When nobody understands your pain or sickness... Part II

KIMMYQUEEN SAYS...

Once you have done what was suggested in the first blog entry, I suggest that the next step is to get help. Get all the help that you need/can afford, even if the help does not include family and friends. Get a psychologist to deal with the anxiety and the mental issues that arise from your disappointment or anger. Get a real medical (and natural inclining) Doctor(s) that understands your condition or is able to do extensive tests to know exactly what is wrong with you, give you the right diagnosis and the way to handle it. Get a physical therapist or a massage therapist. Basically get all the help that you need and can afford. If it means you need to go at it alone, then do so.

If you allow your disappointment and anger to fester, it can keep you in inaction. Inaction will make you sicker, or it may kill you. Even if nobody in your inner circle accepts nor understands what you are going through, it doesn't give you the excuse to do nothing about your life and health. Yes you have the right to feel what you want to feel and so on and so forth, but at some point you need to move on with your life and get better. Inaction will not help you and if no one in your family will help you, you still have yourself and others in the world and find the help that you need.

Once you find the help that you need, work it out. Work it out and do what you can to be as healthy as you can be. Adjust your attitude with the help that you have available. Start practicing gratitude. Gratitude that you have people helping you, gratitude that you are still alive and that you are able to pursue health. During this time, you would probably experience a lot of changes in your behavior and in your inner self. If patience is something that increases within you (and especially if those around you care enough to ask), teach them what is wrong with you, and what the symptoms are, what to expect and what you are doing about it. If their acceptance is still important to you, then tell them so and if you do need their help somewhat then ask them for it.

Those around you that love and cherish you will (begin to) understand and seek to help you. Those that cannot manage the compassion nor the patience to care about your needs you need to decide if they need to be in your life. It is easier to get rid of an uncaring or greedy Doctor or stranger as I said in the last post, but it may not be so easy for a family member or a close friend. However, even if it is limiting contact with certain people, I strongly suggest that you cut away people that are negative or that make you sick or worry or anxious and surround yourself with the most positive people that are available to you.

There are times when you are going to have to be selfish and say no. Say no to people who demand too much from you or expect too much from you that for as long as you are trying to heal yourself. you cannot do nor accomplish what they want. They may not understand why you are saying no, even if you explain why. If they see you walking around and not coughing up a lung, they may still not understand it, those belong in the list of people that you may have to cut from your life (even if temporarily).

When it comes to children, you are going to have to exempt them because as kids even teens their ignorance and their misunderstanding of your pain and sickness is to be expected. PLEASE do not give them responsibilities that go beyond their capabilities or their age. Don't treat them as spouses nor nurses nor therapists (especially if you are a single parent). Do what you can to protect them, and also educate them. You can of course depend on them when it is appropriate to do so (allowing you to nap if you need it for example and ask them to be quiet during a specific time and place). This is really important when it comes to getting help. Especially if you cannot rely on family and close friends, finding help when it comes to the kids is essential.

Hopefully this was helpful. If you are in constant pain and you are going through a illness, please know that given up is the last thing that you should do. You are a strong human being and deserving of the best health that you can have. Be well and do well and surround yourself with light and good energy.

SPOTLIGHT ON A SAINT: Martyrs of Korea

KIMMYQUEEN SAYS...

I haven't done a SPOTLIGHT ON A SAINT, for way over a year and the truth is that this was supposed to be a series. I completely bungled this. I will try to do better, but can't make any promises because then if I don't do any better that is just one more disappointment.... So I will forgive myself and then just move on...

So on September 20th the Catholic Church commemorates the Martyrs of Korea (the entire Peninsula because at the time there was only one Korea). The reason I wanted to spotlight them is because it is fascinating to me how the Christian Church in Korea (both South and North) seem to grow (grow a lot freely in South Korea) when there was such awful and disastrous level of persecution not only of missionaries but also Korean nationals. Recently I also saw a show that was explaining a play/musical about two Korean martyrs who were married but (unless I misunderstood) did not engage in sexual relations. I didn't get all the particulars and can't find it right now, but it was an interesting thing. North Korean Christians are having the most difficult of situations in such a repressive and evil country. Christians attempts at propagating the Word continues to be met with suspicion, imprisonment and even death. If you pray, please pray for South and North Korean Brothers and Sisters who are oppressed, persecuted and the families and communities of the martyrs.

All of that makes me wants to take the time to commemorate the Martyrs of Korea who were plentiful and their blood are of course part of the mortar of the Church making her strong and able to do the work of the Spirit of G-d.

I took the following information from www.catholic.org. I don't want to put a link here because it has some materials or links to videos that I find are too strong and perhaps you maybe tempted to click on them and then regret it and I don't want to be a link to that. Link to the violence that ISIS is doing on individuals. Please don't want those videos. Anyway here is the information about the Martyrs of Korea:

The men and women who were slain because they refused to deny Christ in the nation of Korea. The faith was brought to Korea in a unique fashion. The intellectuals of that land, eager to learn about the world, discovered some Christian books procured through Korea's embassy to the Chinese capital. One Korean, Ni-seung-houn, went to Beijing in 1784 to study Catholicism and was baptized Peter Ri. Returning to Korea, he converted many others. In 1791, when these Christians were suddenly viewed as foreign traitors, two of Peter Ri's converts were martyred, men named Paul Youn and Jacques Kuen. The faith endured, however, and when Father James Tsiou, a Chinese, entered Korea three years later, he was greeted by four thousand Catholics. Father Tsiou worked in Korea until 1801 when he was slain by authorities. Three decades later the Prefecture Apostolic of Korea was established by Pope Leo XII, after he received a letter smuggled out of Korea by faithful Catholics. In 1836, Monsignor Lawrence Imbert managed to enter Korea. Others arrived, and they worked until 1839, when a full persecution started, bringing about the martyrdom of the European priests. Young Korean candidates for the priesthood were sent to Macau for ordination. The first native priest, Andrew Kim Taegon, returned to Korea in 1845 and was martyred the following year. Severe persecution followed, and Catholics fled to the mountains, still spreading the faith. In 1864, a new persecution claimed the lives of two bishops, six French missionaries, another Korean priest, and eight thousand Korean Catholics. The Korean martyrs of 1839, 1846, and 1867 were canonized in Korea in 1984 by Pope John Paul II.

The Greedy Doctor

KIMMYQUEEN SAYS...

This is a summary of the account of the Doctor that did not help me in the end deal with my issues in a righteous way. This only makes sense if you read my other post which I haven't even posted yet (or may have posted by the time this posts), but I will soon. So you can ignore this or read it and then read the other post later.

"After I gave up on medical Doctors after six months of inaction, I went almost 5 years to a Naturopath, who after I spent more than $12,000 or more perhaps on treatments and pills, couldn't tell me what was truly wrong with me. When I wanted to get out of the treatment and try something else, he denied my request because he wanted to trap me to further spend money his way and when I asked for compassion and understanding on my situation he flat out refused in such a mean way. I told him all the things that I had in my mind about him that I was keeping inside, then I essentially stormed out of his office. After asking for my records and tests so I could supply them to a new Doctor, he refused and so I went to DHS to complain as well as BBB and even the company that does the tests I was asking for. Even though nothing major came out of it (I did get the test from the company, BBB will keep it in records as well as DHS so if anyone else complains there is a trail and my new Doctor doesn't give a crap about this old Doctor), it still left me frustrated because I felt that this person needed to pay for his greedy ways and his disinterested manner on actually helping me feel better. I should have just moved on and not seek any type of revenge or retribution, not even when I felt it was deserved, but you can seek for the Doctor to at least have a complain on file for any future person that may go through the same as you."

When nobody understands your pain or sickness... Part I

KIMMYQUEEN SAYS...

A few months ago I was formally diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I was upset and grateful. Upset that it took so long to put a name to what is happening to me and grateful that it wasn't anything truly terminal. Fibromyalgia can be cured if caught in time (you can reverse the problems that come it), if it took too long to find out about it and treat appropriately (like many decades) the symptoms can be eased and people can live with it rather well, but it can always flare up again. It took a over five years to get diagnosed and for me to start doing something specifically about it, so in G-d I hope that I can be cured from this within a few years if not less.

The main reason I was upset was because I went to Doctors (both medical and natural) since the first sign of pain and strangeness in my body and my mind and nobody had anything to say about the cause or the root cause of what was happening to me. The symptoms were being treated, but there was no actual stopping of what was really the cause, so I still felt bad and in pain. Doctors (especially medical Doctors) do not seem to understand the term root causes anymore. That the root causes have to be treated for curing/easing people's sickness and pain. Doctors have become lazy. However, thankfully not all are like this and if you do your research and you ask around and you take the time to do the footwork you WILL find a Doctor that knows what he is doing and can name your problem and find solutions to it as much as possible.

What is hard is to find are new family members (and in some cases friends) that can understand what you are going through.With some diseases and physical ailments, it is obvious that the person is in pain or has a problem of some kind. The family and friends and people around them can see it and sense it and therefore can have some degree of understanding as to what is happening to the person. The problem is with people who like me are not lying on a bed all day long and with crutches or with abnormal visible body ailments.That is a "problem" because the people around me/us don't understand how we say we are depressed or in pain or diseased when they see us walking about and handling our pain without much complaint and so on and so forth.

When they see us being essentially "normal" they don't understand why are we so fatigued so easily, why "out of a sudden" we have pain and how come we aren't coughing or looking in pain and about to vomit our innards since we have a disease? Bypassing the macabre issue that people expect you to be on death's door in order to prove that you have a health issue, it is sad to think that family and friends are unwilling to spare some compassion or understanding your way just because the pain and suffering is not visible to them. Even after explaining to them what you are going through, asking them to please do the research on your condition (and most don't and there is that feeling that they don't care to make the time to find out which hurts), it just seems as if you just can't get through to them and make them understand what is going on and why even though you look "normal" you are going through so much physical and emotional pain and that you are really really sick.

The point of my post is basically just to provide some insight and some advice on how to deal with this situation. First it is appropriate to acknowledge your feelings about this situation. If you are angry at your (hopefully former) Doctors and care takers and practitioners for not acknowledging your pain or at least trying harder to understand you and therefore finding alternative reasons for your situation, then be angry. If you were disappointed, then be so, if you were sad then give yourself permission to be sad and acknowledge how you feel. You can write them a letter and burn it (if you do not want to burn that bridge for whatever legitimate reason), you can tell them that were disappointed in their care (even if you make a decision not to see them again try to leave on friendly terms), or you can just move on and not see them again. You can also do what I did, but I wouldn't recommend it as it can leave you more frustrated than anything. If you want to know what I did, I wrote it in another post. I felt it would take away from this blog post. However, it is important to acknowledge what you feel and to give yourself permission to be angry and disappointed. Express it as healthily as you can to save yourself time, effort and peace of mind.

You should also consider acknowledging how you feel about your family (and friends) reactions to your diagnosis, or your pre-diagnosis time and your symptoms and conditions. If they were not as compassionate nor understanding as you hoped, acknowledge that you hoped that they would have been compassionate and understanding. If it makes you feel sad, acknowledge that if it makes you feel angry acknowledge that. Once you give yourself permission to feel however you want to feel or whatever was your gut reaction, you will start the healing process. A lot of people like to suppress their feelings, because they don't want to seem ungrateful at life or feel bad for having bad feelings against family and friends. It is better to be real with yourself and how you feel and to acknowledge that you had expectations that were not met. If you want to share this with those that you are disappointed with, then do (no need for this to be a bad nor mean experience, speak to them in a cool and respectful manner using a lot of "I statements" and avoid "You statements" as much as possible: "I felt extremely angry and disappointed that my sickness/disease/pain wasn't considered meaningful enough that when I asked if research could be done so you would understand what is happening to me, no research was done and instead questions as to the validity of my situation continue to arise, which fills me with more anger and sadness. If my situation does not merit consideration nor compassion by others, I am very saddened and disappointed by that, however I am not going to feel bad for not appearing as sick as others think I should appear and even if I must go through this alone, then I will for I want to be healed/feel better soon."

We cannot control the feelings and actions of others in the end, but we can control our own. Even when you feel anger or sadness or even depression over the behavior and reactions of others, don't let it get it to the point where you are completely defeated by how you feel. Once you have acknowledged how you felt, you must be willing to fight for your health. Depression, anger and other negative feelings are normal part of human life BUT they can leave a lot of scars and even more so they can leave an imprint on your spirit, your mind, your body even. Your mental processes can begin to change and even your brain chemicals and then you can fall into a chronic depression or anger that can make you even sicker than you already are. Keep that in consideration and be mindful not to overly feed those feelings (which you have a right to feel in the first place) which can cause you more pain that necessary (and unnecessary rifts with family and friends).

Once you have acknowledged how you felt, gave yourself permission (and forgiveness if necessary) for feeling the way you felt (or feeling bad about feeling the way you felt), told others as healthily as possible on how you felt, and allowed yourself a time to feel it and then move on to avoid any permanent damage by any negative feelings that arose, then you can move on to the next steps on dealing with family or friends (or even Doctors) that don't seem to understand your pain nor sickness.

This post has become so long already that I will leave that for another day. I hope to post it soon. Thanks for reading this and be on the alert for the new post.