3 Things You Need to Enjoy Life, Even With Chronic Pain

By Crystal Lindell

If you want to enjoy life again while also living with chronic pain, you need just three things.

1. An effective pain medication.
2. The ability to pace your activity level
3. Supportive loved ones

If you have all three of those things, it’s very possible to enjoy life while also enduring chronic pain. In fact, you could have a very happy life even with severe, debilitating pain every single day.

Unfortunately, of course, many chronic pain patients do not have all three of those things.

Even if they have access to opioids and other pain medications, they may not have the option to pace their activity levels due to things like work and parenting commitments. Or they may not have loved ones who show sympathy for what you’re going through and offer accommodations to make your life easier.

Sadly though, most doctors don’t recognize the importance of having all three things when they are treating chronic pain patients.

“Enjoying life” is usually not something doctors measure during treatments or appointments.  

Personally, I don’t think I have ever had a medical doctor ask me how much I’m enjoying life. Rather, they ask you to rate your pain level, and then either ignore you or send you off to another random specialist.

It’s why they don’t value the importance of prescribing pain medications that actually work, and why they rarely offer education for loved ones about how to better support the people in their life who have chronic pain.

It’s also why doctors rarely explain the importance of pacing your activity levels.

While I have had medical doctors tell me to quit working, I’ve had only one psychologist explain to me that instead of fully quitting, I could just cut back on some activities and plan more rest days.

In other words, stop pushing myself to the point of exhaustion before taking time to rest.

I assume that many doctors don’t grasp the concept of pacing, in large part because of their medical training. Residency scheduling makes it so that they are often working 24-hour shifts, with little time to recover before the next one.

In other words, the exact opposite of pacing.

When you have chronic pain, you can’t live that way though. Of course, technically, you can live that way, but you won’t enjoy life if you do.

If you accept the fact that you need to rest your body from time-to-time, you can actually do more activities in the long run.

However, under a capitalist system that prizes work, sometimes that is just not possible, no matter how much you want to pace yourself. In fact, the same applies to the other two things you need to enjoy life: Sometimes doctors just won’t give you pain medication and sometimes loved ones just will not support you.

There is good news though.

Even if you don’t have all three of those things, you can still find some joy in a life with chronic pain, as long as you are very stubborn and tenacious.

You just have to find alternative pain medications, like kratom or cannabis. And insist on creating a life that allows for pacing, whether that means changing jobs or moving in with family to help with daily life tasks. 

Then you have to educate your loved ones on how they can better accommodate you – and be prepared to pull back if they are mean or rude about it.

When I first developed chronic pain, I genuinely thought life was not worth living. That was more than a decade ago, and I’ve experienced countless joys since then: trips to Europe, meeting the love of my life, getting cats, and hugging my new niece.

Not to mention all the little joys, like fresh baked bread, cozy heated blankets on a cold winter night, and getting lost in a corn maze with my family.

I am very lucky to now have effective pain medication, a life that allows for pacing, and supportive loved ones. But I didn’t start that way. I rearranged my priorities to make it so. And it is possible that you can do the same.

You just have to stop trying to fight the pain, and instead learn to accept it. Then you can be free to live your life, while finding as many joys as you can along the way. 

Why Living for Others Keeps Me Going

By Mia Maysack, PNN Columnist

While I am “the strong one” that so many look up to and confide in about their hardships and struggles, there aren't many people that I can reach out to in hopes of receiving the same sort of consideration, counsel or support.

I once expressed to a certified professional that one of the main reasons I'm still in existence is for the sake of other people. They looked at me – perplexed -- and proceeded to explain how that was an “unhealthy” approach to life. My reaction was to smirk, because there was obviously no way in hell this individual could begin relating to, let alone understand, what I was saying.

The vast majority of my experiences with therapy have been that the provider and I may as well have been speaking different languages.

Repeatedly, I'm confronted by individuals who say things such as:

“It's my kids who keep me going!”

“I do it all for them! They are my reason for living! I didn't know love or the point of life until I had children!”

I honor all of that to the best of my ability, but also wonder. What’s the difference between that mindset and the point that I made with the therapist?  There isn't one -- other than the fact my motivation doesn't come from having children, but rather from the brokenness of our world as a whole.

What do I mean when I say I live for the sake of others?  It's that I'm equipped with such a deep sense of compassionate empathy that I am able to hold the edges for people who ordinarily do not feel heard or seen. This somehow cultivates the illusion that I'm superhuman, and don’t need to be seen or heard myself.

Just because some of us don't outwardly complain or vent doesn't mean we have it all together, that everything is easy, or that we ourselves aren't drowning in a sea of despair.

Most people wouldn't know how to handle it, if I shared with them the reality of what my life is truly like. They wouldn't know how to respond if I told them that just getting out of bed for me is like running a marathon. Or if I described the pain and torment in my physical body, which keeps me away from things that I want to do and bring me a sense of meaning, joy and purpose.

They certainly don't know how to handle it when the person they depend on reveals that they're beginning to crumble under the weight life has forced them to carry. Anytime that I've attempted to confide in someone, there are three things that occur:

1. They aren't listening to actually hear you, but are simply awaiting their turn to speak -- which usually involves some sort of comparison between your situations, with a hinted suggestion that their situation is far worse than yours.

2. You make them uncomfortable by expressing yourself authentically. They don't know what to do or say, which often translates into doing or saying not much of anything.

3. It causes them major concern and worry, to the point that I then have to reassure the people I sought comfort from that I’m okay.

It has become easier to remain silent. That is why we suffer. That is what’s killing us.

I have zero questions in my mind as to why someone makes the decision to die. That doesn’t mean condoning or promoting it. I simply comprehend the endless reasons why life can be so tiring and how a lifetime of exhaustion can get old -- to the point where someone no longer wishes to go onward.

I believe in everyone's ability to choose and proceed with what's best or right for them, whether I agree or understand it. I've lost countless loved ones and that has been sufficient reason for me not to check out. I can't do it because so-and-so did. I want to carry on so they continue to live through me.

Although I still feel that way most of the time, it needs to be understood how draining it is. Those of us who've managed to cling to an optimistic viewpoint aren't free from our own demons. We slay them daily for the sake of showing up for you and yours.

Mia Maysack lives with chronic migraine, cluster headache and fibromyalgia. She is the founder of Keepin’ Our Heads Up, a Facebook advocacy and support group, and Peace & Love, a wellness and life coaching practice for the chronically ill.