Lihi Lisser
I am 24, and I suffered from chronic pain for 13 years, which spread and worsened over time, in my back, pelvis, abdomen, and neck. Over the years I went to many different doctors to address different areas of my body, and I received many different diagnoses: Scoliosis, Endometriosis, Chronic Fatigue, and more.
had scoliosis in my spine that caused the back pain, that my neck was always cramped and therefore in pain, that because I’d had mono a few times I was always tired, and I simply made peace with all of this on some level, believing that these symptoms would be present my whole life and I’d have to treat them with pain relief each time.
I tried a year of physical therapy for my spine when I was 15, and my back still hurt all the time, much more during times of stress.
But the thing that bothered and scared me the absolute most was the pain in my pelvis and stomach, which I experienced a lot around menstruation, and which debilitated me for at least a week each month. I got to a point where I was managing my whole life around menstruation: I would cancel plans for that week, take days off work and school and stop functioning, I would lie in bed and suffer from severe pain, and over time the pain grew worse, no matter how many painkillers I took.
At age 17, I tried natural therapies (acupuncture, nutritional changes, adapted yoga) and when I was 19-22 I tried hormonal therapies (7 types of pills) and tried to figure out what was causing the pain.
Over the years, my fear only got worse, and so did my uncertainty. I had many fearful thoughts: “What could this be?” and “It must be a really terrible disease if I’ve already done so many tests and seen so many doctors and they still haven’t found out what’s going on in my body.” But the fear that stuck with me the most and was really hard to cope with was, “What if I can’t have children and become a mother?”
At age 22, I went to the endometriosis clinic at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital. Very quickly, we understood that 99% of what I was suffering from was endo, and that was the source of all my pain. After a week, I underwent surgery to diagnose and treat endometriosis. I thought and hoped that here, all my doubts and uncertainties would be resolved. I was worried about the diagnosis of endo and about having a chronic gynecological illness all my life, but I had so badly wanted to know what I had that I hoped it was endo and that they would treat it and solve the problem. But when the results came back, I discovered that I did not have endometriosis. And I was back at square one.
not have endometriosis. And I was back at square one.At that point, I was really full of despair. The fear of what it might be increased, and the pain that had eased after the surgery came back twofold. I reached a point where I was homebound, not functioning, for months on end because of the pain in my entire body.
I understood, but I still didn’t believe it, it didn’t seem to make sense. After so many years of doctors referring me to each other, all the tests and treatments and uncertainties and great fears I had, I couldn’t understand how it was possible that all my pain was connected; how could it be that my pain was not caused by any physical problem in my body? It seemed too simple and too good that somehow everything was suddenly connected and came from the same source like some kind of magic.
Alongside this, I was relieved that I had some kind of certainty, which I hadn’t had for years. Here, for the first time, someone was telling me: “We know what you have, and more than that — you can heal from it.” Really heal. You don’t need to stay alone with this your whole life.
Another thing that gave me enormous relief was understanding that I wasn’t the only person in the world who is coping with this, that there are others who have gone through and are going through this chronic pain and recovering from it. I felt, for the first time in my life, that someone understands what I’m going through, and is giving me hope that I will come out the other side and recover from this pain. These two things really strengthened me and calmed me and gave me a good basis of faith in the process of recovery and treatment. Efrat sent me to Lihi, and from there, I began to heal.
The Recovery Process:
I began recovering the moment I understood what chronic pain actually is, how the pain mechanism works, and what life circumstances brought me to experience chronic pain.
I began to explore the connection between the way my body and mind react, and to identify my pain triggers.
Slowly, I understood that I have no structural problem in my body, despite all the diagnoses and the treatments I went through. I have neuroplastic pain and it expresses itself through different organs in my body at different times and intensities. And the real change happened the moment I started to believe that my pain could pass and that I could, with challenging physical and emotional work, heal the pain. Heal my body and soul and turn living in my body and soul and the world into a good and healthy life, one lived with more precision and awareness.
With faith and hard work, I started to see the small successes. Bit by bit, I started to listen more to my heart and the feelings that come up in me and to give them more space to be heard. At first, within myself, and then with other people. I decided that I would no longer keep things bottled inside, I wouldn’t store emotions within my body, instead I would hold space for them and release them from within me.
And the more I am able to hold space for my feelings in time, the more I get better and move forward in my work with the pain. When I felt pain in my body in a certain place, I tried to understand why it was hurting just then, and to dig deep into my hidden feelings to release the pain. Slowly, I was better able to hold space for my feelings and relate to them even before the pain showed up at all. I was able to break the pain mechanism.
It took time, and those were months of constant challenging work, and what really got me through those painful and difficult moments was the fact that I felt that I was moving forward and succeeding more each time, and my faith in the process itself deepened. The belief that the work I was doing was paying off and that I was healing from the pain through it. And my understanding that this pain was part of my life for so many years, and now I was peeling off all those years and leaving them behind me and that is hard work that takes time. The soul and the body need time and space to heal.
The next step in my recovery process was to approach the core of the pain. To expose the whole emotional mechanism that the pain was built on. To learn to sit with my difficult feelings, with my deepest and most primal fears, and start to build a better way to manage my emotions. I learned a new way of life where I could sit with the things that happen to me and the feelings that come up in me, a way to connect to them and express them, a better way of life that is pleasant for me to live, a way that is good for my body and spirit.I discovered many emotions and severe fears that had been weighing on me all those years.
I discovered that I had a lot of anger over traumas I experienced that caused me to manage my emotions in a way that wasn’t good for me, to suppress and to bury my feelings, to forget myself and put my needs and feelings and desires last. Because there were things that were more important than me. I discovered that I had a lot of anger at myself and self-criticism, and that the anger and the criticism and the extremely negative and unloving way of relating to myself fed the pain cycle and didn’t let me escape it.
These discoveries were very difficult within my relationship with myself. I felt that everything I felt I was and my whole worldview was collapsing, that I didn’t want to conduct my life like this anymore, I didn’t want to evaluate myself this way, I didn’t want to be my own lowest priority, I wanted to live differently with myself. I felt that I no longer knew who I was, what my personality was or what my interests were, what I love, that I no longer knew what my real core was and what things were truly important to me and what I’d build within myself all those years to be better and stronger for those around me. This brought on a period that was very confusing and sad for me. I felt shaken to my core and like I had lost myself entirely. That I had peeled off everything I was and didn’t know who I would be after this whole process. It’s like there was a dam within me that was holding all these feelings and it suddenly burst at full force and I was flooded with all the feelings and fears that had been stored there for years.
In those days I mostly sat with myself and my pain, I let it come out at full force, I let myself rage, cry, and just be drained of desire and energy. And after I let myself grieve the way I had related to myself and the life I had lived, I now feel that I’m starting to wake up and build a new world for me to live in, a world where I listen to myself and to my soul, a world where I listen to my body and what it tells me, and I see pain as an opportunity to explore and to understand what lies beneath it and how I can be more attentive to myself through it.
Today I mostly try to be very compassionate and loving towards myself, to be with myself and with the feelings that come up in me. I am grateful for the journey I took. I never believed I would live without chronic pain, and together with Lihi and with a lot of hard work I got there and I’m so happy and grateful for each day.
I am grateful for the deep understanding I now have of my soul and my body and how they work, and I continue working with them instead of against them.What helped me most in my recovery journey was lots of faith in the process and in Lihi’s guidance, and letting go of time or irrelevant external measures and focusing on myself and what was coming up for me. And the belief that hard work pays off and moves me forward.
