Facing Yourself: Part One
I’ve always wanted to add a personal touch to the journey of chronic pain and illness. Many times I believe that the personal voice of one person can provide so much solace but it can be lost in the drones of generic, blanket-statement internet articles about arthritis, fibromyalgia, pain management and chronic illness.
I find this to be especially true for issues dealing with chronic pain, even more so when you are in your 20s and 30s and it seems like these illnesses are invisible to the average population. In fact, many times these issues are invisible because we are told that in our 20s and 30s we are invincible.
I find that mentality to be extremely detrimental. Especially to young chronic pain sufferers. It is this mentality that has caused not only my self- worth to become bruised and beaten, but it has also created a continuous cycle of re-injury and chronic self-doubt.
Dealing with chronic pain is hard, no matter what age you are. Though when you are in your early years it adds a completely different lens on your outlook towards life. When you are a young chronic pain sufferer there really is no “excuse” for why things have turned out the way they have. You don’t have “age” to lean back on — i.e., “I’m just getting old”. Most likely you injured yourself and aren’t able to recover or you have been diagnosed early on with an illness that causes chronic pain (i.e. fibromyalgia).
Regardless of what that reason may be, the battle is always the same. Your biggest challenge will be battling yourself. Especially when you aren’t recovering and your pain continues to persist. Especially when you have friends and family that just don’t get it and say (almost in astonishment), “but you’re so young!”. Especially when it’s 1AM and like a crazy person you’ve scoured through hundreds of peer-reviewed articles on the most obscure and far-fetched medical technologies (hey, stem cell injections in the Caymans anyone?). Even more so when the doctors have prescribed you with painkillers and have started the next sentence with, “Let’s talk about chronic pain management…”
I don’t know about others, but I knew once I heard those three words the doctors had lost his or her interest in finding the root-cause.
When you’re a young person you always feel like there’s a solution, there is going to be a way to “fix” this problem. Just like you’ve been told you could fix all the other things in your life. It’s hard because you just can’t accept “live with it” as a feasible solution to this problem (add a multiplication factor of 100 to a Type A, obsessive perfectionist such as myself).
How then, do you begin to cope with the idea of long-term chronic pain? How do you rationalize in your head that things could get worse and you will need to learn to cope? How do you make yourself understand that there is currently no medical technology that will “fix” the injury or illness that has caused you so much daily pain?
I don’t really have a solution, but I would like to offer the story of my journey while battling these internal monsters. I hope that if you are a chronic pain sufferer (especially a young one), you reach out and tell me about your journey and how you “face yourself” everyday.
