How did a blueberry help a person’s lived experience of pain?
(Congratulations to those on a quest for the answer! 10 extra credit points if you comment below!)
Yes, a blueberry helped a person live with less pain and improved her daily life experience. Not an actual blueberry though — that would be an even stranger story! It was the word blueberry.
Here’s how the story goes . . .
It was a dark and stormy night . . .
Sorry, couldn’t resist. 😊
It was a sunny spring day and I was in the middle of a home visit with a teenage client with CRPS I’d been working with for about a month. She had experienced pain every day for half of her life already. We were exploring and chatting about her daily experiences and what things increased her anxiety, fear, and pain. She started describing how she hated to tell people in social or family situations when she wasn’t feeling well, or her pain was unbearable. She described how ashamed she felt and how she often “toughed it out” so as to not to have to say out loud that she was in pain.
I asked how she felt when she did say something and how she felt when people around her responded. These too increased her anxiety, shame, and often, her pain. She was afraid nobody wanted to hear about her pain anymore and hated it when family members became anxious and worried about her.
So, it was better not to talk about it. Not to ask for what she needed. Not to have other people worried. It was better . . . but it was not better. The anxiety, the fear, the shame — were heavy burdens of suppressed emotions and unspoken and unmet needs.
“What if,” I said, “You didn’t have to tell people you were hurting or didn’t feel well?”
She looked at me with a look like “well, duh, that’s what I’m doing now.”
“No, I mean, what if there was a different way for you to communicate that without saying the words?”
“What if you just picked a code word, told everyone in the family what it means, and whenever you need to tell them you are hurting and need something, you say the word?”
A look of relief crossed her face and the next thing I knew she was smiling with a mischievous smirk. “That’s a great idea,” she said, “And the word I pick is blueberry!”
We called her mom and dad over and she explained to them the problem she had been having telling them when she was hurting and needed help and how it was making her feel. She explained that from now on when she said the word “blueberry” it was code for “I’m hurting and need help from you.”
They all laughed and started thinking of ways to make more code words for things they found difficult to talk about. Pretty soon “crumpets” was added, I think as a signal little sister was bugging her.
I checked in periodically on how “blueberry” was working, and the family reported it had significantly changed their daily communication, reduced their stress and anxiety, and yes, it even helped improve her daily pain experience.
Nobody taught me to try code words with the people in pain I worked with. This client taught me as I listened to her story and the idea was inspired. I had no evidence, no research, no education to know if it would work. But what I did have was her inspiration, motivation, and lived experience.
A blueberry CAN and DID change a person’s pain experience and daily life.
Helping people learn through lived experience works!
(FYI — I adapted this for home use. “Ketchup” means my husband and I need to stop talking because we are getting into an argument that’s going nowhere!)
What code word(s) will you choose?
