Finding Life Balance with Chronic Pain and Illness

It's both harder and easier than you think

Image by falco from Pixabay

Before my car accident I was a busy family doctor with a young family. My foot was always on life’s gas pedal as I balanced home life with a demanding career. Add to this a younger brother I was supporting through a battle with cancer. Rather than thriving, I coped. I believed this was all just part of life, not understanding it was more difficult for me as I also lived with undiagnosed Bipolar II.

I kept up the balancing act until someone with a terrible driving record hit my car as I was waiting to turn onto my own street. That’s when the wheels fell off. I developed fibromyalgia and became emotionally less stable as the Bipolar Disorder worsened. 

I made the mistake of continuing to push myself

My injuries post accident weren’t severe. I tore muscles in my neck and shoulder. I should have taken time off to heal, but I was used to pushing myself no matter how I felt. Maybe it was an occupational hazard.

I developed crippling headaches and fibromyalgia. I didn’t work at all for close to a year and spent more time in bed than out for several more. I could no longer handle the physical work of family medicine. When I returned to work it was as a physician psychotherapist. I worked a few hours a week. It was all I could handle.

My drive to work hard made things worse

Although I knew the theories around chronic pain and illness, I continued to believe for a long time that they shouldn’t apply to me. This trap kept me from living my best life.

I would push myself for a day or two, keeping up with everyone around me. I’d spend the next week or more in bed, unable to do anything.

Here’s the thing. People living with fibromyalgia can do anything — once. Doing that thing might put us out of commission for a while after. But the allure of doing normal things can lead us to make poor choices. 

For a long time, I had two settings — do everything and do nothing. There was no middle ground. Most of the time was spent doing nothing as the recovery periods after the do everything episodes were long.

Each time I pushed and set myself back, I chose not to see it as a pattern of behavior. I wanted to be well. I wanted to be normal. It took a long time for me to realize that my normal had changed forever.

I learned to pace myself

I took stock one day and accepted that I was not going to return to my previous level of function. I had to make peace with my new normal or I would see-saw between doing too much and debilitating pain and exhaustion for the rest of my life.

Either extreme — doing too much or too little — worsens the symptoms of fibromyalgia. I had to find the right balance. I started walking, and slowly built my stamina and resilience. I stretched multiple times a day, which helped with the pain.

I learned to say no to others’ expectations. No, I couldn’t go shopping or to a party or to whatever outing someone else felt I should be able to handle. No, I couldn’t stay up late to go to a movie with a friend. No, I was not up to everything I used to be able to do.

I also learned to sometimes say yes, even knowing it would cost me. If something was important enough to me, I would do it and pay the price. I just couldn’t do this too often.

Instead of doing twenty things in a day, I might do one or two. Pacing is crucial for anyone living with chronic pain or illness.

I chose to engage in life

Doing nothing not only sucks the joy out of life, it inevitably makes any illness or disability worse. Muscles atrophy, joints stiffen, the mind decays and emotional well-being plummets.

It’s vital to take what we can from life. If one door is closed to us, we need to find an open door. If we can’t run anymore, maybe we can walk. If we can’t work at our old job, we can try to find something, even part-time, that we can do. When we find ourselves unable to engage in leisure activities we used to love, it’s essential that we find others to take their place. 

It’s too easy to choose to be a victim. Difficult things happen in life. There are no guarantees that any of us is going to be healthy throughout our lives. When health challenges arise, we can choose to let them defeat us or to make the best lives we can with what is available to us. I choose the latter.

Both fibromyalgia and recurring depressive episodes have limited the scope of what is available to me. This has been compounded in recent years by advancing arthritis. I nonetheless continue to be as active as my body allows, pacing myself to minimize down days.

I love watching movies (generally matinees), Friday night hockey, and attend a monthly book club. The pandemic has temporarily limited me to watching on TV and my book club is hobbling along via email for now. I also work as a writer, editor, and life coach. I take on enough work to keep me engaged and fulfilled, while allowing lots of recovery time.

I maintain friendships with wonderful people who understand I can’t always do things they can and sometimes have to cancel plans. I have two amazing grandsons I love spending time with.

Victimhood or empowerment — it’s yours to choose

Everyone’s situation is different, as is their experience of pain and disability. What one person can do, another can’t. I would never try to dictate to anyone else what they should or shouldn’t do.

I do encourage others to live their lives to the fullest extent possible. That doesn’t mean pushing yourself so hard you make things worse. It means finding balance. It means doing the things you need to do to be as well as you can be. It means maintaining interests, rather than sinking into a gray, empty world.

It’s so easy to feel sorry for ourselves (sometimes we all do) and to become victims rather than empowered humans. Remember, though, that you choose how you handle your illness. You choose whether it rules you or whether you are in control of your life. It all comes down to choices. It’s a question of balance.

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