Pain Is Nothing But Fear Leaving Your Body!

[Gimpy]

out a here again............

[BrokenBladder]

Gimpy I'm so sorry that you heard that comment, but the truth is most people have no clue what we go through. In fact I think it's easier on them to ignore other people's disabilities than to acknowledge them because then they would have to admit that someday it might happen to them as well.
Please consider taking that elevator.......maybe it will add a few years to your leg and back. Who cares what those sticky haired execs think anyway?

[Gimpy]

outta here again.........

[Kathi49]

Gimpy,

Amen! All I can say is that if fear is pain leaving your body, then I would be absolutely pain free LOL! God only knows I have had so many procedures done throughout my lifetime that there is ALWAYS fear. So, in that case, I shouldn't feel any pain! :) People say the most ridiculous things! I am like you...I tell anyone who will listen, "When you are 50, let's talk!" I swear when I was 40 I was just great...but not now! :eek:

[Mark N]

Ladies, you have to look at it in the context it was said. In a gym with a friend saying they were sore from a workout he responded that "Pain is nothing but fear leaving your body!" a common thing in weight lifting circles. I agree if he were talking about our pain he is way off base but I would bet he is talking about muscle soreness that comes from working out. Just a different perspective and I agree if was directed at us it is wrong.

[hoops2u]

Some People don't understand most of the quotes that they quote. I wonder how that person would have responded if asked to explain what that quote meant. It's something he heard somewhere, and probably hasn't a clue as to it's true meaning. Or who said it.

Perhaps it was meant, originally, as a spiritual and metephysical dysphemism. That is to say, as fear leaves your body, pain enters, you allow yourself to feel the pain, you no longer fear feeeling the pain. Suppose the quote was from someone like Deepak Chopra? Like when my youngest son was killled in an auto accident, as the fear of that huge loss left me, great pain was allowed to enter. Previously, I was always the strong one, but when I cried, I allowed so many other to cry with me.

Now, take my mother, 83 years old, prides herself on working a labor intensive job at 40 hours a week. anever coplains of pain. She tells all her friends and family that the only thing wrong with me is that I need to get off my "dead *** and get some exercise and fresh air and good hard work". When what she calls "old ladies" come through her checkout line and ask her not to overfill their bags, due to severe arthritic pain, she tells them a little exercise and weight lifting will do them some good, "Why I'm 83 years old and I mow my own yard, work 40 hrs a wk, cook and do laundry, etc, ect&etc" You get the drift?

I love ya Gimpy! It's great that you go to the gym. I put one in my basement but could use it more. Do as much as YOU feel like, and that's all. But never, ever, feel guilty.

Love and Blessings to ya'll,
hoops

[Gimpy]

outta here.......

[Gimpy]

outta here.....

[Mark N]

Gimpy, it is something we all do and I wouldn't have known this except from coaching football and weight lifting. I used to warn my coaches about judging someone else's pain because we can't judge what they are going through. There are so many things we say without thinking what it may mean to others, not because we are mean but because we have shortcuts in language to convey our thoughts into words.

Hoops, sorry to hear that you have lost your son as I know from my mom's experience that it never leaves you.

[Kira]

I think that people who haven't experienced severe pain really have no idea. I'm sure I have no idea about the kind of pain some of you deal with, because my own pain is quite different from spinal pain, etc.

When I had surgery on my shoulder a few years back, I thought that the post-op pain was a 10. That was the worst pain I'd experienced in my life. Then I got my first attack of rhabo (and the worst attack), and that was my new 10. The shoulder surgery pain got bumped down to a 5. And now I am careful to call the rhabdo pain more of an 8 or 9, because I know there is always room for things to get worse.

I know that, if my own pain scale can change so much, it is proof that pain is highly subjective, and how bad we think something is depends a lot on context.

That guy probably never experienced pain on the level that some people here deal with, and so his whole mental framework of pain just doesn't include that. His concept of pain could have pulled muscles, sprains, and toothaches near the top, and that's why he's able to talk about pain in such a cavalier way.

I also think that, given the context, he was probably talking about the discomfort caused by exercising, not severe or unrelenting pain. If you pinned him down and got him to clarify, he may have something completely different to say about your pain.

[oh_snap]

I am with Mark. In the days of sports, and pushing to the extreme, pain was something to be laughed at, and pushed through, and beyond. It was a honor to show battle scars, laugh at blood/inury, to keep going back out on the field when others would have curled up on the bench or gone home.

Pain was a joke. It was an entity that with enough "toughness" we were taught, could be overcome, subdued via a tough mind, and a tougher body.

My attitudes about pain haven't changed. This disconnect is clearly my body, and mind are not in sync. I am told, I am pretty tuff, but pain clearly likes having me around.:D

a side note: Many quote the great Mohammed Ali, and those quotes could sound much the same as the one you heard. And yet, they still inspire me. The problem with cliches and quoting out of context is that they can be interpreted either way, negative, positive. As much as I am out of "the game", I am still awed by his great strength, drive, desire, and find inspiration in his words. Although, in context of boxing and beating the crap out of others, I can take the concept of the battle, and the fight, and apply it to my own life, positively. I don't look upon Ali any different because of his current physical state.

Nothing changes, and everything changes.

I think the key is that in younger, tougher days, I probably would have embraced that quote (pain is nothing but fear leaving your body) as isn't it really what our society tells us about pain? That it isn't really pain at all just a state of mind?

Now, in my own context, I see the message actually is to keep pushing, not giving up.

It is the fight in us that counts.

[Matuboo]

That was a pretty immature thing to write wasn't it?! Reading it back I see how silly it sounds. I was pretty upset by what he said. I do know that unless you live it, you can't comprehend it. It's not his fault he in such good shape and in good health. He is just one of the lucky ones. Sadly, my drs have all said my years of exercising through the pain like they tell us to do, didn't help my arthritis one bit. When he's pushing 50 he might just understand what it feels like and remember the day an "old lady" told him about it. :)

gimpy


Well, that sounds like something my old football coach would have said, typical motivation type crap for people who DON'T have chronic pain but are hurting because of a hard workout or football game, whatever.:rolleyes:

Still, I probably would have reacted the same way. My levels of pain go up and down to the degree that I can live a relatively normal life but I also have other symptoms that drag me down.

[BrokenBladder]

Mark thanks for clarifying the "lingo" that's used in gyms. I had no idea!! It's so hard to be a CP person and to not take everything that is said to heart. Thanks for explaining that one to me so if I ever hear it said in that context I won't freak out!!

[simby]

I used to think i had backaches from long days of sitting at a desk, or from raking and pruning too long.
I would say things like "my back is killing me!" :eek:

And, i always tried to imagine what my friend was going through with her horrible back issues.

I had no idea what back pain was until i became a spiney.

I don't complain about minor aches and pains anymore. And i know what my friend has gone through to a small extent.
Experience makes all the difference imho.

[Mark N]

I have gone through three phases of pain in my life. The first phase was my bad back that I toughed it out and didn't let it stop me for more than a couple of days. Then it got much worse and I had to have surgeries to deal with the neurological impairments it was causing. This pain taught me that my previous pain was not as strong as I previously thought but I toughed it out and did without meds because I could put up with the pain better than the meds. Finally my pain has gotten to the point that dealing with it without pain meds is not possible. This level of pain has once again readjusted my pain scale from before.

Pain is subjective and there is no current way to measure how much pain we have and most people don't have to learn that there is more pain out there than they know. If they knew how much we go through each day they couldn't face it. In fact, the only way I can make it through any more is to deal with today's pain and only today's. If I remembered how much pain I had or thought about how much I will have, I wouldn't be able to make it through the day any more. I just hope I don't find out there is another level of pain for me to suffer through:eek: .

[libra]

If I had heard that statement, I would have responded just like you Gimpy. I am in constant pain, today is especially bad. I am sometimes mad and envious of those who have so little or no pain that they are clueless. I know this is not a good way to feel, but that is the way it is. I still try to do what I used to do. I started up lap swimming again this weekend, something I have done for years and I am such a good swimmer. This morning, every muscle, bone in my body aches. I would be tempted to rate myself as a 10. Not just from swimming soreness, but I think swimming didn't help my back pain and excentuated all my other pain. I am at a very bad stage, feeling sorry for myself. So please Gimpy, I totally understand how you felt, even tho there is a good explanation for that statement.