In a Facebook group about the science of chronic pain and it’s management, someone commented that providers have said if they do not imagine being pain free, they never will be. This person commented that they do not remember being pain free.
This sparked a response in me which I have chosen to share here:
It was a really interesting comment to read. I have had chronic pain since I was almost 5 (basically for 34 yrs). I do believe that this affects how I deal with it and experience it.
I had two good years without pain (very roughly aged 15-17) and that made the returned onset of pain (always anticipated) much more difficult to manage than it had been previously. Equally, I struggled to understand who I am with and without the pain after this – though I think I only really recognise this now.
Pain management programmes teach us to accept our pain in order to be able to live well with it. However the social expectation is that to accept pain as part of our lives and future is giving up and giving in.
When we encounter ideas about needing to be able to envision a life without pain, and what that might entail, it feels almost like a cruelty – why should we indulge thoughts of what might be if this wasn’t our reality when the very consuming nature of pain means that such a thing seems so out of reach. Surely that is taunting us…
Instead, it is helpful to imagine what we would like to do or achieve. The presence of pain is an adjunct. It comes next. First, what would you like… second, how can you achieve this… what’s the first step to that, what’s realistic as an outcome, etc.. Those of us who have little or no memory of anything else may struggle, like everyone else with pain, to imagine how we will achieve these things. The difference is, we have different understandings of the base point from which we are starting. That’s not to say either scenario (of experience with pain) is easier than the other.
Personally, my pain is my normal. I have stopped pretending that it’s an easy thing to live with or to explain. Some days it’s far from. However I do understand that it has helped to shape the person I am today.
I do not need to wish for low pain days. I know I have them, just as I have my high pain days and the spectrum in-between. This is the reality of accepting my life with chronic pain. There are good days and bad in both mood and pain levels. Sometimes the better mood days do not correlate with the low pain days as you may expect. This is just part of the complexity of the condition and understanding what it is to live as a person with chronic pain.
My Chronic Pain 