My brain repeats the refrain, “I’m in too much pain.” It does it over and over and over so many days of my life. This type of mental repetition seems to be a chronic pain implication. It irritates me because the word “pain” describes nothing because there is such a myriad of chronic pains I experience. I am in too much pain. Too much pain for what?

What Is Pain?

I hate the word “pain.” Pain can result from stubbing your toe, breaking your arm, cutting through a band of nerves or the death of your mother. Pain means so many things that it starts to mean nothing. It’s like the word “okay.” When you say you’re “okay,” what do you mean? Okay compared to what?

Pain is similar. Pain is varied and pain is relative. Stubbing your toe hurts like hell — but only for a short time. Cutting through a band of nerves in your body results in extreme acute pain and then likely ongoing pain of varies degrees. The death of your mother results in decidedly different pain that can come and go for months.

What Is Chronic Pain?

Unfortunately for me, when I think about pain, it’s an almost everywhere, all the time kind-of-a thing. This is partially bipolar mood pain as I find bipolar mood pain pervasive and expansive, but it’s other pain too. Maybe it’s pain from the bipolar that is less direct, I don’t know. What I do know is that the pain is in my body — all throughout my body. The pain is in my muscles and joints. The pain is in headaches. It’s not like stubbing a toe. If I had to compare it to something, I would compare it more to a chronic nerve pain condition where the nerves all over your body can be in pain at any time. And, of course, this pain gets worse when I don’t sleep well, and that has been happening a lot since the COVID-19 isolation began.

What Is Being in Pain (for Me)?

It’s an upsetting reality that I’ve learned to be in pain every day. But people learn to live with chronic pain. That is both the good and the bad news.

My bipolar mood symptoms are not well-controlled and after all this time, it just feels like getting hit with the same baseball bat over and over. It hurts and hurts but you get used to the pain. You become resigned to the pain. The pain is a spikey blanket that covers you no matter what you do.

Then there’s the body pain. This has just gotten worse over the years. I suspect it’s a product of very, very long-term depression and maybe another thing or two thrown in, it’s really hard to say. It bothers me more, I think. It causes more days in bed because being in bed actually quells body pain.

What Is Being in Too Much Pain?

“Too much” pain is, of course, difficult to define. I don’t know why my brain latches onto those words to repeat over and over, but it does. I suspect “too much” pain means these things, depending on the moment:

  • I’m in too much pain to do anything.
  • I’m in too much pain to work.
  • I’m in too much pain to cook.
  • I’m in too much pain to eat.
  • I’m in too much pain to smile.
  • I’m in too much pain to be awake.
  • I’m in too much pain to be alive.

What can I say is that repeating, “I’m in too much pain,” just fits with so many situations. It’s the LBD (little black dress) of repetitions.

I think when I say it, what my brain means is that it wants me to give up. It wants me to curl up in a ball on the floor, hug my knees and cry — forever.

I suppose I’m lucky that I don’t always listen to my brain.

Fighting Being in Too Much Chronic Pain

It’s hard to say how I get through these times, but I do. I know that I fight. I know that my mind fights. It usually goes like this:

“I’m in too much pain.”

< Deep, slow breath in and out >

“I know. It’s okay. I understand.”

And then I assess what the pain truly requires. I can’t give up every time I say this or I’d never do anything at all. So I figure out if I can do just one thing. I figure out if I can edit one article; I figure out if I can put one dish in the dishwasher; I figure out if I can just eat an apple, and so on. I’ve said it time and time again, a millimeter forward is still forward motion. Yes, fast movement or even moderate movement would be preferred, but that is not something we choose. What we choose is the direction, not the speed.

Of course, sometimes I can do nothing at all and I end up curled up in my bed with my covers over my head “hiding” from the pain. That’s okay too. That’s the price I pay for the life I have to live. That’s also the rest I need to be able to pick up that dish the next time.

In the end, when I say, “I’m in too much pain,” I guess I mean I’m in too much pain to survive. But this is a lie. This is my brain’s lie that my mind fights. I keep surviving. I keep being flogged by a cat ‘o nine tails, crumpling, and then getting up to be flogged again. I hate the flogging something fierce, but it’s the getting up that matters.

So here’s to me and all my other chronic pain warriors who get up every day knowing that every day will hurt. We rock.