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← Return to Pain and Loss of Self Worth
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Hello @labgirl, @ellymayhem, @jlf2 and all who participate in this delicate discussion. I join you in the journey of rediscovering, reimagining and relearning to find self-worth. No matter the age, change is an inevitable part of life. For me, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) helped teach valuable ways of reshaping my outlook and mindset. When you think of loss of any kind, mourning is a process of healing. After allowing space and grace to mourn, the choices are - stay stuck feeling sorry, sad and lost, or strategize, problem solve, think outside of the box, like @jenatsky is suggesting for @sisenberg, and make the most of the cards you were dealt. This task is the harder of the two but most rewarding. Using resources, asking for help, delegating are some ways to strategize.
Rehabilitation of any kind whether it be emotionally, physically or behaviorally (or in my case all 3) takes courage. Dr. Sletten of Mayo's Pain Rehabilitation Center says:
Rehabilitation = "Courage with the acceptance of doing things differently."
@mguspixi25 shares how days may look different - some better, some worse, but refuses to be defined by the more challenging days. Some tools I find helpful are not comparing to the next person let alone our previous selves, exchanging negative thoughts for positive thoughts aka positive self-talk, and giving myself the same sound advice that I would give someone else I was trying to help. We are not often kind enough to ourselves.
Some folks on Connect have used the Curable app to help guide them through obstacles and challenges of chronic pain. Here's more about Curable:
- https://www.curablehealth.com/clara
Curable uses a biopsychosocial approach and addresses pain from multiple angles, similar to Mayo's Pain Rehabilitation Center (PRC):
Its not easy to look at life that doesn't look like you once imagined it would. I join you in it always being a work in progress. I'm wondering if you might consider a multi-discipline approach like Curable or a pain rehab center like Mayo PRC?
Replies to "Hello @labgirl, @ellymayhem, @jlf2 and all who participate in this delicate discussion. I join you in..."
I have done CBT and also benefitted from the Lin health app for chronic pain. I had an excellent coach via telemed.
I am interested in Mayo pain /CRPS REHAB. How do I apply or get info?
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Hi @rwinney, I would never engage with a pain clinic again; the repeated attempts have done more damage and zero help. Simply because, pain itself is not my problem; I have been dealing with extreme pain throughout my life (from birth, actually, where I was broken -bones - and dislocated to be removed while stuck during a home birth process due to my mother being trapped in by snow and unable to reach medical help..I survived), so I am very accustomed to the sensation and emotional distress of pain - this is not my issue. The issues I have are due to the loss of function in my body as a result from damage - this is why I have difficulty with my body (because it can’t do what I want it to do anymore) and my brain (which can’t do what it used to do anymore -I was a tertiary education teacher).
Like when someone has lost permanent function in a part of their body, forcing them to go through either the disconnectedness of trying to move that part and it just doesn’t, causing distress and making them waste their time in doing so for the sake of everyone else satisfying their curiosity because they did not previously believe (which is intensely demoralising), or forcing them to engage in mental reformatting like with various psychological programming exercises, can be harmful.
I have received harm from both of these types of ‘treatments’ being forced to participate, knowing they would not help me because their foundation is based on addressing pain and where pain is not my problem (*permanent, unchangeable* loss of function is), then I am directly unwilling to be further harmed by rigid formats that feel like brainwashing while totally not addressing what I need.
And I don’t believe in AI being an appropriate medium to individually address each person - I believe only a person can individually address each person (thus, an AI formatted program designed to exclude the personal approach between humans is not for me).
I have lived through periods of cult-like indoctrination, and AI has the same sense to it, and something I don’t want to sense again. So do psychology formats designed to convince someone to follow a pattern of thoughts, behaviours, and actions, because they do not address many other thoughts, relationships, and components of a person.
Thanks for the mention and paraphrase of your understanding of my previous comment, however please I kindly ask that I am left out of comments that are bringing in recommendations, therapies, and clinical tools that I do not align with. Thank you.
And just to be transparent (removing the possibility of assumption), I am very happy with who I am, what I have learned in life, the help that I am able to provide to myself and others on various levels (from national systemic levels to the personal one on one level), and I get by independently, while being significantly different from my previous level of function and ability. I am happy in my heart, living with lots of peace and harmony within myself. Just because I may have times I am distressed doesn’t in any way require me to be modified by interventions when I am living successfully in all the ways I define (keeping in mind, living successfully is totally up to the individual to define, not anyone else). And I choose to live in the reality that all the bad and the good things that have happened to me is what shapes me; there is no way I would want to diminish or forget any of them using an intervention. Happy isn’t not feeling pain, or not living with hardship. Happy and content is being ok despite what you’re going through, and that’s good enough for me without the add-ons of interventions like mentioned above.