75 Quotes About Chronic-pain

The body in pain is a deviant body that defies expectations, refuses the easy boxes of sick and well.

I started feeling afraid of my own body, like it was a torture chamber I’d been trapped inside.

I am not hurt,” she said, “I am in pain.

It is like walking down a street and every so often someone beats the shit out of you. You mostly heal, but some injuries just don’t, and then you go out and walk some more, and someone comes by and beats the shit out of you again.

The strong, ferocious wind just made the chill worse, and as it blew around me, electric bursts of pain shot through my body.

I’m tired of things I love being gone forever. I didn’t think there was room in me for any more holes, but that’s all I am now, a collection of empty spaces where things were ripped away.

Usually I take this opportunity to say something inspiring, about how my illness has changed me for the better and given me a clear purpose in life for both the work I do and the person I want to be. While all these things are true, the fact is that sometimes I'm in a physical state where I just don’t have it in me to be inspirational. And that’s all right – inspirational words are meaningless without the context of genuine human struggle.

Often the pain that makes us feel most stuck is not our suffering; it is experiencing distress in the presence of people who expect us to get better faster than we can.

Living with long-term suffering in American culture feels like being off-key. Suffering quiets and slows, but our culture prefers a crescendo.