Chronic Pain cycle
I’m just gonna say it
Being in constant physical and mental pain at the same time is so fucking frustrating for the following reasons:
Constant pain management requires an unbelievable amount of energy
The energy you have to exert to manage your pain leaves you with much less energy for other things, like chores, self care/hygiene, eating, etc
You know it’s annoying other people. You can see it annoying other people. You can hear yourself annoying other people when you talk about it. So your options are suffer in silence and wait for people to get mad at you for not saying something sooner after you reach your breaking point OR continue to annoy people until they get mad at you for having too many painful days
Crying all the time at random times for no obvious reason because the emotional exhaustion is too much to carry
COMORBIDITY = general anxiety, depression, agoraphobia (or whatever you may have, these are just my ailments). Meaning: pain —> anxiety (am I just anxious or am I anxious because I’m in so much pain?) anxiety —> depression (too anxious to do things, get depressed because I feel anxious) ((this applies to pain too if you replace anxiety with pain)) depression –> pain (can’t move or do much. depression literally affects the physical body and triggers pain) pain –> anxiety
“Stop talking about it so much, you’re surrounding yourself with it!” = putting the blame on me even though, regardless of whether I talk about it or not, I’M STILL CONSTANTLY SURROUNDED BY PAIN
Feeling like a burden on everyone and everything
Tricking yourself into thinking you’re making it up and your brain refusing to see your health problems as disabilities even though your day-to-day activities are restricted or completely blocked because of your health problems
Feeling like nobody will ever understand how excruciating it can be just to get a pair of pants on in the morning (like it was for me this morning so I had to go to work in the leggings I slept in) and yet still being expected to perform like a normal adult because you don’t “look” like you’re in pain
Having doctors tell you you’re depressed because your body needs fixing and having mental health professionals tell you your body is in pain because your mind needs fixing
Feeling so. incredibly. alone. because you feel like you’ve relied on others too much and you’re afraid of putting anything else on them so you just keep everything to yourself and stuffed inside of yourself, which makes the mental AND physical problems even worse
Did I mention THE EXHAUSTION??????????
#chronic pain
