The International Association For The Study of Pain defines pain as ‘an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience‘. They condemn with this statement that every time we feel pain we cover it with a series of emotions of negative affectivity. What can we do then with structured pain? That chronic pain that came into your life to stay and does not have the same function as acute pain. What do we do with so many years of negative affectivity?
Chronic pain is an invisible disease. Medicine is directed towards acute pain, but there are techniques to confront those tensions, those pains in areas where the initial focus was not the main focus. We are going to define negative affectivity as that emotion that generates discomfort, sadness, affects self-esteem, generates desolation and isolates you. I mean by all of this that your environment looks affected by that silent pathology that generates distorted thoughts, anxiety and alienation. One of the techniques that I work to combat this invisible disease is to never lose the feeling that you have something to do about it.
Since pain is invisible it is very important to learn to define it. This dagger pierced through my left heel. This strength deficit in my right leg. I still can’t find words to define the pain that arises from spinal cord injury and the lower back since it directly makes me feel worthless. You breathe when you get the words, this is a relaxed and basic tool to confront the day to day.
