I used to be a very happy, happy person. Very optimistic. When I got my pain, I got very depressed.
I got very angry. Growing up I used to be really happy. I was always excited. I was that naturally high
kid on life. After my car accident, I was really down.
Pain turned me into person I didn't really like. I was angry all the time. I hardly smiled because I felt like I didn't have a reason to
smile.
Pain made me hopeless. It made me miserable. It made me angry and it made me super frustrated.
Looking at me you can't tell that I'm in the amount of pain I'm in right now. It really feels like it's something invisible that you have wrong with you that really no one else can
see. So um, it's definitely something that makes you feel isolated and alone.
Dealing with pain at such a young age, it's an issue because you're still trying to figure out who you
are, but you're also dealing with something that you need everybody else to understand.
I became very depressed and in that depressive state I started to become somewhat unstable as
a person. It was very hard to have social interactions with those kind of emotions.
In terms of emotions, it makes me just feel hopeless sometimes. Let's say I get a tackle
on one part of my pain, then another like sprouts up in its place. It's hard when you do the
very best you can to change something and it's just not enough. It's just simply not enough.
When I have negative moods, the first thing I have to do is distance myself from them. I put that
negative mood right beside me and I say why are you upset? The second thing I try to do is figure
out what I can do to help myself and improve my mood. You know I have a whole arsenal of things. Things
like mindfulness, exercise, and I try to laugh every day at least once. It could be finding a
funny GIF online or it could be watching a funny video, and the third thing is really thinking
about whether or not I need social support in the situation or I need help from someone else.
Even though I hated every minute of going to the psychologist, I realized later on that it was actually the most
beneficial thing to get help. To get back into the world.
I've managed to laugh a lot. They say laughter is the best medicine and in all honesty it is. Listening to music is good. I get
really good music, upbeat music, positive music. I read a lot so that gets me into a different world.
I also color. There's different days like you look back and look when you're having a bad day your
coloring it looks different as opposed to on this day it's all bright and it's all beautiful, so.
Yeah, distractions are really important. For example, I like video games because I can't go running around
outside anymore but I can do it in the game and I takes skills sometimes too. So it's mental work
and you feel just nice and distracted. Obviously you don't want to distract yourself every second
of every day, but to take a break from the pain to take a break from your limits, is healthy I think.
I've changed significantly from my chronic pain. My chronic pain is the reason for all
of my achievements so far. It's the motivation that keeps me going to succeed in everything
that I do because I know that majority of what I'll encounter in the real world does
not compare to what I had when I was 14 years old.
Mood is something that you have to maintain. With pain it's a fight and you know you continually fighting to overcome all that negativity in your
life, so in spite of all the negatives, it's really taught me how to be a better person and how to
be a more mature person and when things happen to my life, I can always say 'You know what? You
can cope with pain. You can cope with anything.'
I'm like five times as empathetic as I was before to people who are suffering, because I'm suffering and I know that they just sometimes need a bit of
a hand to get through their rough patches.
It's made appreciate life more. It's not something great to deal with, but I've tried to manage, I have managed, and managed to stay positive through the negative.