Beyond the Pain

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I went for an assessment at Myosymmetries. I was hoping that they’d tell me a) Yes, you have Fibromyalgia and b) we can help.

Both wishs came true. But, what I didn’t expect to hear was, "You know the trouble with you Type A’s is that you’re Type A’s"

I lookes askance and asked, "What do you mean?"

The good Doctor replied, "many of patients with Fibromywalgia are Type A. You guys just don’t know when to quit!"

That was last September and I’ve had a lot of time to think about it.

He was right. I confess. I have Type A tendencies.

I have a hard time sitting still. Even on vacation I have to be doing something, usually touring around.

20 some years ago I saw a psychologist for help with depression, I remember him saying to me, "you know Lyle you do more when you’re depressed than most people who aren’t depressed do!"

Hmm!

Didn’t listen then.

In his book, When The Body Says No, Gabor Mate talks about the high cost of ‘pushing it’ all the time.

It’s taken me a long to realize, probably because it’ taken that long to admit, that I push myself inordinately.

I still leaning to give it a rest.

Are folks born highly sensitive? Or, does time and
circumstance make them that way?

Probably, some of both.

Elaine Aron, in her book The Highly Sensitive Person, suggests that’s
the case. Certainly I’ve seen children who from birth seemed fragile and
delicately sensible.  Another book cites research that shows that at
birth there are 3 characteristic types. One, of these is a sensitive: very
aware of their environment and AFFECTED by it.

I don’t know if I was a sensitive child or not. Pictures seem to suggest I was
happy and content.

I do know that I was verbal — some have suggested loud and too extraverted but
hey, what do they know.

Even if I wasn’t born sensitive, events conspired to create sensitivity in me.

I’ve done a lot of reading on Fibromyalgia and one factor caught my eye. A
significant proportion of folks who have Fibromyalgia were abused as children,
usually sexually, sometimes both physically and sexually. That factor caught my
eye because by the time I found that information I had been in therapy for
more than 10 years and knew that I had been abused as a child.

Since then readings about trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder have helped
me understand that my sensitivity comes from shifts in my brain and body caused
by the trauma. My body/mind is exquisitely sensitive to anything and anyone in
the environment who ‘reminds’ me of the past.

The gift, as I said last post, in this sensitivity is the ability to tune into
other’s pain and hurt.

The bad news is I get overwhelmed and ambushed by the negative energy of
others.

I’m working on learning how to shield myself from the later.  So, I can better deal with the former.