Teens in Chronic Pain

I haven’t posted on this blog in over two months, which is ridiculous when I think of it. I can list off the excuses from work to moving to Chicago for the summer to a variety of other factors, but that’s crap. If I truly believed that this issue was important, I’d find the time to blog about this topic. While I certainly believe this issue of young adults living with chronic pain is critical, I certainly have not acted on this belief. And I apologize to those of you who have come across this blog over the past month.

I have been doing better. The pain is still always there, but my attitude towards it has changed. Before, I would let the intense throbbing prevent me from participating in certain activities. I would use it as an excuse to withdraw into my own little world, which only further intensified my loneliness and pain. Lately, I’ve pushed past my pain determined that it wasn’t going to stop me from doing the things I truly care about.

My roommate from home came to visit in Chicago with her mom earlier this week. I was having a terrible pain day, but decided to overcome it. I chose not to discuss the pain with my friend. We walked over two miles along Lake Michigan and had a wonderful evening. Even though the knee killed by the time I got back to my room, it was worth it and the fact that I never brought it up to her made it even better.

It’s something I still struggle with. Last night and tonight, my knee was hurting and I decided to stay in instead of going out with my friends. As I sit here typing this post, I feel lonely. But why should I feel lonely? I had friends that I could have gone out with, but opted to stay in. It’s dumb reasoning on my part, but I guess emotions aren’t very rational.

When you deal with chronic pain, half of the battle is the emotional pain that accompanies it. It’s hard to explain what I mean exactly by that statement to those that have never dealt with the constant pain day in and day out for years. At first, you experience the anger of learning that you may live with this for the rest of your life. After that, it turned to loneliness and a brief period of depression where I hid from my friends, cried daily, and couldn’t see the light. By making a conscientious effort to see my friends and focus on things other than my painful situation, I was able to climb out of that dark valley. Sure there are days where it’s easy to see what’s wrong, but those days have thankfully become less and less frequent. Then it’s frustration. You have good days where you feel wonderful and new again. But then the following day, you feel like your body has betrayed you and you’ve taken a painful step back.

On another note…
Pain has been such a big part of my life for five years now and I find that I bring it up way too much. Why do I do that? Is it because I yearn for the attention? The sympathy from my friends and co-workers? Am I obsessed with this struggle? Is it simply because it’s such a huge piece of who I am and where I have come from?

I find it quite easy to talk about myself and I’ve told my knee story countless times. As such, I struggle with leaving it out. Why do I feel compelled to tell people about it? Certainly, it’s important to share it with my close friends and my small group because it is such a big part of my life. But it is totally not necessary to mention it to people I have just met. I need to work on keeping my mouth shut and only bringing it up when it’s important to do so.