3. The Pain Problems

Welcome to 15% Better, my series on coping with chronic pain and chronic illness. And today we're going to be talking about the problems around dealing with these issues. And I recognize that if you experience chronic pain and illness, you are constantly living in the problem. And that's not what this video is about. We're not here to dwell on it. The series is not all about dwelling on it. It's finding solutions. Now I think it's important to talk about the problems because a lot of these are extremely unique and others in our life do not understand.

So I think it is super important to validate you in your pain and in your struggles. A perfect example of this is the first time I saw a pain psychologist. Now I was going to therapy before and I realized at that time that 75% of my issues were surrounding chronic pain and I think my therapist recognized that and he acknowledged the fact that look there's only so much you and he's the one who recommended I go see a pain psychologist and this is after years of working with him on other stuff and so I went and saw the psychologist and the first thing I noticed was her ability to validate my problems and not just oh I feel sorry for you but it was like yes I I felt seen for the first time because she said, these are things that so many people experience.

I was never really hanging out with a lot of other people with chronic pain, so I didn't really know that what I was experiencing was so, common. So even just having her validate. that these are the things that people struggle with help more than I could even say. Now in my personal experience and my experience professionally working with folks with chronic pain, these are the four biggest issues that I've seen. The first problem, and I think this is one of the biggest ones, is navigating the medical system.

Now it's really hard to say exactly what you should do, how you should approach every single condition because they are all so different and people have autoimmune disorders, diabetes, for me having physical structural issues that were causing pain. And every one of these conditions has different treatments and not all these conditions have the same prognosis or outcome. For example, like I talked about in my case, there was really only one type of treatment that could possibly work. And this was a good thing and a bad thing.

One, it made it more simple. However, the bad thing was I was pretty powerless. And so many other conditions may not have as good of an outcome, even though mine was who knows what the hell is going to happen. Could be better, could be worse. But there are often a lot of things that you can do. And some of those things may be holistic. Some of those things are medical. Some of those things are medication, physical therapy. And the issue is not all providers are created equal. And it doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad provider, but there's so many different specialists and sometimes providers miss things.

So I went to a bunch of different surgeons, right? And luckily I know how to navigate the medical system better than most people because of what I do. I work in the medical field. So I kind of knew some ways how to utilize my insurance, how to research good providers, but not everyone knows how to do that. And it can be really difficult, especially in the United States where we have a very disjointed system. and a lot of times people get stuck with huge medical bills because they think their insurance covers something.

So there's so many issues here and I find that a lot of times people just give up. I know I was at a point where I gave up or I was like I tried a whole bunch of different things and that's what I recommend is trying as much as you can and seeing as many providers getting different opinions and trying things and try not to get discouraged. Now I recognize that this isn't always financially feasible for folks. So This is something to keep in mind and definitely a reason to watch our video on navigating the medical system which is going to be our next video so go ahead and watch that.

Problem #3 could be one of the worst because it's how your pain and illness impacts others in your life. It's all about your relationships and as we know relationships are one of the most predictive factors of how happy you are in general. Now One of the issues with chronic pain is that it often requires a lot of attention and care. So a lot of times our partners or others in our life are kind of left in a caretaking role and this could take many different forms all the way up to they literally have to be your full-time caretaker.

However, some of the limitations you have also impact them because there are certain things that they're not able to do because you're not able to do them. And even if the person is extremely supportive, sometimes they may feel a bit of resentment and that and you could pick up on that. And it really impacts you because you don't want them to feel that way. Just like with opiates, most people, they don't want to be caretaken. They want to be independent, but sometimes it's difficult to be 100% fully, physically, bodily independent with some of these conditions.

And again, it always varies depending on which condition it is. So when our relationships become impacted, when those around us feel burdened, a lot of times they don't. And we're projecting that onto them where they're okay with it. However, we're not okay with it. And on a deep level, that's probably what affects us most is how we feel about ourselves, what this does to our self-esteem, the grief and loss of no longer feeling like we could be fully independent and fully being ourselves. And there's one other issue that goes along with this in relationships and it's actually the complete opposite.

The other issue around relationships and chronic pain is the complete opposite of them being unsupportive in certain ways. Now that would mean they are too supportive. So what the heck am I talking about? How could someone be too supportive? And some of you are already like, wait a minute, I kind of know what he's talking about. And this was one that I had a hard time understanding. because how can someone be too supportive? How could that be a problem? And this was another issue that I talked about with my pain psychologist, that it really helped that she validated me on this, that this is actually really common because I didn't really think that this would be an issue for so many people.

Now, for example, I had a lot of trouble walking and standing, but I would still do my best to do normal activities, going around, shopping, going to events. And that was really difficult for me. And the more I opened up to people, almost the harder it got because I was so closed off, and not just like me personally. Like I really kept this close to the chest. I never let people know how much I struggled. That was really difficult for me to be that vulnerable and intimate with other people. And As I did more therapy, regular therapy, I was encouraged to open up more, and it backfired in some ways.

Now, at the end of the day, yes, it was better that I did that to get more support, but some of the things I feared. actually happened right and that was that people maybe check in on you too much or maybe they kind of pander you or baby you a little bit like I would be out with friends we'd be walking around and they'd be like oh are you okay oh how you feeling bud you know maybe they could see that I'm struggling and be like oh are you okay but really I didn't want to be treated that way it's like yeah I am struggling but don't worry about me I could handle my own if I need to stop or take a break I'll let you know.

But the problem is when they do that, when they check in on you too much, it kind of reminds you, it reminds you how much pain you're in and reminds you how much it really sucks. Now the last problem may seem quite obvious and that is how pain from your condition or illness impacts your mental health because inherently When you have these stress chemicals, when you have these pain signals, it robs your brain of many of the pleasure chemicals that are associated with feeling happy and having an overall positive outlook and well-being.

That's why a lot of times with people with chronic pain and chronic illness struggle with other mental health conditions, mainly like depression, anxiety, and it almost feels like you have a dark cloud always hanging over your head. So much of our perception is biological it's neurochemical in our brains and it's so hard to push through that and that's where a lot of the misunderstanding comes in from other people of why we're just seemingly so gloomy or negative right so it impacts all of those other issues because at the end of the day it doesn't matter how limited we are it's how we feel about it which is never really going to be that great right?

We may have pain. Some people may be able to push through different than others. Maybe some people naturally have a better outlook, but I don't care who you are, how tough, how strong you are. If you have chronic pain, if you are experiencing this every day, if it is affecting almost every area of your life, it's going to have a negative impact on your mental health, your outlook, and your overall well-being. Now those are just a handful of the issues surrounding chronic pain that I identified from my personal and professional experience.

Again, every condition is unique and presents a unique set of problems. However, there are going to be common threads that affect people with chronic pain and illness. So what I'd love to hear is how does this impact you? Which one of these is most debilitating or negative in your life? And for this video and everyone following, I'm going to present with you some challenges or some homework assignments because this is a series. And that's going to be for you to write down a list of which one of these and other areas your chronic pain and illness most affects you and how it does and again this is just a basis this is just a fundamental understanding of the problems and the issues so that in the next series of videos we're going to talk more about the solutions so that again we could work towards a start of 15% better