What I do with that change is up to me.

Pain can change you, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a bad change. Take that pain and turn it into wisdom.  http://livelifehappy.com/life-quotes/pain-can-change-you/

One of the mind boggling things for me was that depression caused pain.  PTSD has a pain factor involved too.  I first went to medical doctors trying to figure out what was wrong with me.  I was bewildered when one doctor told me I was depressed and didn’t know it.  I figured I would know if I was depressed or not.  Years later my therapist helped me understand the physical pain attached to emotional situations.  Now I use the physical tension, distress, and body cues as a way to get a better understanding of what is happening emotionally.  I’m more than a little slow when it comes to understand what is happening emotionally.  Physical pain became my friend of cluing me in on what I am feeling.  On some of my darker days, I joked that if I open my eyes in the morning and I move and I feel pain, I’m not dead yet, time to start the day.  Chronic pain is mild for me.  I am fortunate.  Some people suffer from much more pain than I do.  But it doesn’t stop me from feeling it.  I hurt, I’m alive.  Art is one of my most powerful pain relievers.  Focusing on art the pain get shoved aside for creative endeavors.  Pain sucks.  It may change me but it doesn’t need to control me.  It takes effort on my part.  I am learning that for me, pain gives warning that I am not being kind to my body.  I work at taking care of me.  I am doing better.