Chronic Pain – Are You Ever Truly Free?

The feeling of accomplishment over years of trial and error is strange. I never thought I’d get to this point — feeling good, pain-free, and simply free. Free from the constant aching reminder that I can’t or shouldn’t push too much — that I need to hold back.

I still know that I need to hold back, but I don’t have that never-ending physical ache reminding me that there is no hope — no hope in freedom from pain and moving forward from this chronic injury.

I finally feel like my routine is rewarding me — I do more physical therapy than play outside and have a work schedule that doesn’t beat me into submission. Those two things combined have pushed me toward freedom.

I had lost hope, but I never quit trying.

I kept doing the physical work and pursuing a work schedule conducive to the demands of my health. Even when I saw no reward — it’s been nearly 20 years of perfecting a routine with a shit ton of setbacks, mistakes, and restarting — leading to a fuck ton of hopelessness and helplessness.

Freedom is the reward — not in the sense that I can do whatever I want, whenever I want.

Not freedom from my routine. Just freedom from relentless pain and major modification of everyday life. My activities of daily living are becoming easier. I ask for less help from my husband — like carrying laundry and groceries, driving, cooking, cleaning, bending over to pick up anything.

My independence feels like it’s returning.

I have quit so many things I loved because I couldn’t endure. I used to love long road trips — driving for hours just for an adventure. Progressively, it became difficult just to drive to work and back, go to town for groceries, or drive anywhere on a weekend following a tough week at work. Let alone all the other activities of daily living — making meals, doing laundry, shaving my legs, feeding the dogs — I could go on and on. It had come down to going hardly anywhere without my husband. I needed him to help me like we were already 80 years old.

Being dependent is more exhausting than actually doing things for yourself. It’s an emotional mind fuck. It became necessary over the years. I became trapped. I lost my freedom.

My husband and I established a routine focused on getting me through each day as easily as possible, so work wasn’t impossible, and I could still have some enjoyment in life. We’re still trapped in that routine, but it’s less demanding now. What a relief.

I’m still afraid to let go and lose any ground I’ve gained. But I want to let go.

Asking for accommodations at work is like asking for a million-dollar bonus. It’s a negotiation that exposes your vulnerability. Questions and doubts are raised. You have to defend yourself because no one else can explain for you. No one will protect you either, not even human resources and the legal “protection” of FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act). Once you sign those papers, you might as well say goodbye to your job. You become a burden.

Asking for accommodations costs a lot, often your entire career and dignity. But in the end, it would cost more if you didn’t ask.

Suppose I did all the things independently and worked beyond a capacity I could handle. In that case, I’d lose more independence — that reality is enough to make a person willing to lose their dignity. If I push my limits, I’ll lose the freedom to actually live. I’d do chores and go to work, and live like every other miserable exhausted American on the couch, popping prescriptions just to get by, cooking microwave meals, and feeling useless.

That’s not living. So I keep trying. And I keep accepting and asking for help, despite the cost.

Back and neck pain and dysfunction are like a tsunami crashing down on your entire body and soul. It’s all-encompassing — it’s your entire body screaming at you all the time. It’s not like acutely spraining an ankle or even breaking a bone that heals.

It’s lasting, relentless, and all-consuming.

It’s no wonder so many hard laborers in the coal mines and beyond became addicted to narcotics. They just wanted relief. They wanted to work. They just wanted to feel like they were free. They had limited resources and didn’t understand that there was a better way.

I get it. But I’ve chosen a different route.

My body has felt better than it has in years. This isn’t something I have even been comfortable saying to people — scared of losing that feeling of freedom. After all, it’s only been a few months.

It’s a strange feeling — finally feeling light and young again in body — but not quite in mind. An injury so profound and dictating never really goes away. There’s always a ‘what if.’ I’ve come to terms with a lot of change and acceptance. I have to be cautious and stick to the routine. The routine that has given me freedom — the only freedom I’ll ever have.

Maybe not quite the freedom I wish I could feel — the freedom of completely letting go.

Is it good enough? The alternative is pushing too hard, and living in constant pain, or giving up and living in constant pain. That’s a life I know I can’t endure, even when the ‘pushing too hard’ is how hard a young, fit adult should be able to push.

If you’ve ever thought, this is too much, I can’t keep living this way — there is hope through action. Taking any action that gives you the illusion that things do get better will give you hope.

If you keep taking action, you get past that thought of giving up entirely.

And maybe the illusion becomes a reality.

Some actions will be mistakes, part of the learning process. Some actions will take years, even decades to give results. But action is better than helplessness and hopelessness.

Action is what keeps helplessness and hopelessness from winning. Action is what allows you to truly live.