The Impact of Chronic Pain - Focus: Communication | AboutKidsHealth at SickKids

Teens discuss how they have changed the way they communicate with family and friends to help them understand what it is like to live with chronic pain.

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VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

You know it's definitely, it's definitely hard living with something invisible. So by talking about pain, it's a way to make something invisible visible. Pain is something, whether you see it or whether you don't, it is there and it's something a lot of people have to be more aware of.

You have to be honest to yourself, to your family and to your doctors, or you're just never going to get better.

My relationships have been affected with both friends and family on so many levels. When I was first dealing with accepting and dealing with the chronic pain throughout the first three years, four years, I would automatically just get really upset when nobody understood me. I just expect them to know. So some of my friends would get mad because I wasn't in class when I say I'd be a class,  and unfortunately I did lose some friends to that because some just aren't understanding, but it made me realize that communication is key. Depends on how I brought it up to their attention and how I told it to them. I have to open up more and explain it more simpler terms. It's not just 'Oh, I'm not feeling well I don't want I want to see you guys.' It's 'I'm not feeling well today, but we'll go out another day.' Then I will make an effort to go.

After getting some help and, you know, trying to refine my communication skills, I realized that people aren't psychic, which is something that I think I should have known before. But it's something I learned throughout my treatment and one of the biggest things is, you know, you have to communicate how you're feeling in order to preserve your relationships. They had no idea what is going through until I told them and I don't know why I expected them to know without me telling them. I guess me just opening a dialogue would be the most important thing. I was very open about my problems and that was partly strategically because if I'm never at school I don't want people to think I'm just not showing up for no reason. I made a blog that explains my, all my health problems, my how I dealt with them.  

I can really say what I'm thinking easier and a blog like it's I think it's easier to put someone in my shoes. Well my strategy with my friends is to be really open with them and be completely honest because I don't want to sugarcoat anything for them. I do live with this condition I do have bad days. I do have good days. So I explained that to them and I get them to understand that and of course they have become really more understanding which is, I respect them for that.  

I thank them for that. I think there are many strategies I found really helpful, but one of the most helpful one was learning how to phrase my thoughts and realizing my tone of voice when saying things. There's a really big difference between saying 'Please go get me my pain medication.' And 'You know, I really need my pain medication, can you pick that up for me?' The really big difference and there's a big difference in the way people interpret it. The other thing is also being very clear about what you expect and that really helps you so you won't get disappointed.

I think some of the relationships got stronger because of the pain are my family relationships, because it's just, it's not just something that I'm going through, it's something we're all going through, even though I'm feeling the pain they're feeling me feeling the pain. We couldn't do it without each other and I think we all realize that and are really grateful for the way we've been working together to get through this.

After I, you know, worked on those communication skills, my relationships really just blossomed from there. Because pain isn't something that affects just you, it affects everyone around you, so it's really interesting because if you open yourself up and you share what you're going through, it's amazing what other people will share it too. So definitely a lot of learning throughout this whole process.

#ChronicPain #Pain