"Your pain is real. It's very real, however..."
The last part of the Mayo Solution shocked me!
Part 3 in a 4-Part Series. In case you missed the earlier parts, here are links to easily access them:
Part 2 - The Pain Was Awful
I learned the definition of chronic pain - pain that lasts longer than 3 months.
At this time, I did not learn the definition of trauma - an emotional response to a terrible event* (but I was about to). Two people’s responses to the same event may not be the same. One may experience trauma while the other will not.
The doctor talked about the fight-or-flight response that occurs involuntarily when there is a perceived threat, activating the sympathetic nerve system. This process releases hormones, which can result in physical reactions like tense muscles and increased mental alertness.
Fight, Flight or Farce?
Around this time, I wished I had paid more attention in biology, my worst class in school. The body can get stuck in fight-or-flight or fight-flight-or-freeze.
Mayo was the first established facility to tell me that when pain is chronic, there is usually more than just the pain behind it. The pain creates a baseline of pain, but there is something else leveling it up. Not gonna lie. I was a bit skeptical of this at first. But this was Mayo, so… I did not drop it completely.
They asked when I took breaks at work.
My work consisted of working from home, but being on Teams conference calls all day long. Taking a quick bathroom break usually meant being 3 minutes late to the next meeting. There were no breaks.
They explained to me that by operating like this, I was impacting my quality of life. I could make it through the day, ignoring my pain through the distraction of work, but then the pain continues to build up all day long and my after-work hours are shot. That about summed it up.
Mindfulness and Meditation
Mindfulness and meditation were strongly encouraged. I was sure that the day I got home I would start a new meditation practice, using just the suggestion they gave:
Start slow
2 minutes, 5 times a day
I have a small Moleskin notebook where I was tracking various Mayo follow-ups. I used that to track my meditation attempts.
Three times was the most I was able to get to over nine non-consecutive days. I tried. It was hard with the demands of the job. It was like a hamster-wheel effect that it was the job I was trying to detox from, but it was the job that wouldn’t give me the time to do it.
I might have come up with a new plan of how to make the meditation more of a habit if the sky hadn’t come crashing down on me. This next calamity shows up in part 4 of this series.
Before this next fiasco, I strangely had another experience that sent me the same questionable message Mayo gave me.
Again - “Your pain is real. It’s very real, however…”
Four days after returning from Mayo, I took a pre-planned vacation to an amazing health and wellness resort in Arizona called Canyon Ranch. An interesting series of events led me to meet with the Director of Health and Wellness about an unrelated topic. We quickly got to my pain topic and I filled her in on the background and events to date.
Your pain is real. It’s very real, however — she used the exact same words I heard at Mayo. Those words must show up in a textbook somewhere. She continued going on about fight-or-flight, sympathetic nerve system, hormones and trauma.
She went where Mayo did not and talked about the likely potential of trauma being what is leveling up the pain. While no trauma jumped out to me from my past, this got me thinking.
The next day, still at health and wellness haven, I went to an instructor-led Ai Chai Meditation in a warm water pool. Halfway through, one of the prompts took me to a place in my childhood. I saw myself in my childhood home.
I remembered that I remember nothing about my childhood. And at that moment, my pain shot through me like a lightning bolt in a hot summer storm. The pain was awful.
The walls of the skeptic started caving in.
I now believe that my pain is real. It’s very real, however…
However, it is being leveled up by something that would need to be figured out. I was truly at a loss as to what it could be. But I’ve always thought it was strange that I recall nothing from my childhood. I used to chalk that up to well, I’m probably not supposed to remember it then.
Finally, at this point in my life, it was now time to figure this out.
Between Mayo and Canyon Ranch, I was recommended to see a therapist specializing in CBT, EMDR or Pain Reprocessing Therapy. All three would be a bonus and in my mind, the best of all worlds. I had to look up the last two to understand all the options in front of me. I’m adding definitions at the bottom for reference.
Browsing for Brain Balance
It was surprisingly difficult to find a therapist.
There are two ways I know of to find a therapist if you have no leads in your local area:
Go to your insurance company’s website, enter your search criteria, like zip code and other defining attributes. Search criteria will differ by company. Review the search results to select who you will call.
Pro: You will know instantly that the provider is covered by your insurance plan by nature of being on the website.
Caution: You should still ask if the provider takes your coverage to ensure nothing has changed with the provider’s status. Also, confirm that there is nothing unique about your plan even though the website says you should be covered.
Use the Therapist Finder on the Psychology Today website, where there are many filters:
geographical area
specialty, insurance
type of therapy
gender
age
ethnicity
sexuality
language
faith
price
Pro: There are a ton of therapists to choose from.
Con: Therapists listed on this site do not need to be actively seeking clients. You may not hear back from them if you email or leave a voicemail. That was my experience anyway.
I used the Psychology Today website, but had trouble because none of the therapists I reached out to got back to me. It was frustrating and it dragged out a bit since I wasn’t expecting such a delay; I was only reaching out to one at a time.
I finally engaged a therapist friend of mine to help. She used the Psychology Today Therapist Finder as well. However, she navigated that site like Lindsay Vonn taking swift turns on the downhill slopes. Soon, my friend had all sorts of therapist info for me to follow up on.
Out of 7 recommendations, 7 did not return my call or email.
We tried again. Out of 5 recommendations, 5 did not return my call or email.
Third time was the charm. And this time her recommendations included organizations with multiple therapists as part of their group.
Finally, we had some success!
The journey is still underway, but I’ve made progress. In part 4 of this series, I will share where I am today with the therapy part of this solution.
Unfortunately, there was a devastating event that leaped frogged in front of any solution implementation. Stay with me in part 4 to get the full story.
Sign up now for free to not miss the devastating event that brought my life to a complete halt in the 4th part of this series, or to receive future newsletters directly to your inbox.
*American Psychological Association (APA)
Therapy Type Definitions (based on my experience)
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Teaches you coping skills and strategies while focusing on the interconnectivity of thoughts, feelings and behaviors
Aims to reduce various mental health conditions such as “depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, also called PTSD, or an eating disorder” according to the Mayo Clinic.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Involves moving your eyes a specific way while you process traumatic memories.
Goal is to help you heal from trauma or other distressing life experiences.
Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT)
Uses various techniques (pain neuroscience education, somatic tracking, CBT and mindfulness & relaxation techniques) to help you retrain how your brain responds to pain signals
Purpose is to reduce pain intensity, disability, and feelings of anger, and to improve sleep and levels of depression.
Two extra notes about PRT:
Said to be exceptionally useful in treating chronic pain. (I’ll talk about neuroplasticity in a future article.)
It’s a relatively new treatment approach to pain management, yet shows a lot of potential to help.
What a journey! How brave you are! It takes more courage to look at the trauma than anything. It is easy to get a pill for the pain and just never look at it.
This type of healing is dark. But there is always light at the end of the tunnel. You just may not see it right away. Thanks for sharing your story.
Thanks for reading, Linda! My goal is to share hope to others going through something similar. While things can get dark, like you said, there is a better way of living on the other side.