The pain of empathy

Tonight I had a reminder of why I stopped looking at facebook.   As I mentioned in my previous post my only weakness - I say 'weakness', it's only been twice in the last fortnight! - is to look at Lazlo's breeder's page to see her dogs.   So I had a look tonight and one of her posts included comments about one of her dogs having lost her on the beach for 30 minutes, which any dog owner will tell you feels like 30 hours.   Now my empathy response has kicked in and I recognise the feeling as one I have not been having for the last two weeks. 

For me, empathy with negative experiences usually manifests itself as anxiety, faster heart rate, even a feeling of panic as my brain imagines or remembers being in a similar situation. 

My empathy can relate to anything - I get it when one of my friends has to have their dog put down; if a friend loses a parent; if I imagine how Mr H must have been feeling at our RTA, or if I see an ambulance - that relates both to our RTA and to watching my father taken away in one (he survived); I get it when someone has a disappointing experience, one that I could easily have had.  It has differing levels of symptoms depending on the context but it nearly always feels unpleasant.  (You probably noticed that I mentioned the loss of  a dog before the loss of a parent, because it happens more often; and I've experienced the former three times, and the latter only once).

I now realise how many things on social media are liable to trigger this empathetic anxiety, and it has made me even more determined to do my mental state a favour and stay off it.

Lazlo and his brothers and sisters.

Mind over matter

An interesting thing has come to my attention this week. For the last few weeks my leg has been giving me trouble, ie. pain. I have started having remedial massage therapy to try and break down the scar tissue on the muscle on the outer thigh, just two sessions so far. It hurts quite a lot while she is doing it, but feels amazing afterwards - no pain at all! But then it wears off after a couple of days.

This week, my mother has gone down with pneumonia again, and the dog has contracted gastro-enteritis, so I've had a bit to think about. Thankfully Mum has been transferred to hospital, later than she should have been. My poor father had to cope with a couple of falls and confusion caused by low oxygen levels, it's a good thing we live close by and they have other good friends who stood in while we were away at the weekend. Now at least Mum will get the treatment she needs.

Meanwhile Django became ill on Sunday while we were away and the vet thinks it is gastro-enteritis, his kidneys, liver and bloods looking generally ok. There is one more test to do for his pancreas which we have not had the results for yet. So, he has an upset tummy and right now he can't go into kennels as was planned this weekend.

So, the interesting thing I have noticed is that while I've been worrying about Mum and Django my leg has been hurting less. Even after some lawn-mowing yesterday evening, and having forgotten to take the Dihydrocodeine the last two days.

I think this goes to show how powerful a painkiller distraction can be!