We caused this. Really?

I had a strange conversation a few months back with a friend who believes in reincarnation. "No matter how awful our situations in life," he said, "we arranged it before 'we came to earth".

It does not matter if you believe in reincarnation, karma, past lives, or nothing like that, the chances are good you have heard someone say 'Well. You brought this on yourself." Sometimes they explain further - your diet, your attitude, your...self.

Is chronic debilitating pain something we bring on ourselves? Is it payment for something we might have done in this life or another? Is it payback because we have not taken proper care of ourselves?

You rarely hear people being blamed for having cancer, maybe for smoking or staying in the sun, but once they have it it is usually something not brought to bear on them as they go through treatments and procedures. And yet, many of us with CP do hear that; when the pain starts and then stays, and stays, and stays, after diagnosis, after surgeries, while recuperating etc. What is it about CP that makes it fair game for their blame game?

Others blame us. We blame ourselves. It had to be something I did. If we could just find the explanation for why this happened, for why it happened to me.

Pain is so unexplanable, even by many in the medical profession, that for many of us this question seems to be at the core in accepting the pain and its staying power. I wonder if we do not tend to ask this question more often than those with other issues, even cancer, a very understandable 'why me' disease.

At the end of the day, or even the beginning, though, no matter what your beliefs, this is not something we ordained for ourselves. This is not something we set into motion. And never, ever, let someone convince you that you did.