HURT FEELINGS
What Does Chronic Pain Feel Like?
25 insightful descriptions of never-ending aches, stabs, zaps — and being stepped on by an elephant in stilettos
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 50 million American adults (or 20.9 percent of the U.S. over-18 population) suffer from chronic pain.
Many of them, though, feel like part of an invisible minority.
People like me struggle to be seen, heard, and understood by family, friends, doctors, physical therapists, policymakers, and others because we often lack the words to describe what we go through daily.
As part of researching my forthcoming book, Hurt Feelings: Inside the Emotions of Living in Chronic Pain, I’ve uncovered some answers to what chronic pain really feels like.
Here are 25 insightful descriptions of pain drawn from the r/ChronicPain Reddit group (lightly edited for spelling, grammar, punctuation, length, and clarity):
My stomach feels like a bag full of Tabasco and broken glass mixed with boiling oil that’s being drilled into [me] all day long. — Nihlisa666
For me, it feels like [I’ve been] run over by a car, then thrown off a cliff. — SaffronxSumac
