8 Ways to Deal with Chronic Pain

Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling. 
-G.K. Chesterton

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 
-The Apostle Paul, in 2 Corinthians 4:16

Chronic pain is a microscopic view of normal living—it forces you to focus and zoom in on what’s happening here, now. And it has the potential to actually be amazing in many ways. For the past few years, I have been muddling my way through my fibromyalgia and endometriosis, seeking ways to improve life while living in chronic pain. We can always be looking for that calm in the eye of our storms, looking for ways to be ok in spite of physical trouble. Here are a few things that have helped me tremendously, in no particular order. 

8) Be Prepared to Modify

One of the hardest things is to realize that your life and how you do things MIGHT/WILL  have to change. If you’re anything like me, this is hard to swallow every time you realize that SOMETHING has to give, whether big or small. A couple months ago, I finally gave in and realized that using my shower loofah felt like dragging tiny razors over my sensitive skin and changed back to using a soft and fluffy washcloth. Weird, but true. Weird, but helpful. On a related note, I now can’t just take a shower and GO GO GO. For the past year or so, I now have to work in a flat-on-back rest time after a shower. For whatever reason, different temperature, extra movement, etc, taking a simple shower requires extra thought and planning. It’s uncomfortable changing our lives because it feels like GIVING IN to our condition, but it’s ok because we are caring for ourselves in spite of it. 

7) Everyone Has an Opinion on Your Condition

This one is never going to go away. It just isn’t. People will tell what you that their aunt’s cousin’s brother’s mother’s friend had the EXACT SAME THING and that THIS IS WHAT WORKED FOR THEM and now they scale mountains and host large parties every weekend.  And here’s the only thing you can do without running away screaming—just say an honest thank you. Honestly. What we chronic pain sufferers need to remember is that people only offer advice because they care and want us to feel better. What most people don’t realize is that there is no magic bullet and we really have tried just about everything. Even though it’s hard to listen to yet another round of Have You Tried, I think it’s important to appreciate that people care enough to speak up. And when we’ve been on the receiving end, it’s easier to simply have compassion for others in hard situations, to simply say “I believe you.”

6) Figure Out What Really Helps You…and Do It

The name of the game on this one is Trial and Error. For my various conditions, gentle movement, following a mostly whole diet, and rest and pacing myself are huge. Also drinking more water than coffee. All things I’m naturally terrible at, but they are worth it. I also know that being alone is key to my mental and physical sanity, so working that in is essential. When it comes to exercise, may I recommend finding a super scary physical therapist who will intimidate you into action? Ha! This worked for me this summer, and now I’m actually moving more days of the week than not! Finding some kind of accountability is really good for those things that We Just Don’t Want To Do. I sure don’t do any of these things perfectly, but identifying what actually helps and what doesn’t is worth the time and effort. 

5) No One is Going to Understand You Perfectly

Ah. My old nemesis. How I wish this wasn’t so. Because chronic pain is usually invisible and weird and funky and not the same for everyone, most people will not get us and this hurts. On top of the physical pain we already feel! But even though this does not feel good, it’s normal. And it’s ok. When we seek constant validation from others, we lose every time. Chronic pain gives us an opportunity to believe ourselves for a change, and know that what we are experiencing is real and it’s really not our fault. When we believe this, we don’t need all the outside affirmation that we think we do. This means it’s a real treat when someone does believe us or sits and listens or sends a card or a message, instead of being our lifelines. This means you can allow people to flow in and out of your life, holding all relationships with open hands. Not all relationships will remain life-giving and it’s ok to let go, whether it’s doctors or friends. Also, no one will completely understand your Netflix queue…and that’s ok. Own that queue, man.

4) Work in Ways to Still Do What You Love…and Find New Things to Enjoy

I looooove baking AND strawberries. WIN. 

Living with constant chronic pain and fatigue is exhausting. And it takes up a lot of time. Like, a lot of time. It’s always shocking when I realize how long it’s been since I finished a book. I freaking love reading and books and grammar and punctuation and all those good things. ENGLISH MAJOR HELLO. This is one of those things that if I make a conscious effort to make time to do on those days when I’m not feeling so fibro-foggy in my brain, I will feel more like my old self again. Identify those things that make you feel like you, and sneak them in. And be open to new things that you can do while resting on the couch or the front porch. Sometimes I like to just paint terrible watercolors while watching tv. It’s just fun to drag the paintbrush around a little. Or plant some flowers in an easily accessible spot and limp outside to spend some time in the fresh air and poke at your plants. It’s good, people. It’s all good. 

3) Do Your Own Research…but Don’t Overdo It

There’s a lot of information out there, my friends. A lot of information. How do we research wisely? How do we sift through the information that we read without going absolutely bonkers? Doing our own research and being our own advocate is key, but we have to rein it in, too. Or you will go crazy feeling guilty and overwhelmed, and it can take over your life—this whole trying to feel better and get back to normal life business. So when you start to feel a bit crazy, take a step back and note all the things you DO that are awesome and helpful. Drinking more water this month? Yay! Exercised 2 or 3 times this week? YOU ROCK. Remembered your supplements? You inspiration, you. 

2) Pacing and Asking for Help is Key

I want to do it all. And I want to do it myself. I’m sure you can identify. I used to think that when I had a good day, I should strike while the iron is hot and DO EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE. Clean the bathroom, vacuum the house, do the errands, and finish the laundry. Bam. But now I’m realizing that on good days, I still CAN work on my to-do list—now I just need to build in breaks. That whole pacing thing. I can still get stuff done, but with more sitting and more resting. Also, on bad days and good days, it’s always good to consider asking for help. I’ve found that I’m the only one judging myself for needing something, and that everyone is really and actually glad to help. It’s crazy. Also, when people offer help, don’t just say no. Consider how they really can help, and step back. 

1) It’s Ok to Have Bad Days

This is foundational for chronic pain/chronic anything sufferers. We can pace, plan, exercise gently, eat well, etc, and sometimes days are still just unexplainably hard. It’s ok to be disappointed when we wake up and just know it’s going to be a long painful day. For these days, I recommend having a plan of some kind to get you through it. For me, it’s showering at some point, having snacks at the ready, watching murder mysteries, moving for at least 5 minutes and stretching for at least 5 minutes, and asking my husband to take care of dinner. Which he usually does anyway, because he is a saint. It’s also ok to cry at various times throughout these days, or wait till someone comes over and you can cry on them. If you can laugh at funny show or with funny friends, that is maybe even better. Distract yourself in good ways from pain and ruminating too much on hard things. See if you can get up and do a load of laundry or start the dishwasher. Go outside for a few minutes and just breathe. You can do this. You can do Bad Days and survive. You can have this idiotic chronic condition and do your best with it. 

What I’ve realized after writing this list is that I will always need everything on it. Always. When I get better, God willing, I will still need to ask for help. I will still need to remember that no one will understand me ever the ways I want them to. I will still have hard days where I will just to need to hold on and think of ways to live well in spite of what life throws at me. People are always going to have opinions. And that’s just ok. This chronic pain has forced me, ungracious and slow to budge from my own opinions, to rethink things, and this is a good thing. 

When Tough Cookies Need Some Peace

Those who believe in God can never in a way be sure of him again. Once they have seen him in a stable, they can never be sure where he will appear or to what lengths he will go or to what ludicrous depths of self-humiliation he will descend in his wild pursuit of man…and this means that we are never safe, that there is no place where we can hide from God, no place where we are safe from his power to break in two and recreate the human heart because it just where he seems most helpless that he is most strong, and just where we least expect him that he comes most fully. 
—Frederick Buechner, The Hungering Dark

But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility…
—The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Ephesian church 

Coffee for all THE TIMES.

There are days, aren’t there? Days and seasons and years where it seems like nothing is going right, where things are not ok, where we are just off. Maybe we can’t put our finger on it; maybe we know exactly why we are not ok. Maybe something is off with a friend or a family member, maybe we are in the middle of saying goodbye to things or people or jobs we hold dear and to whom we want to hold fast, but we can’t. Maybe we still miss the ones to whom we said goodbye a long time ago, and our hearts can’t forget the ache, the hole left in absence. Maybe things are slipping out of our control—we see loved ones heading down hard paths or our health is falling through our fingers like heavy, wet sand. Maybe we find ourselves looking out of the window in the middle of our day, in the middle of the circumstances we find ourselves in and we wonder. We wonder how did I find myself here? What happened that this is the job, this is the situation, this is the place in which I find myself? 

Or maybe we are just tired. We are tired of the constant noise from our phones, our TVs, our news feeds, our neighbors both next door and far away. We are tired because we can’t remember the last time we had a really good rest. Maybe we just long for a break of some kind, of any kind. We long for a new season. New seasons of good things, of breaks in our heavy skies. We tell God that we are ready for something new; that we’ve truly learned whatever lesson He could be trying to teach us. We try to beg or plead or weasel our way out of our circumstances. Maybe our circumstances are the result of our choice or another’s or merely the result of a hard and unrelenting world, but still, here we are. 

Here we, then, in our individual deserts, in our own jungles, in our mazes and labyrinths and webs. Where do we go from here? How do we find peace, how do we find our way from here? How do we break out of what holds us back, what keeps us in prisons of discouragement and depression? 

If we can quiet our phones and our minds even just a little, even just for a moment, we will hear a still, small, gentle voice, calling out to our deepest longings. 

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”—Matthew 11:28-29

This ancient call comes from Jesus, the God-Man who turned history and lives upside down, who came to us in dire circumstances of his own. Born to an unwed mother, forced to flee his native country as a child, living a common, day-to-day life of a laborer for most of his years on earth, Jesus understands the need for rest, for peace, for purpose in the middle of life’s hardest seasons. He understood how hard it is to wait, how hard it is to ignore the other calls in our lives. 

We can trust this call comes from someone who understands us in all our seasons and sorrows, and from someone who has the power and the desire to give us a true rest, a true home, a calm in the middle of the storm. This call is still for us, the modern cynics, the baby boomers, the Generation X-ers, the entitled and the apathetic, the successful and the failed, the passionate and the confused, the energetic and the tired. This call is for us, for me and for you.

He never forces us to come to him; he only calls out to us to come, the only one who can offer what we so desperately need and desire. When we come to him, even when we have to crawl or limp, he will lavish rest and grace and peace. We will not find all the sorrow gone, no; we will find that the yoke of living life is now shared, and we will now walk with Christ Himself. We will find a loving teacher, a loving savior, a loving Father and Friend to support and strengthen our hearts. Even in the middle of heavy circumstances and burdens, we will find rest. That is the radical and wild promise of Jesus to us. When we, the Prodigals who have run from home, merely turn around, we will find Jesus waiting to embrace us in love and grace. We will be amazed at what He can do with our lives, our hearts, our brokenness, our pain, our fatigue. He is ready to exchange our ashes for beauty, our sorrows for joy, our sins for holiness, our mourning into dancing. He is ready to make us new, as each day is new and full of promise.