Chronic Pain

We've noticed a pattern.  So many of the systems we know have chronic pain of one kind or another, and I can't help but wonder if the two are related.  I know that trauma permanently changes how one's brain works, but can it alter it so much that it causes one's body to ache constantly?  It just seems that nearly all the systems we know are sick.  A friend of ours just went to the ER for pain and the dr there told them they might have rheumatoid arthritis.

Our own body hurts all the time.  Sleeping is hard.  Just sitting here my shoulder aches.  It feels like there's a rock or something shoved under my shoulder blade.  The muscles that run along either side of our spine are so tight they're like steel cables.  We have a hard time breathing sometimes, I think because of the tightness in our shoulders.  It's hard to take a full breath.  Some days are worse than others.  Some alters are generally in more pain.  Some of us have a harder time breathing.

Sometimes I wonder if it's just anxiety?  Do we hold so much tension in our body that it's physically painful?  Is it because of the trauma?  The first time we realized that we didn't know how to relax was in highschool.. And we never really addressed that problem...

--Reggie