ISN'T THAT ALL IN YOUR HEAD?

This is a common misconception about Chronic Pain and one you know that a lot people think is true - even if they don't say it out loud.  Well, I suppose the easiest answer I can come up with when faced with this wonderfully helpful piece of diagnosis is:  Yes it is, in the sense that my nerve endings are continually telling my brain that my original injury still hurts, even though I have physically healed. And: No it isn't, in the sense that it is all in my imagination and therefore not real.

Now I have a reasonably good imagination and sometimes it's even detrimental to my mental health.  For example:  husband is 10 minutes late home from work in the fog and before you know it, I have him dead in an upturned car that has rolled down a ditch somewhere.  Of course, needless to say,  he strolls in, pinches a chocolate chip cookie from the biscuit tin and asks what's for dinner and I have to snap out of mentally arranging funeral flowers and whimper "it's your favourite - sausages". Thus life whips the "imagination elastic" back in my face (and rightly so).  Most of the time my imagination goes down the bizzaro route and ends up humorous (well for me at any rate) so no harm done.  Having said that however, I can honestly swear that I have never, ever, ever been able to conjour up physical pain by the means of pure mental thought - that gift is well beyond me.

TODAY'S LEMON RATING:   A reasonable 5.5 out of 10 (plus side = the sun is out; minus side = I can't tend my lovely garden)