#working with a chronic illness
A friendly reminder for those of us who do very little during the day (by “normal” standards) but are still exhausted
Your body is literally fighting the pain. Fighting takes energy
…oh…
Yep. Even if you learn to dissociate from most of it consciously in order to function, your body is still pushing against it, and the pain is pushing against your body, all day long
@x-cetra, I was just telling my counselor how I often dissociate to cope with pain, and how I wasn’t sure if that was okay…but he assured me that it is actually a normal response when the mind can’t handle being fully aware of the intensity of the pain.
This is why responsible pain management is so vital to people in chronic pain. Because when you tell us to just “cope” or “try mindfulness”, you are ignoring the fact that the pain is so distracting (or the things we do to distract from it) makes it essentially impossible for us to live a normal life or be “contributing” member of society.
It’s hard to work when your brain is spending most of its energy just trying to either make you think about how much your body is hurting….or trying to NOT think about it.
