Most of us usually see a few who are better off, a few who are worse and a lot like ourselves. It helps us to feel that our situation is normal. But chronic pain sufferers often have difficulty seeing themselves as normal until they are in a group of people who understand their pain. In the exercise part of the program, as well as in counseling, the group members offer encouragement to each other. They may be saying the same things that staff members have already said, but as members of the group they have much more credibility because they understand the pain in a way the staff never will.
Chronic pain is as much an economic, psychological and sociological problem as it is physical.
If left untamed, it eventually controls every aspect of the patient's life. After a while, the individual's major problem may not be the pain itself, but the extensive suffering which accompanies the pain. The loss of income from an inability to work, frustration of not finding a cure, a shifting of family responsibilities, and the uncontrollable changes in one's own personality are but a few of the stresses that arise. It's very sad to me. But we'd have to adopt a child old enough to walk, and older adopted children usually have problems.