In our regular spot where we chat about mental health and wellbeing, a few words on supporting those dealing with ongoing pain.
Hello and welcome to the spot on the site where we chat about mental health, wellbeing, and things that may be affecting us. This is a weekly column, that’s been running for a few years now. Across that time, hopefully there’s an article or two that are of use to you, amongst the many that won’t be of any relevance. But hopefully we write something that may resonate.
This week, we’re chatting about pain. Not the physical side of it, as that’s a whole website, yet alone an article. But an appreciation that living with continual pain – be it you or someone around you – has a real mental health knock on effect. And that people who have to do so need a bit more understanding and support.
I accept I’m relatively lucky here. I’ve only had one period over the last year where I had a run of pain that was pretty much non-stop for two or three weeks. It took perfectly timed painkillers to keep my head straight, as the throbbing pain otherwise knocked out any thinking time at all. And I know people for whom this is their day to day, and it has been for years.
Continual pain falls under the cover of the kind of invisible ailments for which society doesn’t always have a lot of tolerance, but the people who can operate with day to day pain are on another level. The sheer amount of effort – both physical and mental – to do the basics that many of us take for granted deserves a whole lot more respect, and a whole lot more empathy.
After all nobody, growing up, wants to live a life where regular pain is part of their daily routine, yet a survey last year by the BBC revealed that one in four of us live with ‘long-term, persistent pain’. The kind of pain that has to be managed, because it can’t be cured.
One in four.
If you work in an office of, say, 20 people, there are on average five of those struggling. How many of them are open? How many are hiding it? It’s all food for thought.
Nothing written here can do anything tangible to change that. But the hope is that people can offer a degree more understanding, and an appreciation that just getting through a day can be a mission in itself. And that not every day, living with pain, is the same.
Life, as we’ve often talked about in these columns, isn’t fair. Daily pain is horribly unfair. The very least those living with that deserve is understanding, and that life isn’t made any more difficult.
Many thanks for reading. This column will return next week.
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