Recently a commenter called me out for saying, “It will get better.” The commenter’s point is that pain doesn’t get better for everyone and saying “It gets better,” is a lie; and, I can see how it could be somewhat dismissive of an individual’s experience. I understand this commenter’s complaint. I understand that just saying, “It gets better,” can sound just as trite as, “Turn that frown upside down.” So let’s talk about when things don’t get better. Let’s talk about the nuance of what to say when pain is not getting better.
Pain May Not Get Better — It Really Hasn’t for Me
The reason I understand this person’s complaint so well is because I’ve spent years where it hasn’t gotten better. I’ve spent years in a prolonged depression. For me, medication quells the hypomania almost entirely but it barely touches the depression I live with. Depression and I have been bedmates for 10 years and almost no day has seen us apart. I. Get. It.
That said, my life has been a lot longer than 10 years. That means that 10 years ago something happened. Ten years ago something changed. Ten years ago it got different.
Pain May Not Get Better But Pain Always Changes
For a very short stint, 10 years ago, I felt like a human. I felt like a person who felt things. I felt like a person who experienced happiness. This was a very, very big change. I had gone from suicidal to joy-experiencing within a matter of weeks because of the addition of a medication to my regimen. At the time, no part of me thought that medication would because I had been on it before and it hadn’t worked. However, my psychiatrist felt it was worth another try because it was in a different combo. And lo and behold, he was right. The medication was like magic. So after years of pain and suffering — it had gotten better.
But the thing is, it didn’t stay that way. I was well for a matter of a few months. And that was it. The medication stopped working and in spite of alterations to my treatment, it has been like that ever since. It had gotten different — just not in my favor. Because the only constant in life is change. Sometimes it’s change we like and sometimes it isn’t, but change keeps occurring nonetheless.
Pain Can Get Better
That experience taught me that pain can get better. There is absolutely nothing special about it and nothing really special about that medication cocktail either. It’s just that things got different and the pain got better. And even though it was so long ago and even though there has been so much pain since, I cling to that experience, I cling to those months because I know that if it could happen once, it can happen again. And believe me when I tell you that if it could happen to me, then it can happen to you too. No matter how bad the pain, no matter how long the pain has been there, it can get better for you too. I know this to be true.
Saying ‘It Gets Better’
So, it’s not so much true that pain will get better, it’s more true that pain will get different. Certainly, my pain is not identical today to what it was 10 years ago. My pain is different. It’s not necessarily better, but it is different.
I guess it is more accurate to say that pain will change and pain does get better. I truly believe that if you live long enough you will experience it getting better to some degree. That, of course, is a belief rather than a fact, however.
I wish I could make “better” happen for you tomorrow. I wish I could make “better” happen for me tomorrow. But, of course, I can’t.
Now, when talking to people in pain, it’s hard to explain all of this in a short, cogent fashion. I do mean it though. I will try to do better and say that it can get better and it will change rather than simply saying, “It will get better.” I do not want to be trite and I do not want to write off anyone’s experience. I know that pain can be long and horrific and it absolutely feels unending. I feel that pain every day. But I’m not wrong that it will change. I’m not wrong about the consistency of change. So hang on. Hang tight. Change is coming. I promise.
very deep article, you seem to be reading our thoughts. Yes, the pain doesn’t really get better, but over time we get distracted, new meanings and colors appear. No wonder they say time heals. But I think we still have to endure this time, do not wait for it better and do something to fix everything. Because pain and depression will not go away on their own, especially if we are talking about deep depression
Natasha is right
I have a relative who was abused as a child, is quite intelligent but never applied himself in school, became an addict lived on the streets for a while and eventually landed in jail where he was further abused.
He now has MS (is still an addict) and lives with his mother who is a forensic psych nurse. If he didn’t ask for help where do you think he’d be, right now? No, his life is not perfect. It is still full of pain and suffering that will increase as time goes on but it could be a whole lot worse and he knows it!
Help comes in many forms
I am a different M…
To the other M, I say:
I get your point…
It can also be said that some people diagnosed with cancer will die while others will go into remission and some are even fortunate enough to fully recover with the proper treatment
Life is complicated. There are many variables and factors that can shape it. Some things we choose and others we do not. Life experiences can either make hard and bitter or make us more understanding and compassionate
A universal truth is that suffering comes to us all eventually. Life is not always fair. We can sit in our shit (like a helpless baby) expecting someone else to change our “diaper” for us or we can always ask for help to ease a bit of that suffering. Help comes in many forms if we are open to it. We are all connected for a reason. Our survival depends on it!
Wow, you literally doubled down on the empirically false belief that everyone improves or gets better, that change is coming just around the corner to offer you relief. I think it is dangerous that you present yourself to the world as though you were an expert or authority.
Many, many illnesses just get worse and worse. Debilitation increases. Pain increases. Quality of life steadily lessens. The bad piles up. Losses pile up. Consequences pile up. Doors close. Life gets smaller and less accessible. Suffering causes more illness and systemic damage
Schizophrenia is a progressive disease that worsens over time. The powerful medications required just to make the hallucinatory delusional symptoms less prominent, those medications themselves cause neurological damage over time that compound all the mental confusion, loss of volition and deadening of emotion and pleasure. Their lives often get harder, emptier, lonelier, in short, worse. The life expectancy of people with schizophrenia is late 50s, decades less than the general population average. Their lives are plagued by suicide, substance abuse/self medication, homelessness, abuse by others. Your facile declarations exclude those sorts of lives.
Some major depressive disorders are treatment resistant and worsen over time. Suffering increases. More is lost or missed out on. Potentials and possibilities shrink. They alienate more people, become more isolated, their lives become emptier and more impoverished which fuels more depression in a vicious circle. In your universe, are they malingerers? Are the not even allowed the decency and dignity of being acknowledged, having their reality validated.
People on the autism spectrum also have decades lower life expectancy than general average. This is partly due to high suicide rates because of deep, insurmountable loneliness and inability to connect or self-actualize. Even sadder, lower life expectancy is due to very high numbers with fatal heart disease. The prevailing medical theory is the extraordinary constant stress of trying to fit in, and to cope with the extreme overstimulation they experience in the world causes physical strain and physical illness, often leading to death.
People with C-PTSD often don’t get better and as their lives progress, the mounting failures and real world consequences of their traumatized responses make life worse and worse, including many irreversible ways. Outcomes are often similar for those with personality disorders.
Though no one really likes to say so, some people’s illnesses shape them in ways that they become truly unlikeable and no one wants to be around them. There are a great many people that even professionals will refuse to treat. For these people then, on top of whatever they suffer directly from illness, there is also isolation, ostracization, and sometimes the awareness that literally no one wants them. This is part of reality whether you admit it or not. But you are an amplified, trusted voice that denies their existence.
I don’t know how you can think of yourself as some kind of professional when you live in stark denial of huge aspects of mental illness and the suffering people endure, and what outcomes are so often like, or the truth about consequences and accumulation of loss, failure, problems, liabilities, missed steps and harms. I don’t know if it is denial or ignorance of realities of life with illnesses, but you publish books, run a website and offer public speaking services all while misrepresenting yourself.
You have these unsubstantiated beliefs that harm people through invalidation. There is no “kind of” or “maybe sort of” or “a little bit” about a negative consequences to the ideology you sell. There is no wiggle room, you invalidate thousands of people. You categorically deny their reality. You make them invisible by leaving them out of the ledger. You stigmatize all those whose lives worsen, who don’t get better, who don’t fit into your super positive vision.
And, as I have said before, the belief that everyone can get better carries the implication that if you aren’t better it is your fault, your failure, it’s on you. There is so much toxic inspirational nonsense out there that all comes with the corollary that if things are bad, if you suffer, if you can’t achieve, it is solely on your shoulders you are just lazy or a loser. What is the long term effect of troubled people being invalidated and blamed wherever they go, by people like you and ideologies like yours.
You should spend some time visiting homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and drop-ins meet some of those sufferers and see if you want to wave the Mary Poppins banner telling them it gets better, they can be better, that you are guaranteeing change that isn’t in the direction of worse.
It is simply irresponsible. You say things that are categorically untrue–not a matter of what i believe or you believe, but objectively untrue. It’s worse than selling snake oil and people in your line of work should be better regulated. You lie to and about the most vulnerable people.
Hi M,
I said that it _can_ get better to _some_ degree. Which I believe. You don’t have to. And as for soup kitchens and homeless shelters? Those people aren’t getting better because they aren’t getting help. They could get _far_ better with medical and social assistance.
I am not waiving a Mary Poppins banner. I never have. I know how hard life is. I know how some things can get worse. I know this because it is my life. I’m sorry you’re so angry about the nuances I’ve placed on what you see as hopeless cases.
– Natasha Tracy
I agree with everything you had to say. I hung onto every word and as a young person who has been through a lot in her life, seeing this blog really helps someone like me so I thank you.
I wonder would you consider small overdoses of medication self harm?
Hi Janice,
I think that all depends on why a person takes the overdoses. If it’s for the suffering or harm, then yes, it’s self-harm. Anything can be self-harm if you’re intending to harm yourself with it.
– Natasha Tracy
Amazing points on using the power of thoughts and language to overcome mental health. I think we highly underestimate the power of our mind and how we can actually help tell our mind and body to heal itself.
This was a beautiful post. I understand your point. Much love.