6 reasons chronic pain is the worst

Because living with chronic pain is not easy.

1. You have to pretend to be sympathetic to other people’s pain

   When someone is going on and on about how much they hurt after running ten miles it’s all you can do not to punch them. Instead you paste a sympathetic look on your face and agree that it must be just terrible. Meanwhile inside your brain you’re fantasizing about what it would be like to only live with self inflicted pain, it must be nice. If only someone had given you a choice.

2. Meditation doesn’t always produce the desired effect

Everyone suggests meditation as a great way to cope with chronic pain, but it doesn’t always work. There you are trying to get in touch with your body and your inner spirit and all you can think is “f*** you body, you don’t even work right, I hate you.” Thinking these kinds of thoughts is not conducive to relaxation.

3. It turns your friends into bloodsucking sales people

The minute you say anything about your pain on your Facebook page the essential oils salesman come out. It’s practically guaranteed you’ll get one in the first three Facebook comments (I have data for this). Next come the health nuts that just can’t wait to convert you to their lifestyle. They are 100% sure that their magic cure will fix everything. The next thing you know you find yourself drinking organic, grass fed, non GMO goats blood by the light of the moon because it’s a natural cure to every illness that has ever existed. And you don’t even know how this happened to you. And you’re out a thousand dollars.

4. All the good food makes your pain worse

I just don’t love kale, I think it tastes like a leaf plucked off a the bush in my front yard. You know what I love? Soda, preferably caffeinated. You know what kills my pain levels? Soda, especially caffeinated. It’s like someone decided the torture of being in constant pain wasn’t enough, they better take away the things I enjoy just to make me thoroughly miserable. This is what the chronic pain food chart looks like:

Pizza = bad

Pasta = bad

Bread = bad

Bell peppers = trick question, they’re bad (curse you inflammation)

Apple= trick question, only if it’s organic, non GMO, and locally grown. It’s the best if you picked it yourself. Or actually it’s the best is if you grew it yourself on your apple farm.

Kale= good      (Even though it tastes like a leaf, and because you are not a giraffe you don’t want to eat leaves)

5. The pain never goes away

There’s no easy way to explain what it’s like to always be in pain. The mental, emotional, and physical toll it takes is indescribable. It’s like that super annoying person that’s always bugging you and refuses to leave even when you tell it to. They just keep poking you in the shoulder saying “hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi…”

6. Netflix can only distract you so much

I use distraction as one of my major coping mechanisms, but sometimes it’s just not enough. When you’re halfway through an episode of “The Crown” and all you want to do is throw the remote at the petty stupid people on the screen who don’t know how good they have it, the distraction is clearly not effective (For my British readers, to be clear, I am not throwing my remote at the Queen. I can’t promise I haven’t cursed out Winston Churchill though).

So there you have it, the six things that make chronic pain the worst. This is official by the way, so no other suggestions needed.*

 

 

*For the humor impaired, this is indeed sarcasm