It's Okay To Tell The Truth About Your Chronic Pain

But I can't complain.

What truth? The one that makes people uncomfortable. The one that makes people feel sorry for you. I'm talking about the fact that on some level, it hurts all the time.

I mean...it is called chronic pain.

For me, the TMD pain takes many forms. On the good days, it's a dull ache accompanied by a constant awareness of the entire left side of my skull. It radiates up to my left eye and down the left side of my neck. On slightly worse days, that pain becomes a headache and sometimes a migraine.

On bad days, it stabs, shoots or causes my muscles to convulse and flutter. Then there are the side effects, the lack of sleep, the nightmares, the numbness, the hearing problems and as every poor, long-suffering family member knows, the general grumpiness...

Life with Acute TMD is full of contradictions. You can be in pain and still be okay. Other days, it causes you to fold and spend the day in bed. (As an antsy person, those are the days I hate the most.)

It's frustratingly inconsistent. Sometimes when I take all my medications and take an epsom salt bath every night and do all my yoga and wear my stints, I can still have a tough pain day. I honestly don't understand it myself.

For a really long time, I didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable about the fact that I was in pain. I hate making other people feel bad. And besides, we're human beings walking around in fragile bodies. I bet everybody has some kind of ache or pain, inflammation or sprain. But just how TMD gets to your cartilage, it also grinds down your patience.

I describe living with Acute TMD by telling people to imagine they have one ear bud in at all times and it's playing the constant sound of feedback or static. It's always there. That's life with chronic pain.

Sometimes you can successfully tune it out. Sometimes you get rebellious about it and just ignore it. Sometimes you zone out in the middle of a conversation because it gets louder than the other person speaking. Other days, it drives you a little crazy. I've actually started to develop an eye twitch from irritation. So I have officially reached "sitcom cliche" status.

Recently, I decided to start telling the truth when people ask how I'm feeling. If I'm hurting, I admit it. If I'm going through a bout where I'm not sleeping well, I admit it. I don't dwell on it or harp on it. But...I tell the truth. Because that's what's really going on with me.

I don't know why that feels revolutionary. Maybe because I've worked so hard to become a positive person and admitting pain feels like being innately negative. But it's also a relief, not to have to be performative or try to comfort the people around me. I bow out of things I know I can't do. I have to cancel a lot of plans, therefore, I'm getting better about being selective with making them.

But that's me. That's what my life is like. It's the truth of living with chronic pain.

Go on...let it out.

For all it's frustrations, it's also a relief just to know what's happening. It took me so long to get the correct diagnosis and getting it was so liberating! I finally had an answer to my chronic migraines, my sleep problems, even my facial swelling!

But for how hard I work at being little miss sunshine here on this blog, it's also important to admit the fact that pain is still pain. And it's darn inconvenient. It's why I haven't blogged in a while. I didn't want to say anything negative. My last round of Botox is wearing off and a lot of the symptoms it suppresses are visiting. And that bums me out. And that's okay.

But hey...let's give ourselves that gift of truth. It's okay to admit it to yourself. It's okay to admit it to other people. Stating a fact doesn't make you a Debbie Downer. Feel free to vent in the comments.