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A brief look inside a disabled person's struggle to find meaning in life. |
Who am I now? I am a physically, psychologically disabled mature homemaker. Before falling off the face of the planet, I had two degrees, and a good start on a career that, for me, was both inspirational and challenging. I became a chronic pain victim not through fault but strictly due to chance and fate. It could have been you, or someone you love, or my colleague. It was not. This cute little old woman driver, who had lost the ability to gage traffic, drove head on into my vehicle. I could not know it then, but within a few years any semblance to that university educated “smart” professional would be gone. Chronic pain eats slowly at both body and mind: sadly, it also devours souls and relationships as well. Today I have learned to pray for “pain free” hours, and my world is encompassed and determined by how I feel, or how high my pain index has become. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have a husband, whom I love, who has stood by me for these many years. Realistically, I can no longer meet most of his needs; though, with his eyes, he'll appeal for me to keep trying. Due to my inability to work, for the past ten years he has been gone more than he's home. This is another price my family has paid to chronic pain: he must be the breadwinner. My two sons are almost grown, though I remember, in the beginning, how they looked when I would tell them we could not go swimming, or walk to the park. They have never blamed me, but the scars are there if anyone were to look closely. Soon, they will start their own lives, while this scares me, I pray for only happiness to touch their lives. As for me, my needs are drowned by pain, narcotics, and low self-worth. I don't believe in the future anymore, and this has made the depression, commonly found in chronic pain patients, deepen within me. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So, who are we now? If you are a victim of pain – be it physical, psychological, or Spiritual, who have you become? Do you recognize yourself? I am no sage, certainly no hero and have no great wisdom to give. Yet I do believe that change can only occur from within us....... for no one else has walked such a hellish journey – therefore, no one else can understand or alter our knowledge, our strengths, and our weaknesses. Start today, this hour – of so many hours spent in pain look to your inner self: the persona you project to the world. What is there that you Like about this person you've been forced by pain, to evolve into? What has been taken away or lost from your life? Can you find, within, the ability to admire your courage in the face of such daunting adversity? ----------------------------------------------------- If you are drowning, find help. Please. A mentor, or support group – whomever you need to get you back on the road towards purpose again. To find the power to change the things in your life that you do not like, but issues that can be changed. Become a mentor to someone else; perhaps a person just beginning to walk this very dangerous road. One small stroke of paint can change a vista of grey and black into a collage of colours....a rainbow. Hope.....it is our power, our saving grace. Hope can give us the power to endure....to change. We must never, ever, allow hope to fade within.... not one of us should be lost to the pain that is now our lives. |