Chronic pain affects everything you do, and people with chronic pain cannot do anything without thinking about their pain levels. I talk a lot about my chronic pain on my blog because it is important to educate others who do not live with chronic pain to raise awareness. My blog has tons of posts about chronic pain because everything I do revolves around my pain levels, but I don’t always mention my chronic pain in my real-life. Some people may not even know I have chronic pain because people with chronic pain become very good at faking being well. The only time you might know I have it is if you were a regular reader of my blog or you knew me personally. People with chronic pain sometimes talk about their pain with their friends because when people know you have chronic pain, they can better support you. We don’t always want to talk about our pain 24/7 and sometimes we want to talk about anything but that. Why don’t I always talk about my chronic pain in my real-life? In this post, I am sharing why I don’t always bring up my chronic pain when talking with my friends.
Some people can’t handle it- If I had a friend who also had chronic pain, I wouldn’t mind talking about it with them because I would know they understand what it’s like. People without chronic pain often do not understand, and when you tell them that you have chronic pain, it sometimes makes people sad because some people can’t handle it. I tell people in my life about my chronic pain who need to know, but I don’t talk about my chronic pain with every single person because some people don’t understand that it’s a reality for so many people, and want to fix you. I keep my chronic pain from most people in my life to spare the feelings of others, because some people cannot handle the thought of their loved ones always being in pain. The only thing I am going to achieve by talking about my chronic pain all the time is making people feel sad and sorry for me, and I don’t want to do that.
People often will give you unsolicited health advice– As a disabled person with a visible disability, I am often given unsolicited health advice because disability makes a lot of non-disabled people uncomfortable, and they think they know how to fix you. When people find out that you have chronic pain, you are given even more unsolicited health advice because people want to help improve your pain and may think they are. If I am at the doctor’s, I will mention my chronic pain because doctors may be able to help me find the root cause of my pain and improve it or get rid of it entirely. I don’t talk about my chronic pain with most people to avoid getting unsolicited health advice that I have probably already tried.
I want people to treat me as if I didn’t have chronic pain- Disabled people often are isolated and treated differently because non-disabled people don’t know how to talk to us. As a physically disabled person, I am often treated like a child because when people see my disability, they think they can’t talk to me in the same way they would to a non-disabled person. Sometimes I wish I could hide my physical disability to know what it feels like to be treated as if my disability didn’t exist. I don’t talk about my chronic pain with others because people sometimes treat me differently when they find out I have chronic pain. I may mention my chronic pain if I need some kind of accommodation, but for the most part, I don’t talk about it because people don’t always need to know. I want people to talk to me as if my chronic pain didn’t exist, and that is never going to happen if I tell everyone I know about my chronic pain. People often pity chronic pain and will treat you very differently, and I just want to be treated like everyone else.
I don’t always want to talk about my chronic pain- I talk a lot about my chronic pain on my blog for awareness purposes because it is important to teach people without chronic pain that not all pain is visible. My chronic pain is something that I can never truly forget because it affects every aspect of my life, but I don’t always want to talk about it, and sometimes I want to talk about anything but that. I have been living with chronic pain since my mid twenties, and it is something that I am forced to live with, but it is not my entire identity. I don’t always talk about my chronic pain because sometimes I don’t want to talk about my chronic pain or disability in general. I am very passionate about disability advocacy, but sometimes you need a break from it and want to talk about literally anything else. Disabled people do not always want to talk about their disabilities because we have other interests, and not every conversation has to be about our disability.
Non-disabled people often will approach a disabled person and start asking us about our disabilities because sometimes people think we want to talk about our disabilities all of the time. Some people are going to get very uncomfortable when you talk about your chronic pain, but it is still important that you talk about it because it affects a lot of people. If you are making people uncomfortable, that is not necessarily a bad thing, and it means you should probably be talking about it more. I talk about my chronic pain a lot, but you don’t have to talk about your pain all the time, and sometimes you may not want to. Awareness is so important because people without chronic pain are never going to have any understanding of what it’s like without talking to someone who lives with it. Don’t be afraid to talk about your chronic pain, but also don’t feel like you have to talk about it with everyone. Do you always like to talk about your chronic pain? If you liked this post, please leave a comment below and share it with your friends.
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