Mornings With Chronic Pain

ocean_song’s descrip­tion of morn­ings with chron­ic pain is bet­ter than any­thing I’ve ever managed:

Waking up in the morn­ing when you have chron­ic pain, is like going to sleep and sud­den­ly being plunged into icy water. There’s the shock of find­ing your­self there (awake), the pain of the icy water pulling you under, and the slow­ly claw­ing your way out of there and into a safe space (con­scious­ness and men­tal clar­i­ty). Every day I wake up, I have that split-sec­ond moment where I am hor­ri­fied to be still alive and to be in this much pain. And often, there is that briefest wisp of wish­ing I was dead. I kick that thought to the curb right away. But I hate admit­ting that it’s there.

Slow­ly, as I get more awake, my cop­ing skills and intel­lect snap into space enough to not take it all so seri­ous­ly. But the first hour or two of the morn­ing always sucks. And then I feel guilty for feel­ing so bad. That sucks too.