the bad kind of pain

[jedusor]

I learned when I was about fourteen that the baseline for acceptable nothing-to-worry-about pain was period cramps. I wasn't sure how much more than that real pain would be, but I knew it had to be above that level. I got sympathy for my period cramps, but no one was ever really concerned that anything was wrong, so I learned that at that level of pain I am supposed to pop some over-the-counter painkillers and suck it up.

This is why I blamed myself for missing a shift of work every month when I was seventeen due to period pain, because that was an amount of pain I was supposed to be able to deal with. This is why I never went to a doctor about the headaches I've been getting between one and five times a week for a decade, and was surprised when I mentioned them at an appointment for something unrelated and the doctor started asking a bunch of questions, because that level of pain was nothing compared to my baseline, so it shouldn't have been anything notable. This is why I got a kidney infection, because I didn't even think to go to the doctor until I could barely walk.

This is why it didn't occur to me that I might have broken my toe until a month later, when someone else suggested that pain should not last that long. Because the pain wasn't as bad as my period pain had been, and broken-bone pain is supposed to be bad.

This is why a few months ago a doctor asked me how on earth I had managed to function for that long in the amount of pain I must have been in. Because it wasn't that bad.

I wish being aware of this helped me fix it, but it doesn't really. It just means that now I'm more willing to consider the possibility of low levels of pain being a bad sign. But there's a lot of low-level pain that really isn't anything to worry about, and I don't seem to be getting any better at judging the difference.

I'm also not much better at talking about it. I'm thinking about this right now because last night I realized that I hadn't mentioned to Mike that I'd been hurting for a couple of days. I do usually mention my headaches to him, but I don't tend to talk about them a whole lot to other people unless they get really bad. It doesn't help, really, to talk about it. Other people can't feel my pain, so they can't tell me whether it's anything to worry about; and to be honest, I wouldn't trust them anyway.

Comments

[torra.livejournal.com]

I took a bad tumble in PE Gymbastics in the 7th grade and fell on my head/shoulder, and later that day the ER doc missdiagnosed me. Ten years later when a doctor was trying to daignose my headaches/migraines and desided to do a full workup on every bodypart, he took som XRays of my neck and shoulder, went super pale, and nearly rushed me into the OR because he was amaized I was functional and was sure my top vertabre was about to snap and paralize me. I honestly blinked at him and said, "Isn't this pain level normal? I thought everyone lived with it like that." The ER doctor at the time of the incident told me I wasn't badly injured, just a mussle pulled, so I just assumed any problems I had after that were my own weakness in judgement. By that point it was just one more pain grouping on top of everything else, so I didn't think it was my place to complain about it being odd, or unusual to other people.

Turns out, pain ISN'T normal. Weird.

As someone with cronic pain issues who can relate to yours, if you ever need to talk, or need a push to talk, I'm around. I've had the same headache every day for 19 years now, with migraines on top of that a few times a month. Arthritis since I was a teenager, too, and two difrent kinds of nerve damadge (hands and down one leg). And the above shoulder/neck injury and a few other odds and FUCK YOU BODY, THIS IS WHY I HATE YOU things.

And also, anyone who says period cramps are not enough to need comment needs to be stabbed repeatedly in every bodypart attached to them with a rusty corkscrew until they know better.

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

See, and my immediate reaction to this comment is, "Oh god, no, I don't have chronic pain issues"... though I guess now that I think about it, multiple headaches a week probably do count as that. But I hadn't considered applying the label, because they're not that bad. And I don't have to deal with period pain anymore (or periods! Thank you Mirena!) but I guess that would have counted as chronic pain too, and I never thought of it that way.

I definitely don't have it as bad as you, for sure, but I am trying to accept that this doesn't mean my not-as-bad pain isn't worth acknowledging. I appreciate the offer to talk--and I hope you know you can always text me if you need an ear, too. ♥

[torra.livejournal.com]

Without fail and across the world, the number one hardest thing for any chronic pain suffer to do is learn not compare one pain to another. To learn not to reason, "That one migraine was worse then this is, so this broken toe must not be too bad," or "That person hurts for longer then I do, so my pain must not be bad as theirs." It's a conditioning that seems to be universal. And it's especially bad amongst female pain sufferers. It's been studied before, and there a lot of reasons for it, but they all agree it's a real thing.

Pain is pain. And no one else's pain makes your pain less acute or less valid, and does not make it less worthy of comment, attention, or treatment. Ever. {{{hugs}}}

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

Most of my pain issues are with distinct incidents. The concept of "chronic pain" applying to me honestly hadn't crossed my mind until you just said it. I'm still not certain it actually does. But I think what you're saying pretty much applies regardless, especially with this history of fucked-up pain judgments.

Thank you, dear. You're wonderful.