Dos and Don'ts for Living with Someone Who Has Chronic Pain
Living with painis certainly difficult. Living with someone that experiences chronic pain can also be very difficult. Relationships are tested by the stress of disability and pain. Some simple and practical do’s and don’ts can help to improve and restore relationships.
Do be empathetic
Empathy requires you to tune into what someone else is feeling. Often this requires that you first listen and be attentive. Next, in order to be empathetic, you must validate the bigness of what is happening to the other person. Validation is a way to show that something is true or real and accepting it. According to Dr. Hall in Psychology Today, there are various ways to validate someone’s feelings such as summarizing what you just heard. Finally, an empathetic person also shows compassion. In other words, by showing concern for the other person’s suffering, you will reflect compassion. Empathy is much different than sympathy in that sympathetic people really do not meet a person where they are at and give them a hug. According to Brene Brown, sympathy drives disconnection with the “fix it” or “silver lining” attitude. Empathy drives connection.
Do be Loving
爱不是一种感觉。爱是一个动作词。爱情做的事情。什么事情表达爱情？关注另一个人是最高的爱情形式之一。耐心地用善意行事就是爱情。“爱情总是保护，始终信任，总是希望并始终坚持不懈”（1 COR。13：7）。爱痛苦的人不仅需要你要注意，而且还要求你预测对方的需求。一个人可能需要额外的帮助，就像杂货店购物或抬起沉重的东西一样。但最基本的人类需要是需要感受到的。 When the love tank is full, even the mountains of pain in someone’s life can start to look small.
Don’t Join the Pity Party
A pity party happens when someone just wants to feel sorry for one’s self and wants everyone to feel pity towards him/her too. The more one focuses on the bad stuff and feels like a victim, the bigger the party. Instead of feeding into these negative emotions, it is much healthier to try to change the tune by starting a joint gratitude journal or starting the day with a prayer of gratitude. Focusing on what the both of you can be grateful for can help to unleash hope into your relationship.
Don’t Allow Verbal Abuse
Living with chronic pain provokes a lot of negative emotions like sadness, anger, frustration and hopelessness. At times, these emotions can erupt or explode into an attack on whoever is nearby. You might be blamed for something. You might be accused of something. You might even be called names. However the verbal abuse comes out; it is not to be tolerated. Instead of responding immediately with your own attack, go back to the “do’s” discussed earlier. Respond to the attack once you have clothed your own heart in love and then ask the other person to do the same. “The mouth speaks what the heart is full of” (Mat. 12:34).
There may only be one person in the relationship that is experiencing the chronic pain but both of you are suffering. Meet at this common ground and start to restore your relationship by finding ways to relieve the suffering. You can start this recovery process with these do’s and don’ts when living with someone that experiences chronic pain.
