We all feel pain every now and again but some people experience chronic pain which makes every little task feel 100 times harder. For me, this pain is in my lower back/hips and knees and no matter what I do to try and get rid of it, the pain is always there and interferes with every aspect of my life. I have had these pains now for so long that I can’t remember living my life without feeling pain somewhere. Not only that, sometimes I get flare-ups of pain and it can get very intense making it almost impossible for me to do anything: I can’t sleep, I can’t move around and I can’t even sit down comfortably.
It started when I was going into secondary school and I was having sleepless nights – I was only able to sleep around 3 hours per night. This made it so difficult to just get through the day, I couldn’t focus, I couldn’t socialise, I couldn’t even stay awake during classes sometimes. It was so frustrating to deal with because my body wasn’t doing what I wanted it to. A lot of the time when I got home from school I was in tears because of the pain. I tried so many ways of getting rid of it but no matter what it was always there lingering and constantly on my mind. Sometimes it got so bad I couldn’t do the bare minimum during the day – I couldn’t dress myself; I could barely get down the stairs.
It made me feel so alone, so trapped because I couldn’t do the things I wanted to; I couldn’t go out and mess around with my mates or play football. The parts of my life that I loved were being stolen from me one by one, and the more time went on the less I was able to do because I was in too much pain, or doing it caused a lot of pain. One reason why I hated school was because I could see everyone else enjoying themselves whilst I was faking my way through each day, pretending as if I were fine. At break and lunchtimes, my mates went outside to play football – I went and sat in the disabled toilet.
At that age, it is so difficult to reach out to someone and ask for help because you’re afraid of being judged, ridiculed, or just standing out. Every time I looked back on my school days, I wish a teacher hah reached out to me and sat me down and asked if I was okay. I believe that if someone from my school had reached out to me and supported me in certain ways I would have enjoyed and worked better. That’s one reason I am writing this post, I think people need to be aware of how scary and worrying it can be to reach out themselves when they have a problem. So, if you notice something, no matter how small, in someone else’s behaviour/attitude you should reach out to them; don’t just ask “are you okay?” and leave it at that because we all know that when people answer that question, they rarely mean what they say. Ask more general questions about them because the more you show an interest in someone who you think is struggling, they would be more comfortable and willing to open up and seek support.
As you’d expect the doctors put me on painkillers to try and help. Not only that, but they also put me on enough painkillers I was surprised I didn’t rattle like a maraca with each step I took. Annoyingly, this never got rid of all the pain, I could still feel it even though it was less prevalent. I was able to do general day-to-day tasks easier now but the pain in my legs and hips was still there, in the back of my mind. I was always so paranoid and anxious that it was going to flare up again at any point. Even though I could do more without having to worry about being in pain I still kept to my same habit of staying inside and not going out with my friends. This is one of the biggest regrets of my life, despite being able to go out and socialise with my friends I stayed in, alone and withdrawn from the world.
Not only did the pain killers I started taking at this point not remove all the pain but I also had to deal with the annoying side effects that they came along with. The drowsiness was the worst one. Yes, I was able to sleep more now I was taking them but that didn’t matter because I still felt tired all the time as they made me sleepy during the day. So, I still couldn’t focus or stay awake in all my classes. I used to get so frustrated with myself about now being able to focus, despite it not being my fault. I went into every class knowing that I may not be able to stay awake or remember anything 10 minutes after. I remember some days I was so fed up I’d go home and cry about how useless and pathetic I was being because no one else seemed to have a problem with concentrating and learning.
The one thing I don’t think people realise is how much chronic pain can take it out of you. It really does drain you quite a lot. But as with everything in life there are good days and bad days. Some days are less draining than others but I don’t remember the last day I went without feeling pain and it has just become part of my daily life now. However, if going through this has taught me anything it's that you really need to take advantage of the good days. Try and do as much as you can during the days you feel your best self whether that’s productively working or going out to see mates. Don’t let the worse days impact what you can do on your best days.
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