This Is the Most Relatable Chronic Pain Tweet EVER

If you’re a chronic pain warrior, you probably know the struggle of explaining your pain to others. Lucky for us though, over the weekend, Twitter user trev (@revalation218) posted a relatable tweet that explains chronic pain in an easily understandable (and humorous!) way. Their tweet quickly went viral because it nails what it’s really like to live with chronic pain.

The tweet reads:

chronic pain be like

meh i’m used to it

meh i’m used to it

meh i’m used to it

meh i’m used to it

I’M SO TIRED OF BEING IN PAIN ALL THE TIME I HATE MY BODY I HATE BEING LIKE THIS EVERYTHING IS AGONY PLEASE MAKE IT STOP I’M EXHAUSTED PLEASE

meh i’m used to it

meh i’m used to it

chronic pain be like
meh i'm used to it
meh i'm used to it
meh i'm used to it
meh i'm used to it
I'M SO TIRED OF BEING IN PAIN ALL THE TIME I HATE MY BODY I HATE BEING LIKE THIS EVERYTHING IS AGONY PLEASE MAKE IT STOP I'M EXHAUSTED PLEASE
meh i'm used to it
meh i'm used to it

— trev???? (@careebearstaree) March 1, 2020

Chronic pain and chronic illness often go hand in hand. As trev pointed out in the tweet, the pain associated with a chronic illness can slowly become your “new normal.”

As someone who lives with chronic illness, it is almost impossible for me to remember the last time I had a day without pain. It is also almost impossible for me to imagine my future without pain too. I have been through the cycle of being used to the pain, then suddenly remembering, “This is not ‘normal!’” and becoming inconsolable more times than I would like to admit. The sudden realization that your chronic pain could last forever is terrifying and so incredibly isolating. The cycle of acceptance and grief shown in this tweet could not be truer for people with chronic pain.

When I try to explain the cycle of chronic pain to people around me, I usually say it’s like becoming extremely aware of blinking. Most of us are aware that we blink all day without consciously doing it. But once we become aware of the sensation of blinking, it feels overwhelming and all-consuming. Eventually, we get distracted and forget about our blinking pattern. To people who experience chronic pain, pain is just like another automatic process of the body: breathing, blinking, pain.

Even with this analogy, it is hard for people who do not experience chronic pain to understand. For most people when they have a pounding headache that feels like it won’t ever go away, they can take an Advil and it will be gone in about an hour. To them, pain is always manageable and has a cure. For people with chronic pain, we don’t have the privilege of that relief ever.

When the pain is too much to be distracted from, life becomes overwhelming, or chronic pain gets in the way of living life to the fullest, exhaustion and desperation can seep in. Whatever helped you get used to the pain can disappear and the reality of chronic pain floods in. The realization that being in pain all of the time could last forever is one of the darkest feelings. We start to question how we have done it for so long and how we can continue living like this because it is so incredibly exhausting to feel pain every moment of every day.

Chronic pain doesn’t only exist physically — emotional and mental pain accompanies it. The idea of the future can seem impossible with chronic pain, but after surviving with it for so long, the body and mind become used to it. We get distracted by life again, become used to the pain again, and so the cycle begins.

If any of this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. We are all in this together. There are always brighter days ahead. Chronic pain can’t defeat us, it only makes us stronger.