this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2024
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I mean, that's part of pain tolerance. It isn't just how much pain you feel, it's how much you can take.
Chronic pain has taught me a lot about what is and isn't bearable. Things that when they were new would leave me sobbing, I now don't even show more than a frown and gritted teeth for on a good day.
Part of that is taking the pain, putting it in a little box cake "I will not fucking quit" and throwing that box into the depths of the mind where it can't bother you for a while. Your body still hurts, you still know it hurts, but you keep going until you can't, and the pain can just fuck right off.
Now, let me stub my fucking toe while doing all that and it cuts right through all of that and says "nah, dawg, you gonna feel this". Different pain, and acute.
So, little shit like shocks and needles in muscles, and the like, you know they're coming, and they go right in the box with the chronic, and into the oubliette of agony.
That kind of pain testing? That's totally within mental techniques' ability to ignore. Your pulse will still change, blood pressure too, but it's still a distant thing that won't reach you for a while.
But everyone is different. You can take two people with the same injury, and they'll tolerate it differently, even if they're siblings of the same gender.
Part of that is indeed built in, but there is always a psychological component to pain perception.
Now, please note that I'm not saying that walling pain off and ignoring it until you've injured yourself is a good thing, much less better than letting pain guide your actions so that it isn't worse later. I'm just saying that the green text is realistic, and the person responding like that may not be bullshitting, they may just have worked on managing pain.
Damn bro. Hope you're better now.
As better as it gets, thank you :)
I really thought my life was over. Now I'm married, have a kid, good friends, and find ways to enjoy even the bad days.
Amazing word smithing. 💖
Thank you :)
Except they misspelled "Oubliette"
Like I give a shit, I knew what the fuck they meant.
Yeah, I suffer from chronic pain, too, though not to the degree that you appear to. It's kind of funny because I know I'm really tired or mentally exhausted when I start noticing all the pain I normally have, but just haven't even noticed for hours before.
It's impressive what the mind can tolerate.
Your brain can take a hell of a lot of abuse until it can't.
I was holding it together for nearly 3 decades before it was unable to keep up with major sleep deprivation anymore. 10-12 hours of sleep a night and a nap midday couldn't keep me going.
I was blacking out time while driving, had barely any memory, had involuntary muscle spasms and couldn't physically recover from injury in a reasonable time.
Once I started on CPAP I recovered by leaps and bounds, I sleep way less but am fully present in the world, like being on high dose of caffeine without taking anything.
I'm struggling myself there, my mental acuity has dropped, so has my social ability, understanding, and learning. I have UARS and need to get it fixed. I sleep in excess and its never quality. Several sleep studies showed I wake from REM 15-20 times an hour (not to consciousness though).
To anyone not aware of sleep apnea it wouldn't seem like there was anything wrong with my sleep. I don't snore, I just don't breathe continuously when unconscious.
It took about 2 years to fully recover mentally from decades of this shitty sleep. I only found out from visiting my parents and my mom saw me not breathing while I was asleep on the couch. I've also had 6 sleep studies in 11 years to try and figure out why it is happening but it is idiopathic.
I can't remember what people on Reddit with UARS found to be the best treatment but the biggest step always seemed to be getting a doctor to diagnose it properly instead of just signing it off at regular sleep apnea. I hope you find a treatment that helps. The brain can bounce back, so don't give up hope that you can get your mind back.
Thanks, I am trying to stay hopeful. My next step needs to be an ENT and probably to fix a collapsed nasal cavity. I worked with a neurologist for 3 years (where the sleep studies came from) but they ended up leaving state for persona matters. I live in the USA so I have to go through insurance which doesn't really recognize UARS. Though I did scratch my way into diagnosis of apnea (sleep study recorded just above the 5% oxygen drop required by insurance) they refused to let me test with a CPAP. It was the only diagnosis my neurologist could use to get insurance to help, still, they won't really do much for me.
Hopefully soon I can sit in one place without the threat of falling asleep. Or wake up feeling rested and not my eyes burning feeling like I was hit by a brick lmao. Sleep issues are no joke and you're right to tell people to make sure people get it properly handled ASAP
This. One of the dangerous things about chronical pain that I think might be underappreciated is that it blinds you to signals that in a healthy person would cause them to seek medical help. When doctors ask now I always caveat that I'm a poor witness of my own wellness because there have been times when I felt like I was doing fine but in fact needed surgery. I don't know how doctors (or occupational health, or social workers, or carers) do it, there's basically no reliable information in talking to an ill person but that's like 90% of what you have to go on.
I feel that.
Back when I was a caregiver, pain assessment was a bit of a pain lol. I'd have patients with cancer, and they'd just not notice something like a sore forming because it just got drowned out by chemo, or whatever. I'd do the daily thing of asking about their pain levels, and how the hell can they answer? They're at a constant 8 to 10 range, so it's kinda pointless to try and rely on pain signals to find new pains that need help.
Mind you, I was doing other checks, so nothing got missed, but it could have.
And, like you said, the usual "script" for checking on pain breaks down with chronic pains. You have to really get detailed, focus on tiny changes in pain with them.
And, even knowing all that, I still have trouble communicating my own pain and issues because it's just so overwhelming sometimes. I sometimes joke with a new doctor or nurse and tell them it would be faster to list what doesn't hurt. Except it isn't really a joke.
So I just keep compartmentalizing everything and try to be a good patient lol.