It's Complex

As I’ve posted on many occasions before, for those of us living with chronic pain or illness, the word tired doesn’t quite cover it. It goes beyond the tired experience that able-bodied people get from the odd night of poor sleep. The tiredness I feel goes so much deeper and it’s hard to explain just how tiring it is if you haven’t experienced full blown fatigue to that level. For me, it's a profound, bone-deep weariness that a good night's sleep cannot cure. That multiple good night’s sleep cannot cure. When you are a Pain Warrior, you aren't just managing physical symptoms, you are managing your mental health too and it’s like a full-time, high-stakes job that never offers a day off. This job requires constant micro-calculations about energy, medication, and activity, leading to intense decision fatigue. 

Eventually, the relentless effort of pushing through, of constantly battling your own body and maintaining a normal life, leads to a specific, heavy kind of exhaustion: Chronic Pain Burnout. This isn't just exhaustion from work, it's a physiological and emotional bankruptcy caused by a nervous system constantly stuck in a fight or flight stress response...........continued on blog:

To learn more about how chronic pain and burnout go hand in hand and what you can do to help yourself navigate it, head on over to my blog post here:

When we talk about disordered eating, the conversation usually revolves around body image, weight stigma, or societal pressure, especially as women. Well-known eating disorders like anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are usually what come to mind first, but there are many different forms of eating disorders and, more broadly, disordered eating patterns.

For me and millions of people living with chronic pain, the relationship with food is fractured not by how we want to look, but by how we want to feel. This struggle within us moves beyond the psychological desire for thinness and lands firmly in the territory of survival and symptom management. It’s just one more area of chronic pain that costs us spoons that we have to manage. For Pain Warriors, a meal is less about nutrition or pleasure, and more about navigating a complex game with high-stakes trade-off.

If you live with chronic conditions like Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), fibromyalgia, endometriosis, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), migraines, autoimmune diseases, or anything else similar, you know that food stops being just fuel or pleasure. It becomes a variable to manage, a source of exhaustion, or a trigger for agony.

For example..................continued on blog.........

To read more on how disordered eating develops out of necessity in Pain Warriors, and what you can do about it, head on over to my blog post here:

The Heavy Invisible Load: Beyond the Physical Pain 💔

This year, I'm going deeper into the "hard stuff"—the invisible load we carry with chronic pain. It’s not just the physical agony; it's the shame, guilt, and profound loneliness that makes our hearts heavy.

In my latest post, I dive into Body Image Distress, the quiet struggle when your body feels like a stranger or an enemy due to unpredictable pain, medication side effects, and the grief for your "Before" self. I share why standard body positivity advice often falls flat for Pain Warriors.

We deserve gentle acceptance, not forced celebration. I'm sharing compassionate, realistic strategies for coping:

Shift to Body Neutrality: Focus on respect and dignity, not forced love. Your body is fighting hard for you.

Radical Closet Edits: Ditch the clothes that remind you of what you've lost. Wear what fits and affirms you today.

Grieve the Loss: Give yourself permission to mourn the changes—it's a necessary step toward healing.

Separate Movement from Exercise: Gentle care is the goal, not exertion or aesthetic results.

Your body is a survivor of 100% of your bad days. Let’s lighten the load together and start honest conversations.

Read the full post here:

After posting Part 1 of my post on transforming your living space, I went against my own advice, and did a lot around the house, organizing after Christmas and New Year's, and that sucked up my energy, resulting in me taking a mini break from blogging and social media. But I'm back, refreshed and happy to post Part 2 of transforming your living space.

Today's post covers the bedroom, livingroom and some universal tweaks you can do throughout your home.

Hope you all are doing well and that the new year is treating you well!

For those of us living with persistent pain, our homes are rarely just a place to sleep. They are a meaningful nexus and at the center of our everyday life that serves as a sanctuary, a recovery room, and, at times, a frustrating cage. Our home becomes pretty much our everything. Since we are limited in what we can do, we spend a lot of time at home, and for me, my home and living spaces are really important to me because my house is my safe space, however imperfect it is. My space is somewhere I can be myself in. But, when chronic illness demands a calculated expenditure of limited energy, the physical layout and design of your living space become a critical, yet often overlooked, factor in determining your overall quality of life. A few extra simple steps, or an awkwardly placed item you access daily, can be the difference between a functional day and a debilitating flare-up. I resisted at first. I didn’t think it would make much of a difference in my day to day pain that I’d get just from moving around the house and going about my day, but by implementing a few changes, I am happy to report that it does make a difference. A substantial difference. Not having to bend or stretch awkwardly, or walk back and forth 5 times to get everything you need, has meant that I’m able to do more around the house. 

This is why adapting your environment is not about admitting defeat or giving into illness; it is about strategic optimization and immense self-compassion. By making intentional changes to your home's structure and organization, you can significantly reduce daily physical strain, preserve your limited spoons of energy, and, most importantly, reclaim a sense of agency over your life. The goal is to design a space that...........continued on blog............

To learn more on the positive impact that adapting your home can have on yourself and your pain levels, head on over to my blog here for Part 1 of 2 of this blog post:

Hi all, happy happy new year! I hope you all survived the holidays and are ready to take on 2026!

As 2026 opens, I am excited to announce that I have created an old school web forum called meredithhutton79's Chronic Pain Forum, that is a private, members only community for those of us who suffer from chronic pain.

I really think we can build something special that is safe, supportive, and empowering.

Click on the link below to join.

Today I bring you the last part to my blog post on the healing power of gentle movement. Here are the links if you missed Parts 1 and 2:

Part 1: https://www.meredithhutton79.com/meredithhutton79/the-healing-power-of-gentle-movement-finding-your-flow-through-chronic-pain-part-1

Part 2: https://www.meredithhutton79.com/meredithhutton79/the-healing-power-of-gentle-movement-finding-your-flow-through-chronic-pain-part-2

10 Strategies and Gentle Exercises for Pain Management

If you’re ready to start, remember the golden rule: Pace, don't race. Here are five strategies and five exercises to help you find your flow.

Strategies for Success

1. The "50% Rule": When managing chronic pain, the urge to take advantage of a "good day" can be overwhelming. The "50% Rule" is a critical pacing strategy that acts as a proactive defense against the debilitating "boom-and-bust" cycle. This cycle is the number one cause of setbacks, where you push too hard on a low-pain day, deplete your energy reserves, and then spend the next several days in a severe pain flare, essentially undoing any progress you made.

To implement this, when you feel like you have enough energy for a certain activity—say, a 30-minute walk—do only 50% of what you think you can handle, which in this case would be 15 minutes. The goal is to...........continued on blog...........

To learn 5 strategies and 5 exercises to start gentle movement in 2026, head on over to Part 3 of my blog post here:

Today I bring you Part 2 of this blog post. If you missed Part 1, head on over here https://www.meredithhutton79.com/meredithhutton79/the-healing-power-of-gentle-movement-finding-your-flow-through-chronic-pain-part-1 to catch up. 

The Cost of Immobility: The "Deconditioning" Trap

It is tempting to stay in bed on high-pain days, and sometimes…oftentimes…this rest is necessary. There’s no question. On some of my higher pain days, where everything is overwhelming my brain and body because my pain is so high, all I can handle is laying in a quiet, dark room, that’s warm, and hope I sleep some of it away. My brain pretty much shuts off because the pain signals are so high and there are so many, that they overpower my brain and I’m not left with enough bandwidth to manage my day to day life. When it’s that bad, my capacity to function at that moment ceases. Any stimulation is just too much and I end up reduced to tears because I’m so desperate for it to stop. Happens every 2-3 weeks where I’m just so overwhelmed I need to shut everything off so that my brain can have the quiet. So while this rest is necessary, we have to keep in mind that, long-term inactivity often leads to a secondary set of problems that can be just as debilitating as the original pain:

1. Muscle Atrophy: Muscles that aren't used begin to weaken and shrink, a process known as atrophy. This physiological change occurs surprisingly quickly, with strength............continued on blog.............

To learn more about what the Deconditioning Trap is, and how it shows up and impacts Pain Warriors, head on over to my blog post here:

The Protective Paradox: Why Stillness is a Trap

When you live with chronic pain, the very idea of movement can feel like a cruel joke, a harsh paradox where the body needs activity but every fiber of your being screams for stillness. When your body feels like you’re rolling in shards of glass while also on fire, and everything has an aching throb, the last thing any rational person would want to do is fan those flames with activity. The natural, protective instinct is to guard the painful area(s), to sit still, or hold your position a certain way, and then wait for the storm to pass. This reaction is understandable. It is a primal attempt by the nervous system to keep you safe, but in the long term, this very act of self-preservation often traps the sufferer in a persistent cycle of worsening pain which increases their disability.

The Transformative Shift: From Fear to Flow

This is something I wish I’d learned sooner as it was an aspect of my chronic pain management that took me a very long time to learn and adapt to, and even longer to accept that I was wrong in my thinking. I honestly didn’t think such a little amount of daily movement could actually help me mentally or improve my pain. But I was wrong. Over the last couple of years, one of the most transformative and powerful shifts I’ve learned in managing my chronic pain is being able to move away from this intense, fear-based rest and protect model, toward a compassionate, intentional and consistent gentle movement model. I’m here to tell you, in as little as 5-10 minutes a day of mild exercise and/or stretching, can make a difference. I want you to think about this as we are entering a new year. 5-10 minutes of gentle movement, a few times a week can, and will, make a difference.

Something else I had to learn was this is 100% not..........continued on blog.............

To read the rest of Part 1 of my 3 part series on gentle movement, head on over to my blog post here:

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I share on my blog and social media, and how important I believe it is to talk about chronic pain. I believe in this for a variety of positive and good-for-you reasons. I’ve wanted to share my story for 15+ years, and I am so glad I found the self confidence to start blogging, as it’s been such a rewarding journey. I’ve connected with some really amazing people because of my blog and in 2026, I want to take what I share on here, one step further, and start talking about the harder things we experience with our chronic pain, that we are often too embarrassed or ashamed to talk about with anyone. 

Feeling that vulnerability some days seems like too much. Part of it is that you worry about how what you are sharing will impact the other person, as some of it can be traumatic. Then there’s also a real fear of being judged or the other person not believing you or being dismissive. But there’s also a third aspect to this. Some of us are carrying the weight of some really depressing, dark, and super low thoughts. Thoughts that are distressing. Thoughts that could unsettle the other person. Thoughts we are embarrassed and ashamed to have. 

For me, and many others, a large part of not talking about the harder to talk about things, is that...........continued on blog.........

To read why loneliness and the need to be strong is so prevalent in chronic pain sufferers, and ways to manage these feelings, head on over to my blog post here:

The holidays are upon us, and with them, the joyful (and sometimes stressful) tradition of traveling to see family and friends.

For many, this means bustling airports, long car rides, and unfamiliar beds, and for us here on Galiano Island, navigating the ferries! But for those of us living with chronic pain, the very thought of travel can feel like an insurmountable challenge, turning what should be a time of connection into a daunting ordeal.

We used to travel for Christmas, but now people come to us because it’s so much easier for me. I take days to recover going each way, which means I'm in bed for the holidays, and I don’t want that. We all don’t want that. Tough as it may be, my body doesn’t travel well anymore and staying here is the best option if I’m to partake in as many family activities as I possibly can.

So if you're reading this, chances are you know this struggle firsthand. Perhaps you've cancelled trips last minute, endured agonizing journeys, or like me, simply avoided travel altogether. If this sounds familiar, this guide is for you. I'll delve into why travel is.........continued on blog..........

To find out why travel is so challenging when you have chronic pain, and ways to lessen it's impact, head on over to my blog post here:

For those of us living with chronic pain, the daily reality is a combination of being a relentless cycle of physical discomfort, overwhelming emotional fatigue, and often, profound and harsh self-criticism. We often talk about medications, physical therapy, and interventions, but one of the most transformative, yet overlooked, tools in the long-term pain management arsenal is self-compassion. This is something I’ve always struggled with and has been one of the things I’ve been working on for the last 2 years. I am learning to find the same grace and compassion I have for others, for myself. If I were to read or hear about “me”, I would have lots of compassion for her, but why don’t I have that same compassion for me? I think part of it is because the brain doesn’t always cooperate, even if it’s logical to. Logically I know all sorts of things, but my feelings don’t always have logic.

So, for me, this is not a fluffy concept; it’s actually one of the best things you can do for yourself. It is a scientifically-backed psychological strength that can fundamentally change the experience of chronic illness.

To learn more about why self compassion is so vital, and ways you can be self-compassionate with yourself, head on over to my blog post here:

For those of you on Substack, I was asked to be a guest contributor to an incredible monthly newsletter for neurodivergent folks. My article is 10 ways to get through the holidays when you have chronic pain.

For those of you not on Substack, you can find the newsletter here:

They put out their newsletter once a month, and below is November's. My article will be in December's. Below are their Substack link and link to the newsletter in Google Drive for those that aren't on Substack.

Imagine carrying a heavy backpack throughout your life—a burden that never lightens, only shifts and chafes and makes things uncomfortable. This backpack represents chronic pain: persistent, pervasive suffering that lasts for months, years, or decades. Now, imagine putting that backpack on a body that is also experiencing the natural, universal process of aging. This combination—the relentless march of time coupled with the continuous siege of pain—is what defines the experience of millions of Pain Warriors worldwide.

Aging, in isolation, brings its own set of challenges. Muscles weaken (sarcopenia), bones become more brittle (osteopenia), joints wear down (degenerative changes), and overall recovery time slows dramatically. These are normal, expected processes. But when a body is already contending with the physiological fallout of a chronic pain condition—be it the widespread inflammation of rheumatoid arthritis, the nerve damage of diabetic neuropathy, the systemic fatigue of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), or the constant siege of chronic low back pain—these natural processes cease to be minor inconveniences. They become compounding variables, multiplying the....................continued on blog........................

To learn about the how's and why's of aging and read real-live and attainable solutions to aging with chronic pain, head on over to my blog post here:

For those living with chronic pain, life is a constant, exhausting juggling act. Yet, much of the effort required just to get through the day remains unseen, misunderstood, or deliberately hidden. I struggle with this hidden existence, often referred to as the invisible workload or invisible labor of chronic pain, which is a heavy, relentless burden that can profoundly harm the very person carrying it. It's time to pull back the curtain on this hidden labor and understand why so many Pain Warriors feel compelled to fight their battles in silence, and why this silence is so damaging.

Why Pain Warriors Hide Their Suffering

It's a common, tragic paradox: the people who need the most understanding are often the ones who show the least amount of true suffering, something which I am guilty of. This concealment is not a failure to cope; it's a deeply ingrained defence mechanism fuelled by several powerful factors: .................continued on blog...........................

To read more on why Pain Warriors often hide their suffering, how damaging it is and learn ways to navigate through the struggle of sharing your pain, head on over to my blog post here:

*Finding Purpose and Presence Without Burning Out

*The Unique Challenge of Chronic Pain

Since starting my blog in the summer of 2024, I’ve always thought of it as a way to give back to the chronic pain community. As a way I can give back to my very own community. I personally know dozens of locals here on Galiano are dealing with chronic pain or chronic illness. I’ve spoken with many of them and heard their stories and I’m so grateful my words are helping so many. I feel connected to everyone I talk to. I like to think that I was meant to do this. To share my story and the ins and outs and ups and downs of living with chronic pain in a way that helps empower and support people. I actually don’t make any money off my blog, so you could say I kind of created my own volunteer position. This is because volunteering outside the home on a regular basis is not something I’m really capable of doing, so I like to think that by blogging about chronic pain and writing my pain themed tracking journals and digital downloads that are for sale, is my way of giving back to the chronic pain community. To give back to the community I live and breathe in. 

Living with chronic pain is often described as running a marathon every single day, only the finish line keeps moving. The energy drain is profound, the uncertainty is constant, and perhaps the most devastating side effect is the sense of isolation and loss of identity. When your world shrinks to the cycle of pain management, appointments, and rest, it can feel like you’ve been stripped of the ability to.........continued on blog post...............

To learn why volunteerism is so important for Pain Warriors and read my list of 19 different ways you can volunteer from home, head on over to my blog post here to read all about it: