I don’t know what’s worse - people expecting me to look haggered and drenched in stained sweat pain or people saying that I don’t look like I’m in pain and I look like I’m doing well. I can’t win either way. What is pain expectation? What is it supposed to look like?
I sat down in her office - her in her office chair, me in her client chair that I’m sure hundreds have sat in before me. “You know, it’s difficult to not judge you or not think that you aren’t in pain, because when I look at you, you have makeup on and nice clothes and you don’t look like a person in pain. But I do know that you are and I’ve been sorrily mistaken and embarrassed by my judgments of others in my past and have learned. It’s just unfortunate that others in the medical community are still stuck there.” My new Osteopath said to me.
I kind of felt a nip of hurt snip at my heart. Especially since I’ve been at this for nine years at this point, and over and over again, I’ve had doctors throw their hands up at me and tell me that they don’t know what’s going on, but I just gotta figure out how to live with my pain. So I’ve hoisted up my boot straps, slapped on my best clothes, patted down my stray hairs, and smeared on my makeup, to help me feel my best and mask the constant daily pain that pulses through my body everyday, because what other choice do I have - life does have to go on. I do have to try and figure out how to live in the midst of my pain. My life doesn’t just stay frozen in time until I figure this all out. And yet, it’s like there’s this expectation that if I don’t look like I’m walking road kill, than I must not be that bad.
If you catch me at home, you’ll see the non- makeup haggered look, but when I’m out and about, that is not the look that I want to present, because who does? Like when you are caught with the stomach flu that has wiped you out for three days - would you be caught dead, just as you are, going downtown and to appointments? I think not. Who wants to look like walking road kill? I sure as heck don’t. There is still a sense of dignity that I still hold onto. And the saying of, “how you present yourself on the outside, reflects how you feel on the inside.” When you feel bogged down and awful, what a refreshing, warm shower does to the mind, soul and body - so does looking our best makes us feel about ourselves. It translates. Even when my insides hurt and pain is coursing through every crevice of my body - my heart can still feel happy and relish in the joy of how the pretty rings on my fingers make me feel, or the perfect blondes my hairdresser captured from my description that makes me feel beautiful, or the jeans that fit just to perfection and make me feel slim and the cute top I’m wearing- that gives me an extra pep in my step. It matters. It’s the little things, but it matters. ( I know this sounds very materialistic but if you’ve read my past blog posts- you’ve read my other little things that matter)
But just as this medical practitioner confessed from her past and what so many medical professionals still do now in their personal judgment when they see me, it interferes with the care and treatment. I also know this from requesting my medical records and reading the doctors notes and the judgments that they make right out the gate on how I look, and the many others that are suffering with the unseen. Its mind blowing to me.
I think especially because I grew up in a home where I learned to mask my feelings, I wore many masks, and when you’ve done that your whole life - it’s an easy thing to pretend to be okay because you are nervous or scared of how others are going to perceive you- it’s second nature, a part of you. And fear can do many things to a person. So I think to discount a person based on their appearance - is beyond not okay, especially finding out it’s coming within the medical community too!
And so, just like the age old saying goes “ don’t judge a book by its cover,” because you really don’t know what a person is truly going through by the way they look or how they are presenting themselves.
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