This article written by Carol Levy for the National Pain Report titled A Pained Life: Don’ t Let My Smile Fool You really struck a nerve with me. Many times we are asked Why don’t you smile? Then when we are smiling people say “But you don’t look sick”! When we express how we are really feeling it can be taken as being a debby downer or serial complainer. But when we put on a fake smile when we are really in excruciating pain; it makes it difficult for people to believe we are really sick at all. So then the question remains:
“To smile or not to smile?”
This question has plagued me for as long as I have lived with chronic pain. I do not have an answer. But I do have a poem that sums up how I feel about the subject. Smile if you want. Don’t smile if you don’t. Never allow anyone to invalidate your condition either way. Be Happy and always #stay triumphant.
smile
just put a smile on they say
but a smile won’t make the pain go away
a vapid remedy for the ache
I tried smiling yesterday
and the pain continued just like every day
streams flowed incessantly down my face
red stained tears,
a woeful place
trapped inside this body
no escape
so I won’t smile
no not today
not worth the misery
can’t bear the heartache
that vapid remedy only fuels my hate
for I tried smiling yesterday
might try again tomorrow
but not today
:)
