Soothing the emotional savage beast

Living with any chronic illness can rage a war on our emotions. The ups and downs of dealing with pain and misery, can play havoc with our emotions. The frustration and disappointments that come from dealing with doctors that would just as soon send us to a psychiatrist rather than deal constructively with our illness, can and often does make us feel frustrated, angry, confused and often depressed. The frustrations of deal with medication that fails to work, and having to face the reality of an unknown future, can leave us battling with anger towards our own body that has fails us at every turn and is keeping us from doing the things that we once took pleasure in doing. To make things even worse, we have to deal with people!!!!!

Some people , including our own family members, never make any endeavor to understand how we feel. Or even to take the time to know who we are as a person, but that does not stop them from being critical and condemning. On the other hand, those that do try, even our own spouses, tend to either treat us as small children, or like invalids. Personally, one thing that causes me the most stress in this never ending battle with a chronic illness and pain , is from my husband . He can be loving and compassionate on minute and Jackass that next…I truly believe what is said about men; “ They are the only species of jackass that does not grow a tail!” But his worse and best virtue has been his willingness to take care of me, even if I don’t want him to. The stress of his trying to do everything for me, can cause me to want to run and hide. Or at the very least I long to scream at him to stop treating me like some fragile women that will brake if she is not careful. So I bruise easy, and I fall down a lot, but I have not broken anything yet, and bruises heal. But instead of trying to comfort me in my pain due to a fall, he yells at me and calls me name’s that I don’t care to repeat.

Okay! So my husband can be a Jackass! I don’t really believe that is going to change, simple because he loves me and cares for my well being, even when he is yelling at me to be more careful, his concern is genuine. So if his way of handling my pain is not going to change, then I am going to have to learn to deal with it with out allowing my feelings to get hurt, or at the least get stressed over his way of showing concern

I realize that not ever spouse tries to understand, but each has their own way of dealing with the emotional stress they too are feeling as they try to figure out the best way to handle our health issues. Health issues that are effecting their lives as well as our own.

Our physical reaction to our emotional upheaval


Emotional stress as we all have experienced can make our pain worse. During angry and stressful emotional moments , our muscles begin to stiffen and our pain worsens under the stress. For those with our with out intestinal issues, being upset can throw off our diet and leave us with no desire to eat at all, which can cause a whole lot of other problems. Yelling and screaming out our frustrations can lead to excess acids being accumulates in our stomach causing cramps and nausea. Keeping our feelings inside and never allowing them to be dealt with constructively , can lead to our developing ulcers.

One thing is for sure, we don’t need to battle our emotions on top of our illness and pain. Instead, we need to learn to express them and deal with them in a constructive way. We could of course, go to the psychiatrist the doctor suggested. We could choose to lock ourselves away from stressful situations and people. Personally I choose to calm my emotional beast with music.

Music has the power to do either invigorate you, depress you more, or calm your spirit and soul. Country music that talks about lost love tends to make me depressed, old time rock can boost my energy levels. Soft music soothes the soul and allows a calmness of spirit. And it does not have to be Christian in nature to bring me peace. I start my day with soft music that fallows my every day activity. My family tease me for what the call my elevator music that fallows them from room to room. But they also realize that it does help.

Try music when your savage beast is our of control and see if it does not help .