I Simply Want the Pain to Stop

We all have pain and we want the pain to stop, but the pain is telling us something. What if we could identify the pain and stop the suicide slide? 

 

It’s pain and we want it to stop.

It could be physical pain from body ailments, but it could also be pain coming from traumas past and present. Grief, loss, anger, loneliness, the daily stress load of life that causes us to slump. It’s pain.

Recently I learned something about pain.

For the past year, I’ve had a sore back. I would take panadol at night to help me sleep. I also went to a physiotherapist and did exercises. All of which helped a little, but not completely.

I was living was in a rented cottage on a farm. I had been living and working there for quite a while. But then I got the news in April 2023 that it would be sold.

So many unknowns.

• When would the property be sold?
• Who will buy it?
• Will they want me to continue living in the cottage?
• Will I still be able to work on this property?

Unknowns are a stress

Unknowns like these are stressors and can have an effect on the body. Read more about that here.

Then, I got the news a month ago that it was sold and that the new owners did not want me living in my cottage.

Initially, I was worried, and a bit upset, but then I looked at things differently.

1. I no longer had to have the property looking like something from a Home and Garden magazine.
2. I no longer had to carry the responsibility of security and general care of a property that was not my own.
3. I had clarity about my future. I had to be out on a certain date.

All most instantly my back pain left me. My physiotherapist said my muscles had loosened up.

She and I talked about how stress and pain can often be carried in various places of the body. I had carried it on my lower back and apparently this is quite common.

It’s about pain, and we want it to stop.

I have shifted to a new home, and it’s even better than where I was before. It’s a beautiful little cottage right by the beach. I can feel the muscles relaxing even more. My work is not sorted out completely yet, but I am trusting God to provide.

I simply want the pain to stop

What is the pain you want to stop?

There is a very obvious answer when it’s physical in nature, such as back pain, stomach ulcer, headaches, etc Or maybe its not when the stress of life is causing the physical pain. Pain is a complicated issue.

But what about the other pains we feel?

The pain we have from loneliness, loss, abuse, rejection, unforgiveness, guilt, shame, false accusations, etc. This long list can be much longer.

But it’s still pain, and it’s helpful to recognise it as simply that. Its pain and pain is finite. It won’t go on forever and ever.

It’s what we do with the pain now that matters.

People who are suicidal don’t want to die, they just want the pain to stop

When such-and-such event happens, my immediate response is this and I always have this outcome.

Someone looks at me kind of strange and I always respond by thinking I have done something wrong (again), and I always feel this pain of being dumb.

Having this little chain of thinking pattern repeated thousands of times over and over again will create a hard-wired response.

It’s helpful to check out how we respond to events that happen to us and the outcomes we get.

If you want to change the outcome, you need to change your response to the events that happen to you.

If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. 

Listening for the pain

It seems to help.

To have someone being gently curious about the pain in your life, whether it be emotional, spiritual, or physical, it seems to help.

Not that someone else can take it away, but perhaps having someone join you in the dark nights of the soul can offer a flickering candle. Perhaps a little ancient of days wisdom might tear drop into the places of pain.

It helps to be heard. 

It doesn’t help to made into a project. Something that must be fixed, advised, saved, or set straight. All of those dehumanise the person in pain into being a problem to be solved.

When all they really may want is to be known, loved and held.

Dark nights may seem an eternity long for those in deep depression. Unknown its beginning and never ending in its destination. A little light in the tunnel might well be a train coming at full speed.

So we step lightly. We move with millimetres.

We identify the places of pain and listen to them.

Do you have places of pain that need to be heard?

Questions? 
Comments?
Email me 🙂📨
barry@turningthepage.co.nz

Give a little gift to keep the pages turning

 

Further posts about Suicide

 

Quotes to consider

• Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up. Anne Lamott
• Don’t judge the future by the past – the future will be different when new insights and understandings restore hope.
• Pain is the rent we pay for being human, it seems, but suffering is usually optional. Richard Rohr
• Emotional pain always results when life’s experiences go beyond the answers we already have. Dig deeper for more wisdom or go on hurting David Riddell
• Those who do not turn to face their pain are prone to impose it. Terrence Real
• Redeemed pain is more impressive to me than removed pain Phillip Yancey

Questions to answer

1. Is it feasible, in this broken world experience, to not have pain?
2. What are the ‘pains’ in your life at this moment?
3. We all have thinking tracks. Paths and thinking grooves perfected over years of practice. What are some of yours?

Formation exercise

• Write out a brief story of your journey with pain. Also write into the story lessons learned from those minor and major places of pain.

Further reading

When the Stress is Too Much

How to Create New Rope Bridges in our Thinking

God, I Want to die

Please. No Fixing, Advising, Saving or Straightening Out

Barry Pearman

Photo by Mitchell Hollander on Unsplash