Episode 44: Pain

Well, hey, everybody, welcome to the 44th episode of Don’t lose your balance. My name is Mallory Durrick. So today’s episode, I’m talking about pain. And I’m going to talk about pain because I love the phrase that I often say, we share from our scars and not from our wounds. I’m not in pain right now. So I’m going to talk about pain in a self reflective way like I have in many of these episodes in order to help if it’s ever confusing in order to help understand it better myself, because when we’re in pain, we want to take something that’s what we’re told to do take a take an aspirin, take a Tylenol, take an Advil when we have a headache, we’re in pain. Well, what about what we when we take things that are taken for the wrong reasons, because we’re in pain, but we’re self medicating, I guess self medication was one of my topics that I had on the list of all the things I was going to talk about in this podcast. So let’s go back to pain, we go through something traumatic, we’re in pain, we are told we need to grieve when somebody dies, we need to go through the loss of whether it’s something physical, something emotional, we need to move through that. And all of those things are correct. Back in the day, my pain was so awful, that I didn’t know how to get through it, despite having some very good tools in my arsenal, I had been an S graduate, I was a forum graduate, you can look up both of those things by Warner Earhart, and more like the self help, you know, genre of books you might find. But these were actual events, weekend events I would go to, and I would be with a group of people, and there would be a lot of people around and we would all share all of the stuff that we were going through. But I was younger than most. So I didn’t have a lot that I could have gone through. But it was supposed to give me the tools to help me get through when I was about to go through those things which didn’t kill some cases it did. But what did I do when my pain was so awful. And also I was alone, meaning I was in a marriage, I absolutely had my family. But when I strayed, and I was in pain about that, I did what I thought was going to be okay, I thought I could handle it. And that was taking Vikon because hey, I’m in pain. Let me let me take a Vikon that’s a painkiller. But when you start taking painkillers, which is for physical pain, to treat your emotional pain, it works. But I never actually got through what was causing all of that pain in the first place. I actually felt like somebody had died when whatever it was ended, I don’t want to say it was a relationship because it wasn’t even a relationship. It was just, it was all kinds of messed up. But I was in horrible pain, like a limb had been, you know, removed from my body. And I didn’t know how to navigate that. So the pill went into my mouth and when one pill work to would be great, and then to stop working. So three was even better. And then four and then five, and then you know, got to 50 because I never really addressed the actual pain of of what was happening. For me. I was grieving and I didn’t know that I was grieving. I mean, maybe I thought this is grief. I can’t imagine how people go through the worst kind of pain and grief without having something to help them like I had, whether it was wine, vodka, scotch like it in at any given time in my life over the last 3040 years, because it’s something I see happening for a lot of people they have a glass of wine to celebrate, but they also have a glass of wine to help them when they’re sad. I’m here to tell you that that’s a very dangerous line to walk on.

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And you don’t have to be an addictive person to cross that line. And I know that a lot of people say, Well, I could never live without it. But the truth of the matter is try. Pain comes in all kinds of ways. And as we are talking about pain today, you know, this awful tragedy that’s happened in Texas, I cannot imagine the pain that many of these families are going through, I can’t imagine the pain that the people in Ukraine are going through. This is unfathomable pain, because I haven’t gone through that, thank God. But I have had my share of pain, that’s been the worst pain for me to somebody else, they might say, self indulgent, you brought it on yourself. But it doesn’t disqualify the fact that I was in pain, and alone and in pain, and ill equipped to handle any of it. Because I was trying to manage to many other things and lie about everything that I was going through, I also think that there was, in some level, a postpartum that was going going on for me, even though that was many years later. And I want to say that, I feel like I’m not, I don’t know, if I’ve ever really been equipped to have the right skill set and the tools to manage my own pain, I’m hoping that I am better now. And I say this, because I have an event that I’m going to be going to and I don’t want to be in pain again. And I don’t want it to repeat badly in the way that I that it might have been before. And what I want to say is that in the last three weeks that I’ve recorded these episodes, I did them in one weekend, and it’s more of a weekend right now. And I’m kind of talking to myself in the future. But by the time this episode airs, it’ll be probably around the 15th of June. And so what I’m fearing is pain, about a trip that I’m gonna go through not physical, but emotional, because that’s how it was last year. And I have to record in a batch because I’ll be traveling and not have my equipment and won’t be able to upload. So that’s why I’m talking to talking to myself again, in the future. I like to as of late, I’ve been recording these episodes weekly, and then they air a few days later, or when I’m feeling it. And then it might be a week in the very beginning of this podcast, I batched. About 18 episodes, I had a lot to say.

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And then I just started talking and there was this period of time where I wasn’t able to sort of get it all out. And now I’m I’m trying to get three episodes for three straight weeks put together. And this has been hard. I’ve recorded this final episode. It’s airing today, the 15th three times, and it’s annoying me but I keep changing what I need to talk about. And why am I doing that? Well, I’m thinking much of this has to do with the anticipation of being in pain. I’ve been doing a lot of things in the last two years, which has been protecting me from any kind of pain. And I’m going to say I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but it is working for me. So no judgement. I don’t put myself out there in friendships and in relationships, because I’ve decided that this is what’s working well for me and keeping me on a very good course I’m not in pain, I haven’t been experiencing any pain. And I know this pain is going to come you know people are going to pass away, I’m going to feel pain, I’m going to have conflict, hopefully I won’t. But if I do, I’m going to be in pain. I’m doing everything that I can possibly do to discourage pain from entering my life. Now, that is not realistic, I get that. But it doesn’t mean I have to invite it either. And I have invited pain into my life by looking at what the opposite of pain is, which is pleasure. And by entering areas of my life that I shouldn’t have in order to have this kind of immediate gratification or even a feeling of happiness and joy at the time, even though it was morally and ethically wrong. It did give me pleasure, which kept me out of pain. And if I went in that direction, I look back on my life and I say why did you even go in that direction? And that’s because I started in pain. And if I don’t confront my pain head on, I have a problem because I could easily go looking externally for solution.

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shins to the internal problem. I do think this podcast has helped me address every single topic that has prevented me from living a super happy and fulfilling life. And I don’t think everybody lives a super happy and fulfilling life I like to try. And I don’t think it’s possible to avoid pain, but it’s what we do with that pain and how we manage our pain. And where, where we channel our energy of that pain. And I have not made great attempts at managing my pain, I’ve suppressed my pain, I’ve indulged my pain, I’ve ignored my pain. And I’m here to tell you don’t do it, you can’t get away from it, it will follow you everywhere until you confront that pain, whether it’s grief, get a grief counselor, and if you need one, I have a good one. And if it’s something else that’s going on for you find the right resources that will help you get through it because it is going to just get weighted down by additional pain. And then you’re not even sure about where the pain begins and where the happiness can begin for you. So one of the better takeaways for pain in the conversation about pain is learning to recognize the cues of pain, you know, you get a toothache like I have many

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you feel a twins use you, you know that if you have a certain susceptibility, like I have two teeth pain, or tooth pain, I know what it feels like I can identify immediately when something is wrong, whether it’s in the gum, whether it’s in the tooth, whether it’s in the root, whatever, I recognize what that pain is, and I know what’s coming afterwards, I think there is something that we can easily recognize when somebody passes away, we feel grief, we feel sad, we feel anger, we feel a lot of things, there is a feeling of emptiness that happens, at least for me, or maybe it’s some level of abandonment. Or perhaps it’s even I haven’t even been able to articulate what it is. But there is something that happens for me that when I am in pain, I’m not exactly sure what’s causing the pain. So I have to then get real and say, okay, you’ve you’re recognizing this feeling of emptiness, we’ll just use emptiness as an example. You’re feeling empty. What is that? What is what is causing the feeling of emptiness? Are you bored? Are you lonely? Are you insecure, frayed, recognizing what that is before the real pain can set in is probably the greatest thing I could learn. I went looking in all the right places. When I was in pain back in the day, I went to the bookstore, and we didn’t have social media, but I went to the bookstore and I would buy self help books. I went to therapy, you know, two, three times a week. And this kind of followed me throughout my life. I couldn’t figure out why things weren’t quite working out for me. Why was I sometimes in pain, and other times I was not, it’s only now in hindsight that I can say I think I’m recognizing what the pain is. And I can get ahead of it. I guess that’s the best way. I don’t know if I could prevent it. But I can absolutely get ahead of it. What does it look like? Well, whenever I feel like I’m not exactly 100% confident and sure I get really insecure, and very, very uncomfortable. And I don’t think I’m unique. I’m just only able to speak from my perspective. And then I may or may not go and do something to solve that pain or insecurity. So in the past, what I would have done was if I was insecure, I would have maybe had a glass of wine and that would have made me a little bit more secure. And then I might have done something that I might have later regretted which would cause me to feel uncomfortable in the mire regret which would cause pain. And then I might say, well let me have another glass of wine to try to get back to whatever it was that I was feeling and this weird cycle would keep going and it could have been wine or it could have been a pill. I mean, it’s been so long since I’ve been on Vikon that it’s hard to speak from that but I stopped drinking in 2019 And the reason I stopped drinking was because of the liver diagnosis but also because alcohol was clearly not working for me and it was causing me more pain than it was worth recognizing that that that was what I was able to see. You think sometimes I did that the things that are going to actually what you think are helping you are causing you

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Do more pain without really resolving the pain. You know, back in the day when I was on Vikon, I had terrible pain in my hip and my leg. And I remember when the Vikon was removed from my body, this pain in my hip and my leg was so bad. I don’t know what I did. But it was really, really painful. The pain of withdrawal was intense. And they gave me medication for that. But I couldn’t take anything but Advil for the actual physical pain that I must have put my hip and my leg through. And it was pretty bad. Recognizing what was causing the pain in the first place is a way to get ahead of how to prevent even more pain, because you’re not actually confronting that pain. All of this that I’m talking about here. Is this on going quest for not only self improvement, but maybe you know, they say, oh, what’s the meaning of life? Well, I don’t know what the meaning of life is. But I do know that I want to live a meaningful life. And in order to do that, I have to be almost hyper conscious to all of the things that are happening around me and what I’ve recognized as by recording episodes for a podcast that helped me listen back. And hopefully, my thoughts are not overly scattered in some episodes are better than others. I’ll admit that. But I don’t want to be in pain in a week’s time. And by the time this episode airs, I will know whether I was in pain, or I wasn’t in pain. But I do think by talking about it in the future, I’m not inviting the pain, but getting ahead of the pain, in order to equip myself with the tools that I need to, if I can’t prevent it, I can certainly learn how to manage it. And some people might say, why are you even talking about this, it hasn’t happened yet. While I have to talk about it, I have to be very clear in my head, so that I’m not caught off guard because I was caught off guard a year ago, and I wasn’t prepared for all of the things that happen. And I, I get that we can prepare ourselves for everything. But I do think we can prepare ourselves for some things. And I certainly want to be prepared for anything that could happen, you know, in my future, that while I might not be able to escape the sadness that might occur, I can absolutely be ready for it can’t escape it, but I can be ready for it. Which sounds odd. But I think, you know, I think that we have to learn to confront those fears to help keep us out of pain. And I know this is sounding a little like I’m all over the place with it, it feels a little all over the place for me, you know, in my past, because I wasn’t able to either manage pain. And my mother always says if you have a very high tolerance for pain, well, maybe physical pain, but this whole self medication of pain is a very, very dangerous path to take. And I know a lot of people do it. I’m not alone. And I know that the people who have addictions are equally in pain. And they started in pain. I mean, maybe they didn’t say here’s, I don’t think they were so aware of their pain that they said, let me get out of pain. I think that they tried something and they didn’t feel whatever that feeling was they realize they’re not in pain anymore, but the pain returns because it was not confronted. I’ve cultivated a very nice life for myself, I’m here to say to anybody who might be listening, that if there’s ever a question about whether you can have that, even if you’re in pain, whether you’re in pain from, you know, a bad marriage, or a unhealthy relationship, or whatever the case may be, I’m here to say you can get through this, the steps may not be easy to get through the anguish of pain, but the benefit of what’s on the other side of it is worth it. And you do have to sometimes get real, super real about what’s causing it, which may just be you things you weren’t prepared for things. You weren’t ready for decisions you made that you changed your mind on. I like the way I live. I’m very, very grateful for all that I have because I wake up every day feeling very good. Not great and not bad, but good. I feel very good. I feel very secure. I love where I live. I don’t live everyday in pain anymore. You know, it’s very funny, as I’m just saying that about six weeks ago, I had been saying to my mother, my God, my body is in pain. And she’s funny and she said you know Mallory, I wish I could tell you that it was going to get better.

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Just because aging you know you have joint pain, neck pain, arthritis, physical pain in your body. Yeah. And I was feeling it. And then I wasn’t real comfortable with my weight I was having

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have a hard time exercising, and it was more than just, you know, the pandemic, I’m sitting too much, I’m working too much. And so I started to do some research on inflammation and ways to reduce inflammation. And one of those things that causes inflammation, if not many of the things that cause inflammation is sugar. And I thought, well, I don’t eat cookies, and cake and ice cream and carbs, I don’t even eat it. But I do eat fruit. So I got rid of all this fruit. And all of a sudden, my pain dissipated, my physical pain started to go away. And as a result, I’m able to go for longer walks, because I’ve been going on walks. And as a result, I’m losing weight. And as a result, I’m feeling more energized, and I’m feeling better. So I confronted whatever this particular pain was, which was inflammation. And I did what I had to do to remove the sugar, which was just fruit, but a lot of fruit from my diet. And now I’m feeling better. So I think that that’s a interesting example, because it’s physical pain. And I didn’t take Advil which could cause more pain, you know, because it can have side effects. I didn’t take Vicodin, I didn’t take anything for all this pain, I looked at what the root of the pain was, which was the sugar and I eliminated it and started to feel better. That’s called confronting your pain. emotional pain is a little bit different. Because it’s not as obvious as sugar in your diet causing inflammation. It’s less obvious, it’s more emotional, it’s more internal. It’s not so easy to recognize, really confront it, even to the point of nauseam, just confront whatever it is that you’re looking at. And I’m even speaking to myself each time what’s really going on here that’s causing you this pain. Is it a familiarity that you want to get back to some people like being in pain, some people like what, whatever the happens, you know, like, I think that there’s a familiarity and pain and you keep drawing all of that to yourself, that’s not going to get you out of pain. That’s just going to keep you where you are. And I’m looking to grow. So here I am a week’s time I’ll be away and I hope that it is a good trip that is escaping all kinds of pains and anguish so that I can enjoy everything that it will be. And then in a week from when this episode airs, and I record my next episode, I hope to be able to share a little bit about how it went. You know, if anybody cares, I care if anybody cares. So anyway, that’s all I got. So this was the third time I recorded this episode, and I think this will be okay. Okay, well, I hope you like this or any other episode of Don’t lose your balance. You can share it you can download it, you can even write me a review. You can also follow me on Instagram, I have two handles. The first is Mallory underscore Duric. And the other is Don’t lose your balance. MSD. That’s Mary Sam and David. I also have a website which is Don’t lose your balance.com I hope today tomorrow and always you don’t lose your balance and I look forward to hearing how you didn’t lose your balance along your life’s journey. And I’ll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Hi, I am Mallory Durrick. I am a creative. A Marketing Strategist and Web Designer with a small and modest boutique Marketing Agency living in the suburbs of Philadelphia. I am the creator and narrator of this podcast, Don’t Lose Your Balance. This is a culmination of decades of self-help books, countless doctors, numerous hospitals, including rehabs. Once a wife, now divorced, a mother, a grandmother and an addict in recovery. These are things that I am and have experienced.

I’m sharing it all. Baring it all. Hoping to help others; not lose their balance.