Being Positive When You Have Chronic Pain Is Not Easy

I’m normally a fairly positive person but being this way when you have to live with chronic pain is definitely not easy. Positivity doesn’t always come naturally but I try to look for the light shining in the darkest of places. Sometimes I find it…but sometimes I don’t.

Being Positive When You Have Chronic Pain Might Help – But It Is Not Easy

If doctors could, I’m sure they’d write prescriptions for a generous dose of positivity for all their chronic pain patients. It would be dubbed ‘the new miracle cure.’ Except, it’s not a miracle cure. Positivity might help people to cope with their pain better but it certainly doesn’t cure it.

But do doctors realise just how difficult being positive is when you’re in extreme pain? Do the countless number of people who say, keep your chin up and stay positive, realise that?

I’m not knocking being positive at all. I do believe that positivity helps me to cope with my pain at times. I’ve written about it in the past – How to Be Positive When Living with Pain.

Living with pain isn’t a bed of roses and I can’t and never will pretend that it is. The world can feel like a very dark place at times so being positive all the time is definitely not easy.

How I Cope With My Pain

Positivity can be fairly elusive, but I do normally try to find it.

I try to enjoy the small and simple things in life because those things can lift my spirits. I try to put a smile on my face and tell everyone I’m fine. People who know me, know that I’m not fine, but, most of the time, I try to do that ‘keep your chin up’ thing and lie through my teeth.

I’ve been living with chronic pain for about forty years. Throughout, I’ve tried to stay positive and learn coping techniques. I hoped that by sharing those on my blog, I might be able to help someone else who is struggling with their pain.

My main coping techniques are:

• Listening to my pain and doing what it needs me to do.
• Accepting that pain is part of my life, rather than wishing for a life I can’t have.
• Pacing myself.
• Using breathing techniques.
• Trying to get quality sleep and relaxation.
• Using a variety of distractions to try to focus on other things besides my pain.

It might sound as though I have it all sussed out. But I don’t. I still struggle with my pain on a daily basis. I don’t use the word struggle lightly, especially lately.

My Positivity Disappeared

I’ve had another suspected broken rib and my back pain has gone into overdrive over the last few months. Due to my pain, I’ve not been out of my house apart from medical appointments. I could barely stand long enough to make a cup of tea and the rib pain, especially if I sneezed, coughed or hiccupped, was through the roof. My pain medication wasn’t helping enough and, as always, I was getting nasty side effects from it. It was getting me down. I felt hopeless and despondent. I kept trying to look for that chink of light in the darkness. But I struggled to find it. I couldn’t be positive at all.

I’m sure that if I’d looked, I wouldn’t even have been able to find the word positivity in the dictionary!!

Being Positive When You Have Severe Chronic Pain is Often Impossible

I was struggling and couldn’t hide it from the people around me. I couldn’t just brush off how I was feeling. When family or close friends asked how I was, I couldn’t say I was fine. I told the truth. I said that I was really struggling. My body felt as though it had been under severe attack for months. Mentally, I was exhausted by it and I felt as though I was at breaking point.

I don’t tend to go rushing off to my GP all the time because I know that there’s not much they can do to help. However, eventually, I gave in and used the e-consult service on my health centre’s website and a GP phoned me a few hours later.

His first words were, “it sounds like you’re having a really tough time.” I could have cried simply because he had understood. I didn’t though. Instead, I kept my composure and told him that I was really struggling.

I told him that I normally cope reasonably well with my pain and try to stay positive and focus on other things. But at that point, I felt hopeless and I simply wasn’t coping physically or mentally.

My doctor, thankfully, listened and had empathy. He asked me to come to the health centre to see him. At my appointment, he didn’t rush me and most importantly, he wanted to find better pain relief for me. Just talking to him helped me emotionally too and I realised that I should have made an appointment sooner.

I am still struggling with my pain although, thankfully, my rib pain is starting to ease a bit but I am now in a slightly better mindset than I was a few weeks ago.

I Didn’t Like to Admit That I Was Struggling

The pain was bad enough, but I had so many negative emotions going on. It felt wrong admitting that I was struggling and when I did, I burdened myself with guilt and felt like a failure. I also felt angry as I expected better of myself.

After forty years, surely I should be an old hand at this and know how to cope?

Like most people, I can have times when I feel down, but this time it had dragged on and I couldn’t shift that dark mood. So no, even with forty years of experience, I didn’t know how to cope.

It’s Okay to Admit You’re Not Okay

I’ve learned a lot over these past few months. The main lesson being that it’s okay for me to admit that I’m not okay. I often tell other people that, but I’m not very good at listening to my own advice!

So, if I can’t be positive all the time, that’s perfectly okay. I’m sure life would be fantastic if there were always rainbows in the sky, but the reality isn’t like that. Reality is struggling some days. It’s wanting to scream and shout that life isn’t fair. And it’s okay to do that. Sometimes we all need to do that. We need to get those feelings out because if we don’t, they will grow bigger and deeper.

I know that positivity helps me cope with my pain therefore, I will always try to find some sunshine on those dark gloomy days, but I won’t give myself a hard time if I can’t find it.

If You Have Chronic Pain, Don’t Feel Ashamed if Being Positive is too Difficult

If you are struggling right now, I do hope you can find some light to help you through. But if you can’t, don’t feel angry or ashamed of yourself. I hope that tomorrow will bring you a better and clearer day.

However, if it doesn’t and you find you are struggling, don’t feel guilty about it. Too often, we are put under pressure to stay positive but it’s not always possible, so be kind to yourself.

Sometimes, acknowledging how we are feeling is enough to help. Maybe writing about our emotions or just having a good cry can help. Or we might be able to take a few deep breaths, sleep it off and hopefully feel better the next day. But sometimes those negative emotions are too deep to deal with ourselves. And when that happens, we need to admit how we’re feeling to a health care professional or contact a helpline to get support. (The NHS has some helpful suggestions here.)

Nobody is superhuman. We can all have down days. And it’s perfectly okay to say that you’re not okay.