Living with chronic pain can be excruciatingly difficult. It often interferes with your ability to perform routine tasks, such as driving a car or doing the dishes. Worse still, it could impact your academic or professional performance. Depending on the root cause of your pain, it could also result in other ailments, including obesity, hypertension, heart disease, etc.
However, what many medical practitioners and patients often ignore is the effect of chronic pain on your mental health. It isn’t too uncommon for people with chronic pain to develop mental health disorders, such as depression, social anxiety, OCD, PTSD, etc.
That’s why chronic pain treatment is often more complex than it appears. Apart from learning more about treating chronic pain and underlying illness, you must identify ways to keep your mental health in check. Otherwise, it can adversely affect or even delay your recovery.
It is, therefore, important to look beyond the physiological aspect of chronic pain. In this blog, we’ll discuss a few ways to cope with its psychological impact. But let’s first delve deeper into the link between chronic pain and mental health.
Chronic Pain & Mental Health
Experiencing chronic pain often limits one’s ability to carry on with the life they used to live. While you can still remain physically active, you may not be as agile and energetic as you used to be. Also, you may not always know when, where, and how the pain is going to affect you.
This uncertainty and fear are the perfect breeding ground for self-doubt and low self-esteem. It’s natural to start questioning your abilities and impose various restrictions on yourself. This, in turn, can cause you to lose interest in things you used to love doing earlier.
It often forces patients to cut ties with their friends and family members, and they end up retreating into their own shells. All these factors could take a severe toll on your motivation and willpower. Eventually, you might end up developing serious psychological ailments.
It’s natural for people with chronic pain to feel sad, lonely, and nervous. While your pain is physical, lack of motivation and a generally negative outlook can intensify your suffering. This is because coping with chronic pain requires you to constantly push yourself out of the comfort zone.
Accomplishing this can be a herculean task when you’re also dealing with a mental illness. So, if you’ve been experiencing chronic pain, it’s high time you start prioritizing your mental health. It’s now time for us to explore a few effective ways of doing this.
Living with Chronic Pain: The Mental Picture
When it comes to pain management, most techniques focus on dealing with physical pain. What we often forget is that mental wellbeing is just as important for people experiencing chronic pain. Here are a few ways to cope with the psychological impact of chronic pain:
1. Educate Yourself
In most cases, chronic pain is a manifestation of an underlying disorder, such as arthritis, nerve damage, etc. It could also be the result of a traumatic injury. Understanding what’s causing your pain can be instrumental in letting you come to terms with your predicament. Also, it’ll help you identify any stress triggers that might aggravate your pain.
Learning about your medical condition can also be emotionally empowering. It’ll alleviate your feelings of guilt, self-blame, and self-doubt. Also, knowing what’s wrong with your body will prevent your mind from going into overdrive imagining all the worst-case scenarios.
2. Find a Support Group
If you’ve been feeling lonely and hopeless because of your pain, joining a support group would be an excellent coping strategy. While your loved ones might be trying their best to help you, they won’t have a clear idea of what you’re going through.
Instead, you can seek comfort in the company of strangers who are in a better position to understand your situation. Meeting people who’ve been battling similar situations as yours will help you visualize the silver lining. Also, it’s a great way to share your feelings and apprehensions without the fear of being judged.
3. Consult a Therapist
If you continue to feel sad, hopeless, and unmotivated despite trying everything else, it might be high time you should see a therapist. Even if you’re making good progress with a support group, you should still consider meeting a therapist.
They can diagnose any underlying mental health disorders you might be suffering from and devise a personalized treatment plan for you. Also, they can analyze whether you’re going to need medication to cope with your mental health issues and accordingly refer you to a psychiatrist.
What techniques are you using to improve your mental health? Share your suggestions in the comments section below.
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