Chronic Pain Counselling
To live with chronic pain can be an ongoing and complex journey
of mental, emotional, and physical struggles that can feel not only
unbearable and uncertain at times, but also like your whole life
and identity is being compromised.
Some people living with chronic pain may be hopeful to return to the activities
or life they once had, but for others, they may be facing intense grief and loss
around who they were and what they have been forced to give up.
Chronic pain can be all encompassing, like a bulldozer leaving destruction
behind everything it touches, no matter how big or small. You may lose your
capacity to work, spend time with friends and family, and engage in the hobbies
and everyday activities you enjoyed before. For some, getting out of bed or
brushing your teeth can feel like an unbearable mountain to climb. You may
struggle with sleep and lack of energy.
You may struggle with anxiety over what your chronic pain diagnosis will
destroy next, or the constant worry of not being “sick enough” to warrant any
compassion from yourself or those around you. You may be faced with the
constant unknowns of whether or not your pain will get worse, constantly
questioning and worrying when a flare up will hit next.
Guilt may be a common emotion that you face such as feeling like you have
done a bad thing to your loved ones, like canceling on them again, or not being
able to do the kinds of activities you used to do. Maybe you’ve just gone MIA
(missing in action) and haven’t had the space to reach out to them in so long,
you feel like it is best to just slip into the background and fully disengage. This
guilt can easily slip into shame, where you feel like you are bad or a burden to
others. It can leave you shrinking from all of the ways you used to show up in
the world.
As if struggling with the pain was not enough to manage, you may struggle with
depression, feeling so held down that you cannot possibly fathom how your
pain will ever get better, or that you will find a way to make your life your own
again.
Living with pain may leave you feeling invisible to the world, never truly feeling
like you are being seen or heard. Within that invisibility, you may be yearning for
someone to just “get it.” At the very least, you hope for a space where you can
be held in whatever experience you are feeling, without worrying about the next
message of “it will get better” or “at least you do not have…”
At Lavender Counselling we can support you through providing
you with a space where you will feel deeply seen and validated.
We recognize the necessity of having a comfortable space so that
you can come as you are, offering virtual, over-the-phone and inperson sessions. We can help you to explore the grief, loss,
uncertainty, sadness and worry you are experiencing so you can
relate to your chronic pain in a new way. Our hope is that we can
support you to find yourself more able to cohabitate with chronic
pain so that it does not feel like it consumes you and your life.
To ensure we honor the voices of those with lived experience, this
section has graciously been written by our own Chantel Van Vliet.
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