in so much pain. Then after getting our exam results (which we all passed!) last week, I was with some others who were commenting on how well they felt the person who was in a lot of pain during our exam, had done to pass the exam because of the pain they were in that day. Some of the comments made included, “it must have been so tough for them that day”.
Yes, it must have been very tough for them that day. However consider this, was everyone else feeling fine and in no pain on the day of the exam? There is only one person that day we can all comment on truthfully, and that is ourselves! Before I go any further I want to say that I am not, or have I ever been, looking for sympathy (particularly as I don’t like people fussing over me), but my pain was particularly bad on several days of that course, including the exam day. All I’m trying to say (probably very badly), is just because someone doen’t look in pain, doesn’t mean they are pain-free.
Why am I saying this? Well I just want to remind you all that just because someone looks ok and doesn’t look in physical pain, doesn’t mean they are pain-free.
Sometimes people think they know us, know what we’re thinking, or what’s going on in our personal life, but the honest truth is that unless we have actually told them these things ourselves, they really don’t know.
We can’t tell by looking at someone what’s on their mind, or going on in their personal life, so why do we think we know how someone is feeling, just by looking at them?
So please don’t just and comment on others situations because of what you see, because what you see may just be what that person want you to see. i.e. A front they put on so no-one sees the pain they are having to cope with on a daily basis.
It gets worse though…when I was originally asked if I wanted to go on the course I was given the outline of the course subject which easily sold the course to me as one I wanted to attend. Then a week before the course our training packs arrived – I opened mine, had a brief read of the covering letter which indicated there was a bit of pre-course reading to do, but due to all the things going on outside of work did no more with this until last weekend…that was when I discovered that there was estimated to be about 16 hours of pre-course reading to do before Monday! Needless to say there was no way I managed to do all this reading, I managed only about half (but I wasn’t the only one).
When Friday arrived I was stressed and just to make my day even more difficult I was in a lot of pain (my usual pain) and despite taking my painkillers since Thursday evening, they hadn’t made any impression on my pain…it was going to be a long and difficult last day on the course…my one consolation during the week has been that I’ve not been the only one who has felt as though they are struggling, although I’m not sure anyone else had been quite as stressed out about it as me, but I may be wrong.
