The Familiar is only a Phantom Pain

I worked in a nursing home for nearly five years. That amount of time has created a storehouse of unforgettable memories. I particularly remember an elderly lady whom we will refer to as Mrs. X. Mrs. X was a vocal lady. She had severe Dementia and wasn’t oriented to where she was or what year we were living in. Some days she looked for her mother because she did not remember that her mother was deceased. Sadly enough, she also forgot that both of her legs had been amputated several years ago. 

There were times that she would call staff into her room because her “legs” were hurting. Sometimes she would ask me to push her wheelchair around the facility. She would yell out in pain when we went over any type of groove or indentation of some sort in the floor. One day we were headed down the hall and she began to holler “Oh! Wait! You’re hurting my legs!” It was with such intensity that I stopped the wheelchair, locked it, and walked around the chair to look at Mrs. X for myself. There were no legs there.

Mrs. X was experiencing phantom pains. Phantom pains are pains that are believed to come from a body part that is not there. They can be felt in other parts of the human body; it just so happened that Mrs. X’s area was her legs due to the amputations. No matter how much pain she thought her legs were causing; it was impossible because her legs were not there.

I believe we experience phantom pains a time or two in our lives. What feels real is merely a memory or some type of mirage the enemy wants us to accept as truth. I also believe that some of them may just be familiar. A while back I did a few social media posts that started with “sis.” One of the posts said “Sis, you don’t miss him. He’s just familiar.” An area, an experience, a tragedy, or a relationship may be what you’ve grown accustomed to, not a reality. The negative effects that sometimes cause the desire to return to them are not real. They are just familiar. The emotions and desires are real–what you may think is present, is not. You are detached from that now. You can move forward.