Chronic Pain is Exhausting - and It's No Joke

It's a given that chronic pain is, um, painful, but until you live with it, you don't realize one huge side effect.

Chronic pain is exhausting.

The effort it takes to do everyday tasks when you are hurting is immense. Nothing and nowhere is comfortable, even bed. Even if the pain lessens or goes away in one area, often it then pops up in another.

Indulge me for a minute to let me tell you about a few hours of my life with chronic pain. 

Yesterday I did too much. I had several activities I needed to attend and, though there's technically always a choice about going or not going to anything, I felt in each case it was important to go.

Something I forgot to mention is that dealing with chronic pain is also a mind-game. Your body never gives you a heads-up on when you will have good days, bad days, or oh...my...gosh days. 

The day before yesterday was a pretty good day. Some activities were painful but overall, I made it through the day being able to do everything I planned (always a really good thing for someone in this boat). 

This definitely helped cause the doing-too-much yesterday. 

When I woke up, I assumed it would be like the day before. I planned my agenda for the day based on the day before. And, at first, I felt like I did the day before.

Until I didn't.

It really didn't start until later in the afternoon. The pain was more of a standard day's level than a really bad day. So, I went into my last activity of the day, the most important to actually attend, with pretty high hopes that it wouldn't end as an oh-my-gosh day. 

I was wrong.

It gradually got worse through the evening. I began to make accommodations - sitting whenever I could, stretching out the sore places when appropriate, walking around for relief a couple of times. 

When the event went longer than planned, I finally had to ask if I could go ahead and leave. I hurt so badly and it was almost over anyway. My request was granted and I left.

I hoped that hitting the bed would help. For a minute, it did. I felt blessed relief from hurting.

Until I didn't.

I fell asleep almost immediately and woke up about an hour later. But when I woke up - OH-MY-GOSH. It was so bad! It also triggered my RLS (restless leg syndrome), which just added to the fun.

My husband slathered pain relief cream where it hurt. He massaged the areas, using his fist not just his hands. I took RLS meds and more ibuprofen. A last ditch effort included adding our extra large heating pad turned up almost to the max. 

All that still didn't work.

I finally gave up and decided to take a hot bath, complete with lots of Epsom salt. You would think that would be a first line of defense - but the problem is that my bedroom is at the top of a long flight of stairs and the bathroom is at the bottom. Needless to say, when I am in that much pain, stairs are another joy.

Getting up them to go to bed is hard enough. But even knowing the trip down could mean sweet relief, it means a necessary trip up to go back to bed, a real nightmare if said relief was elusive.  

Thankfully, this worked. The hot bath, the Epsom salt, and the meds I had taken combined to make me feel a little bit normal (until I started up the stairs, that is). Though still in some pain when I crawled back under the covers, I was able to get back to sleep fairly quickly.

The next morning, though, the relief was gone... the pain was back in full force. Plus, even though I knew I slept most of the rest of the night, it wasn't good sleep. I kept nodding off throughout the day. 

I joked with my husband that everything hurt. Then I amended it and joked that everything hurt except this pinkie finger, gesturing to my left hand.

The joke was on me when I touched it to prove my point and it, too, hurt. The top of my pinkie finger actually hurt when I pressed lightly on it! 

Things that many would find to be relief could be the opposite for those with chronic pain. For instance - showers. A shower for a neurotypical could be the most relaxing and invigorating part of the day.

For a chronic pain survivor, a shower can be very painful. This is one reason showers might be avoided. It's not that the person is unhygenic or lazy. It's physically and emotionally a huge issue to take a simple shower.

I won't go into the same detail as before, but the emotional toll is almost as bad as the physical. Like I mentioned before, there's an element of not knowing that adds to the intensity of the issue. 

For example, it's possible to feel relatively pain-free (there's never a moment without any pain) for a week. So, your brain says, "This is going well. Let's plan a few things for this next week that have been put off over and over because of being in pain."

Then your body says, "Nope! Fooled ya!" Though it's always possible to go that entire next week at the same level as the week before, it's also possible that you are in the worst pain of your life at times during that week.

You never know.

It makes planning for the future extra difficult. I'm a photographer and writer. If only I had a crystal ball that could tell me what days I was going to be in pain, then I could plan when I'm going to do a shoot or when I need to have plenty of time to rest. 

But life's not that way. I never know. 

In addition, what another person might think would be a way to get away from the pain isn't always. I have back issues, which radiate down. This means sitting can hurt as much or more than standing. So working on editing photos or writing an article at my desk could be worse than being up taking photos at an event.

But I never know before which will be worse. I can't change the shoot to a different day just because I'm hurting. I can sometimes put off writing but if I'm on a deadline I can't.

It's just something I have to deal with.

The point of this post wasn't to whine and to make you feel sorry for me and my fellow chronic pain survivors. The point was to make you aware that sometimes a person can look fine on the outside but they are fighting back tears. Sometimes a person might need to stand up during a group activity because sitting one... more... second in that chair was excruciating. There are times when a person sincerely planned to go to a party but had to cancel at the last minute and if you looked at them, they looked fine - but they really weren't.

So pain-free citizens, please don't look down on those who deal with chronic pain. Don't think they are faking it or are trying to get out of doing something. These individuals are some of the strongest, bravest, hardest working people I've ever seen. Recognize that - and know that who they are is much more than what they do.

New Year's 2025 Musings

It's over a quarter of a century into 2025. I'm over two quarters of a century old. And boy, today, do I feel it.

New Year's Day is one of those holidays that often involves a lot of fun and relaxation. The major stresses of the holidays are over (except undecorating!) and many are off work. Watching football is the main activity for a good majority of the US. New Year's resolutions are now in effect, and though some may be broken before the day is over, there's still a lot of hope that this will be the year of positive changes.

But not for me... not this New Year's Day. I haven't felt this much of a loss of purpose, a loss of hope, in a very long time. As you know if you read this blog, I deal with bipolar, type 2, so depression is not just circumstantial. It's very much a chemical thing that can't be ignored, with medication, therapy and the support of others to keep going.

Let's talk about those ways I've used to cope with mental health issues...

We'll start with my therapy... A few months ago, my therapist said I was doing well and though I could come back anytime I needed her, I had met my goals and no longer needed to come regularly to sessions. I was surprised at what she said. I really thought that I would be in therapy once or twice a month the rest of my life.

However, don't think that because I was doing well in therapy meant that life suddenly became a bed of roses. (Whoever came up with that phrase, anyway? What about the dang thorns?!) It just meant that I was using the coping methods we had worked on in order to be okay whatever happened. 

So, let me reiterate - I didn't stop therapy because I stopped being depressed. I wish that was the reason. Maybe I need to go back but honestly I don't think it would change much. I feel my problem is much more intrinsic.

Okay... medication. Maybe I need to up the dosage on my meds. They seemed to be working well at taming the rapid mood swings I faced without them. But, looking back, maybe they weren't doing as well as I thought. 

Any changes with psych meds can be scary, though. For bipolar, successfully treating the depression can lead to increased mania. Treating the mania, can lead to more depression. It's a fine line - and the side effects of most psych meds are no joke on top of that - so going up or adding new ones has several risks.

Support... I have the support of lots of friends and some family. But they all have their own lives and their own issues. Being part of the sandwich generation, many friends my age are like me - helping their parents while their children are still somewhat needy. They are helpful but I can't rely on them as much as I wish I could. 

So, looking back at 2024, it was a dumpster fire. Wait - that's not a good metaphor. A dumpster fire may be a huge deal and can lead to other fires and the destruction of a lot, but eventually it burns out. 

I guess in a way, it fits. There was an end to 2024. The fire never went out, but the year did. 

2024 was a year of struggle, of loss, of rethinking what I should be doing with my life. In Dec 2023, my dad died. Because my husband and I live with my parents (well, now my mom), the first three or four months of 2024 were spent being there for my mother, helping her go through dad's things, helping sort paperwork that dad had all over the house (he had some dementia at the end). I have three brothers who helped some, but they were working and had their own families. They couldn't be here much to help with all the little things that a death involves.

Not long before dad died, my husband was fired. His original position had been eliminated and the one they moved him to wasn't a good fit. Being uncharacteristically optimistic, I thought it would be a good idea for him to join me in my business. There wasn't enough work for both of us, but there was more than I could handle, especially since I needed to be available a lot more for my mom than the previous year.

Having him home was a Godsend in many ways. We were able to share the paid work - my writing and our photography - and though we never had any extra, we made it. I thought we could start getting more work since there were two of us doing it full-time, but it never happened. In fact, the opposite happened.

Starting last summer, I think, work, especially photography, opportunities began drying up. We would get some amazing leads and then were ghosted. Great ideas we had never panned out. As the "owner," I kept butting my head against a wall, trying to figure out what was going on and how I could fix it.

We decided to give it six months and if it business didn't start picking up, then he would look for a regular job while I tried to make the business work solo. 

Well, the six months has come and gone. As you can probably guess, it didn't happen. But neither did a job. Things kept getting in the way - equipment problems that took a lot of time (and money) to fix, sickness, injuries, some amazing travel opportunities that we just couldn't pass up, family issues...

It was easy to say that "next week" we would work on it, knowing that though the money we had in savings that we had set aside just for this time of trying to make the business work for both of us, along with the current amount of work, was enough for the time being. It wouldn't last long, but we thought we had a few more months before we really had to act.

My husband, who did car appraisal work (photos only), had been making a good bit each month. In Oct, it had gone down to 10 jobs - not a lot, but that much still helped pay the bills. In November and December, he had 3 each month.

Then, another slam. The main client that I wrote for, where the majority of my monthly income was based, changed their format. My work has been cut to probably a 5th of what it was before. 

But the biggest problem, the main reason I'm writing now, is that I feel defeated. I've worked making this business successful for over 7 years now. I really thought that by now, I would be figuring things out. The future seemed bright. 

There are few things that hurt as much as your business, your passion of over 7 years, slowly failing and knowing you might not be able to stop it.

My last post was about my friend, sponsor and mentor, Jack. Going back to "support," he was my biggest cheerleader. Every time I had a success or failure in the business, I could go to him with all of the joys of success, as well as having him help me problem-solve the failures. He helped me more than I realized - until now. I miss him incredibly.

There are few things that hurt as much as one of your best friends dying and knowing you may never have someone else who can fill that void.

On top of this, my mom is doing horribly. She broke a vertebrae in her back and the surgery she had to fix it has apparently caused a break in another vertebrae below it. She's in incredible pain. She came to me this morning asking about a back brace she found online. I had to tell her that I don't think it'll help. I told her we needed to wait to go back to the doctor to see if there's anything they can do.

There are few things that hurt as much as your mom being in pain and knowing you can't help.

And on top of that, my daughter needs to move and she has no where to go. Due to some pretty major mental and physical issues, she hasn't been able to work much at all the past few years. She's finally getting better but still can't work full-time. She calls me crying that she needs to get out of her current living situation and I don't know how to help. We don't have room for her here (though we'll make room if we have to) and have no idea where she can go. 

There are few things that hurt as much as your child being hurting and knowing you can't fix it.

Depression has been part of my life as long as I can remember. It hasn't been constant, but it's always been in the background, waiting to rear its ugly head when I least expect it. As I said earlier, my depression isn't solely due to circumstances, and the circumstances I've been dealing with and am still dealing with are no joke. But they aren't the whole problem.

This depression is different. I usually say that depression is like swimming in a pool of molasses. Right now I feel like I'm swimming in a pool of molasses with a rock tied to my foot and wearing blacked-out googles - that no matter what I do, I can't see the wall that leads to getting out of the pool and even if I could, I don't have the energy to pull that rock to make it to the wall. 

So, for all of you who are having a joyful, fun-filled, hope-ridden New Year's Day, I'm glad for you (and I don't mean that sarcastically). Be thankful. 

If you're like me and having a really rough start to the new year, know that you aren't alone.

As of writing this sentence, it's 10:18 AM on January 1, 2025. There's around 10-12 hours left in the day before I go to bed. Maybe, just maybe, something will change before the day's even done.

However, even though it might not be today - and it might not be tomorrow. It might not even be within the week or within the month. 

But if we all keep going, even if we don't feel like it, there's always hope.