The Bondage of Emotional Pain

Life’s Like This — There are moments, I believe, in most of our lives, where the joy of living is overcome with depression, anxiety, and the fear of stepping outside one’s comfort zone to experience the best that life can offer. Moments in life, where it can be difficult to escape the bondage of emotional pain because we are fearful of letting others get close to us, where we can trust them with our feelings, and where we can let them get to know us to a point where a bridge of understanding can be built and relationships can flourish. Quite often, emotional pain is hidden, deep in a closet of darkness, and tucked away in seclusion where it can languish in solitude. But for others, their emotional pain is quite evident; they seem to carry the wounds of their heart on their sleeves where it is apparent to all that know them. For those of us caught up in a web of emotional pain, we often ask ourselves, when will it all end? Why, despite all the counseling we may have gone through, does the pain still persist? And why must we be held hostage to this pain from which there seems to be no escape?

Willing to Wait

Life’s Like This — From the mundane to the profound moments of our lives — from waiting on traffic lights and elevators to the end of suffering or the fulfillment of dreams — life gives us no choice but to wait. Yet waiting is not a quality that most of us can honestly say we have, in fact, patience seems to be a virtue in short supply. In our fast paced, hectic world, patience seems to be eluding all of us in some degree or another. It isn’t surprising to find ourselves caught up in situations where it would be helpful to have that extra degree of patience to help us get through a difficult situation or even seemingly insignificant moments that can cause us undue stress. There are some of us that seem to have the patience of Job, a man that lived a very faithful and righteous life, yet endured one infliction after another without ever cursing God’s name. It would be nice if we could all lay claim to the example of Job, but unfortunately, we instead get frustrated or angry with the situation we are confronted with and often resort to behavior that is shameful or simply immature. And when we lose patience in any given situation, it is, in most cases, ourselves that suffer the consequences of our behavior.

Understanding Emotional Walls

Life’s Like This — Sometimes all you can do is smile, move on with your day, hold back your tears, and pretend your okay. It isn’t easy to put on a happy face when inside your heart your emotions are tied up in a knot and you feel like you have been put through the wringer of life where every ounce of positiveness has been squeezed out of your soul. You may wake up in the morning with every intention of ushering in a day filled with hope and joy only to encounter emotional setbacks that leave you reeling with feelings of anxiety, frustration, disappointment, and perhaps even anger. As your day unfolds, people you come in contact with may perceive you as being okay, with no worries or concerns, and with no idea that inside your heart you are going through an internal struggle that you desperately want to escape from. For those of us that have bubbly and out-going personalities, the mask of deception can be greater than for those whose normal appearance is more reserved. But for each personality, the pain one feels is still lurking in the corners of their heart, yearning for someone to understand, someone to reach out and see behind the mask and be able to touch their hearts in such a way that the emotional walls begin to crumble so you can then begin to share the pain that has been hidden from others.

Wounds of War

Life’s Like This — There are wounds of war and life that simply cannot be forgotten. As a veteran, with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), I know this all too well. I also know how difficult it is to share my story and to relive the events that led up to my PTSD. But my story, like the story of so many others afflicted with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder needs to be understood. Because until it is understood, people will not recognize the impact PTSD can have on the lives of veterans and those in civilian life who have experienced life-altering traumatic events.    
These life-altering events can come in many different forms. In my case, it came as a result of being hit by a grenade in Korea and exposure to countless traumatic events that left an indelible imprint on my mind. While the wounds of veterans who have returned home from war may reflect different life-altering events, the effects of PTSD does not discriminate. It is like a cancer that can invade ones mind and causes physical manifestations that has not been fully understood by the Veterans Administration until recent years. In my case, it took the Veterans Administration 25 years to diagnose me with PTSD. For 25 years, I was at a loss for what was happening to me, both psychologically and physically to my body. This condition invaded nearly every aspect of my life and has taken its toll, not only on my health, but in my relationships with my family and others I have interacted with over the years.

A Story of Hearing Loss Restoration

This is a personal story of my hearing loss told through a presentation I made before the Baha Champion Event a few years ago in Kentucky. I share my story with the hope that those of you with hearing loss can explore alternatives to traditional hearing aids. But first, a few words about Cochlear.  
 
Cochlear Americas is part of Cochlear Limited, an industry leader and manufacturer of implantable hearing solutions with facilities in 100 countries, used by over 230,000 cochlear implant and Baha® users worldwide. Cochlear’s products – Nucleus® Cochlear Implant and Baha technologies – provide opportunities for people to improve hearing and speech. 
 
 

Few people are aware of the meaning of hearing loss, the challenges in dealing with hearing loss and the new options that are now available to improve quality of life. Cochlear strives to raise awareness with people who may be currently struggling with their hearing aids, and to show that other options do exist for those with severe to profound hearing loss.

Trauma of the heart

Pain isn’t always physical. There are wounds of the heart, soul and mind that are far more devastating than any gunshot wound or burning piece of shrapnel – wounds that often lead to a lifetime of inability to cope with the psycho-trauma that not only impacts the mind but every aspect of a man or woman’s life. Trauma that shuts down your heart leaving you with an inability to form close relationships or that tears apart the ones you have. Trauma that reaches deep into your soul, that incapacitates you to the point you no longer care whether you live or die.  
 
 
Life’s like this; trauma does not discriminate. It can affect every man, woman or child in various forms, at any age, from the most devastating physical wound to the deepest form of depression — trauma of the heart. Coping with this kind of trauma and living with it on a daily basis is an endless battle. Behind the smiling face of your family member, neighbor, friend or stranger can be an insidious disease that is crippling and draining energy and hope needed to cope and face the challenges of our world. For these people, it is like a puzzle where you can not find a place for a piece to make that puzzle whole. This trauma of the heart — depression, often shatters one’s life, like a broken mirror, into pieces that may never be healed with any medication or endless therapy sessions. It clouds their thought processes which impedes their road to recovery. Unlike physical trauma that often heals over time, trauma of the heart, of one’s mind, can last a life time.