About Spirit of Pain At Spirit of Pain, we are passionate about assisting people experiencing chronic pain and/or chronic illness. We aim to provide support throughout your life path and endeavour to educate the public about the less-known facts regarding living an alternative lifestyle. A clinical approach to chronic illness forms the golden rule of treatment. There are a multitude of benefits to clinical assessment and treatment regimes, but at some stage one realises that it doesn’t account for all aspects of wellbeing. Wellbeing isn’t just about being free of illness, but encompasses a whole compendium of ideations. Many who are perfectly healthy on paper live with debilitating conditions, be that emotional trauma, depression or a depleted spiritual capacity. Spirit of Pain aims to educate the public and clinicians about the different aspects of life which implicate daily living. In today’s time, there’s an abundance of information out there and the general man on street has no knowledge on how to sift the nonsense from quality information. Spirit of Pain attempts to summarize some of the key features and endeavours to simplify the information by applying sound scientific methods to sift information. We support alternative ways of thinking! Much of the information on the internet is seen as on the fringes of science… But, as we’ve seen repeatedly in history, yesterday’s fringe science become law tomorrow. Take Isaac Newton’s laws of gravity as an example. In his time, he was seen as a mage/wizard and lived an isolated life. Today, he is seen as one of the early pioneers of physics! Blog Our Blog is dedicated to provide insights and share knowledge gained through experiences dealing with chronic conditions, be that personal or from patient care. We adhere to the principles of Mind, Body and Spirit; the triangle of wellbeing. In today’s time, quite a lot of effort is put into Body and a little less into its relationship with Mind. One point that is long forgotten in our modern-day fast-paced life, is Spirit. Different from the Ancients, we live in a materialistic world where everything is run like gears with little emphasis on the emotional or spiritual aspects thereof. Think about how we handle death these days; you die in a hospital, a funeral is held and you are remembered only for a few years after. Our approach to death is way too clinical, while it’s actually a lovely beginning of a new Spiritual journey. About the Author I am in the unique stage of Being with life experience many would never get the chance to see or feel. I was diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (Classical / Type 1) at a young age after our local doctor saw me watching TV with both feet behind my head. Lucky enough, I was able to see awesome specialists who made the diagnosis and privileged to meet Professor Peter Beighton, who is pretty much the ‘father’ of connective tissue disorders. As a child, I could not partake in sport like my peers, and spent my time as an avid fiction reader. Due to fears and a history of joint dislocations, I was rather isolated. I had to wear joint braces to ‘keep everything in place’. My grandmother had a great influence on the way I reason about life; she was rather different for an old lady. I was raised in a typical small African town and went to a typical strict church. My grandmother was extremely involved in the church community, but she had her own ideations about what God is and how the world is influence by Him. She also had a knack for understanding strange things and would know about stuff before it happens (if you catch my drift). She expanded greatly the way the world seemed versus how it actually functioned. After wearing braces most of the time, I realized that while they were preventing injury, they were also keeping me from experiencing activities that may lead to injury. So, while still in primary school, the difference between quantity and quality of life became apparent. Without a second thought, I dumped all my braces and embraced the fact that I will get injuries, but at least I get to experience them on my own terms. At the age of seven, a brave orthopaedic surgeon suggested a knee replacement, which I vehemently denied. During my teenage years, Ehlers Danlos became more prominent and the chronic pain started… Of course, the first place you run is to your doctors. I was prescribed many different pain medications during those years, which helped immensely. A passion was initiated to study in the field of medicine, not necessarily to help others, but because I wanted to understand people. I ended up studying Physiotherapy, which hit the spot right on! Studying Physiotherapy was amazing; learning about the human body and then how to apply your hands to help heal others. I gained insight I would never have by studying anything else. My pain got worse though, as my studies were quite strenuous on my body. I knew I only had a few years to practice before my body would give in… My first job was at a State hospital where I focused on rehabilitation of neurological, respiratory and cardiac illnesses. I also formed part of the trauma-response team where I did multiple resuscitations and got some experience dealing with people dying. Death intrigued me and I developed a passion for palliative (end-of-life) care. I held the hand of many a person taking their last breaths during that time and it brought me to the point of facing my own mortality. A very insightful senior physiotherapist advanced the way I viewed pain and its comorbidities while working in a pain clinic at the hospital. Her consultations were a bit longer and most of the time spent was talking with the patient. This is also where I had my first interactions dealing with Maximum Security Prison Inmates (read more here). I realized that pain is multi-faceted and that I knew next to nothing about how to heal the person, and not the patient. After working at the prison, I took a job working in a chronic mental health facility (imagine an asylum from a movie). Here I found the opposite of what I was hoping to discover… I haven’t learned about the human psyche at all, only that institutionalization is the worst thing possible. It felt as if I’m a guard in literal Hell, trying to placate those most in need instead of actually helping them. I learned a lot about servitude and standing up for the rights of others and had to fight to keep every inch of ground earned. It’s here where I developed my ultimate ideation… There’s no such thing as mental illness, only societal woes If society wasn’t ill and corrupted to its core, we would have no need for mental health and everything it encompasses; from substance abuse to schizophrenia. I believe there’s a space for every soul on our beautiful planet, but we as humans tend to compartmentalize as a coping mechanism. We do not like seeing the things we cannot explain and would rather brand them as outcasts. Anything not agreeable to general society is shunned; just look at our current Cancel Culture. We need to shift our focus to those who are to come and make peace with what we are and the situation we find ourselves in. We need to create a better tomorrow, not for us, but for humanity.