Coping, Friends & Family

Faking It

I’ve just realized that most of my posts so far imply that my headaches are fairly mild and easily treated. I’ve actually had an awful month with at least 20 days where my headache has been a 6 or higher on the 1-10 scale.

You see, I’ve been pretending that the pain isn’t too bad for so long that I’m inadvertently doing it here too. I’m not sure if I remember how to talk to anyone except my husband without downplaying or ignoring the pain. For example, my mother-in-law was in town last week and asked one day if I had a headache. My response? “No, it’s not too bad. It’s only intermittent stabbing pain.”

It’s a downer to always be in pain, so I try to avoid talking about it. When I do, I dismiss the severity of it. Is this being fake? I don’t think so – I’m still me. I want to be more than my headaches and I don’t know how to do that without minimizing them. I’m pretty confident that most people living with chronic pain do the same thing.

For the blog, I’m not sure how to balance being positive with being up front about my pain levels. Please bear with me while I try to figure it out.