TO COMMUNICATE YOU MUST FIRST DO THESE SIMPLE THINGS.

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2. DO NOT PRETEND

1. LISTEN

How should you listen? Listen not just with your ears but with your heart and intuition. Listening is one of the mose helpful things you can do for the pain patient. But to listen you must hear more than what is being said in words. You must learn to read between the lines to see and hear the unspoken words of pain communication.  To do this you need to open your heart and widen your view and look at the whole picture.  Remember its not always what they say but how they say it.

If you don't have the time to listen or don't really want to listen; don't ask how they feel. It is uncomfortable for you as well as for the person in pain. Think about how you feel when you pickup on the signs that someone is really not listening to you. If you repeat and summerize what has been said this is helpful in increasing your understanding and shows the pain patient that you are truely listening.  To be a good listener you must be unbias never assume you know what that word means: assUme broken down it reads makes an ass out of you and me. If you have preconseptions about pain drop them everyone is different and handles pain differently preconceptions make you appear as disinterested. replace this with honest curosity.

3. BE A DETECTIVE

4. UNDERSTAND

Chronic pain suffers often do not tell the whole story or down play what is really going on and sometimes they are silent because of fear. They fear the hurtful words and questions and ridicule however imaginary that may be.  The lack of understanding brings about this fear. Look for signs of withdrawel, or how they appear: does what they are saying verbally,match the body language?

Pain sufferers are sometimes afraid to say how they actually feel.  They don't want people to think that they are over reacting, looking for attention or acting like a baby.  This is why you have to read the whole picture and read between the lines.

6. BE HONEST

Be honest with yourself and the pain sufferer about the limitations of your own knowledge. NEVER SAY "I KNOW HOW YOU FEEL" unless you are also a chronic pain patient.  This can never be a true statement. Be curious, expand your knowledge by asking the pain sufferer appropiate questions that will help you understand what they are feeling.

5. BE CAREFUL DON'T ASK QUESTIONS OR USE WORDS THAT HURT

7. BELIEVE WITH YOUR HEART

Words are powerful and can hurt even if you don't mean for them to. If you say a line like " you just have to learn to live with it" or "why can't you just feel better for a change" or "you don't look sick". You might think these statement are to help the pain sufferer to be stronger but in fact they can send the person into depression, withdrawel, and can also provoke anger.  This doesn't help anyone, not you and certainly not the pain patient.  Ask positive questions. Make possitive statements. Questions or statements that provoke awareness of the strength they have used to get this far.  Use words that give determination to survive and stimulate hope.

Many times when Pain patients say they are in pain, they are not believed. One of the reasons for this is that society seems to have created a myth that if you don't have a severe disease or broken bones then pain does not exist.  For a very long time chronic pain went untreated because of this myth.  Often people feel that pain sufferers exaggerate their pain to gain sympathy, attention, or to get out of respondsibilities such as work. Even some psychologist need to understand this one.  Example: Patient is asked to rate their pain on a scale from one to ten, 1 least 10 most. Now to do this they are told 0 and 1 is the lowest or no pain at all to 10 being the worst pain that they have ever experienced.This is very individualized yet they take these numbers especially  8 through 10 an analyze it comparing it with others. If the average was 5 and you say 8 to 10 for yours, then they tell you that you feel your pain is worse than everyone else in the world that has pain.THIS IS NOT TRUE! It is viewed as a lack of belief.  Research has proven that, people in general do not pretend to have pain, or exaggerate it or think it is worse than everyone elses.  It has shown this is rare.Remember PAIN is what ever the experiencing person says it is, and whenever they are experiencing it. They are usually inclined not to admit it and tend to understate it.

8. HAVE COMPASSION -- SHOW YOU CARE

To have compassion you need to listen with a CLEAR and OPEN mind and OPEN HEART! Remember compassion and hugs are one of the human races healing emotions. Remember the Pain suffer is not the illness put a person, a person in need of compassion.

9.REMEMBER AND UNDERSTAND

Always remember your perseption of pain is not another persons  perseption, everyone is different, everone is an individual, unique.  Different people handle pain and feel pain in different ways..

If you put all of these suggestions into practice this makes you a strong, helpful person to the pain sufferer and enables you to communicate much easier and better.  You be come an exceptional listener filled with compassion and a better understanding of the persons situation.  I hope that this is helpful to you.  I arrived at these conclusions through research, personal experience as a chronic pain suffer, and by have excellent communication with my husband -- still working on the communications with my 2 teenagers but we are making progress.  Good communication is essential on both sides of the fence.  May GOD bless you always.

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