The pain threshold

The pain threshold

The second you stop and acknowledge that something is painful. Be it physical pain or emotional pain, it’s that moment you realise it and the power it holds.

The moment that crushing moment of outsider acknowledgement, when someone outside gives a nod of sympathy in my direction, it’s that moment it all falls apart. What has been building gushes out in torrents.

Sadly it is physical pain I find the easiest to deal with, having Lupus there is generally daily physical pain in varying formats.

The pain that most concerns me and is always fuelling me is the pain I see in my children’s eyes.

Elijah and his moments of anxiety, sometimes in particular when he is around large groups, I see the fear, sometimes in his room by the glow of his night light I see the fear. Sometimes his fear looks like an asthma attack, in a 3yr old this pain is terrifying. Knowing that he is struggling not always being able to predict and assist this is a pain I feel most days.

 At present we go through his daily schedule, lists of people, places and try and  see what will provoke this, what we can do to minimise his concerns and even attempt to plan for what we do in case of. We regularly have to work out “worst case scenario” will he land back in hospital? If so how do we manage that if we are out, What if it’s not our hospital? And so on. Attempting to predict these moments is soul destroying. It’s another complicated factor in “getting out the door”. This is just for Elijah and just for his anxiety, then we have to plan for his behaviour! oh and Caiden and Lilliana's needs.

The power of pain and fear in our lives is large. The pain of watching your children struggling in certain environments, with particular people, it sometimes stops us having a life. Or at least the life that we had envisioned, with the people we had anticipated.

For us as a family it is simpler to be just us than have to explain all this. Even out doing things when we feel prepared it is simpler handing off to the other parent who is aware of what needs to be done and how it is best done for that child.

Sometimes it is simply this pain that isolates us, a pain we often feel we can’t share, or sometimes don’t know how to share. Where do I begin to tell you what my life really is, what true pain it can hold......