'It's What I Do That Defines Me': Identity, Batman and Chronic Pain

The first official week of my Pain Management Program had thrown up all sorts of emotional baggage, much of which I'd buried deep, none of which I was prepared for and all of which had caused me to spend every ounce of energy in denial while pushing myself too far.

One key point buried deep has always been loss of identity. By attending these first two meetings, I had been triggered by the tiniest of things: being in a professional space, the people working there wore lanyards to access certain areas of the building. I found myself in tears just seeing these as they reminded me of what that had meant for me: working, teaching, being a part of a school community. While at these meetings, I could blend in with my book, reading and waiting for my appointment no one knew my situation, but the guilt followed me around. Would they know I was not working? Going home, I'd then busied myself so I wouldn't have to deal with these difficult feelings. I even struggle to write this as I prefer not to think about this loss. When I stopped teaching, this was my mantra until I was told was quoting the caped crusader. But you get my drift.

A large part of a person's identity is their work/career and many people with chronic pain conditions struggle with a huge sense of loss when this must change or, in my case, end. The group's members were a real mix with some working full time, some working part time, some on sick leave and others having left work completely.

All group members were keen to get different things out of the sessions but a few key points that resonated with all of us were:

• self-acceptance
• dealing with frustration
• pacing
• loss

Loss would be a large part of the session's focus. As we talked I realised we were all dealing with this and found this area particularly tricky. We were informed that while the pain may indeed never go away, the way we live alongside the pain would help us deal with these emotions.

When my career ended, I threw myself in to different ways of helping others through volunteering, helping friends and family, whatever I could do to keep myself busy. This was of course operating at a much lesser rate of productivity and was for an hour or so a day but doing what I could for as long as I could until I crashed was existence for two years until my chronic pain and ME shifted up a gear.

In the session today, we were told this was a common response, quite a reasonable response, to an unreasonable situation. Guilt, loss, worry, identity, shame - they all play a part here and it is something that the whole group were and still are struggling with.

We were all asked to identify that we were dealing with the loss of our health and so had to accept we were all grieving. Grief is a natural response to loss as our health and/or career had been taken away against our will. We discussed a whole range of emotions that had been experienced, some of which we all felt overwhelmed by anger, shock, disbelief, denial, profound sadness and shame.

As with any loss, the grief disrupts daily routine, relationships with others, sleep patterns and health.
We discussed the over-riding issue of how long these feelings would last and learned that grief and loss are handled differently by each person and there is no time limit or pattern to recovery. We were told that it is important to be patient with yourself and allow grief to happen naturally and allow the process to naturally unfold.

Ignoring the pain does not make it go away. It will cause more problems. Dealing with loss of health would always be an ongoing program.

We talked about how we all felt embarrassed by these emotions and these feelings of grief. But this profound sadness, tears, fear and loneliness are perfectly normal responses to our sense of loss.
We were reminded that the course would help us manage some of these feelings and help us develop strategies. I just felt very raw throughout this session and I wasn't alone. There were tears, not all mine, but this again was reassured that this was perfectly normal but not essential. No one-size-fits-all here.

While grieving a loss is an inevitable part of life, there are ways to help cope with the pain, come to terms with your grief, and eventually, find a way to pick up the pieces and move on with your life.


In 1969, psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross introduced what became known as:

The Five Stages of Grief

Denial: “This can’t be happening to me.”

Anger: “Why is this happening? Who is to blame?”

Bargaining: “Make this not happen, and in return I will ____.”

Depression: “I’m too sad to do anything.”

Acceptance: “I’m at peace with what happened.”


These could happen in any order, with no time limits and it was initially thought people went through all these states before being able to live with acceptance. However, nowadays this list is more of a guide, as grief is thought to occur more as a roller-coaster ride and these stages may all be experienced, or some may not be felt.


Loss of health follows the same principle. To paraphrase Lewis Carroll, sometimes I have experienced as many as five impossible stages before breakfast!

Pain Management addresses all these stages and throughout this session we spent a lot of time discussing our own experiences of these stages. Often, anti-depressants are prescribed as part of managing chronic pain as depression is a very usual reaction to a very unusual situation as my lovely GP told me in the early stages of my health problems.

We then had a group exercise session practising Qi Gong - a gentle Chinese therapy a little like Tai Chi. We were reminded that movement is okay, and we should ensure that we build movement into our day Acute pain on top of chronic pain causes flare ups. So, by moving regularly we can potentially limit the number of flare ups we have and improve feelings of low mood. Increasing daily routine to include something for us would also have a positive impact.

By including regular movement into our daily routine, we:

• oil the joints
• develop awareness of our bodies
• improve balance
• improve core strength
• release endorphins
• meditate through movement.

We also discussed physical symptoms that grief causes, many of which we were experiencing. Some of us had blamed medication, new conditions and juggling work and pain, yet the reality was that the following symptoms are caused by dealing with grief and loss:

• Fatigue
• Nausea
• Lowered immunity
• Weight loss or weight gain
• Aches and pains
• Insomnia

A huge part of this grieving process will be finding strategies to manage our new situations. By finding balance and approaching our new choices with curiosity we hoped we would develop a willingness to learn and reflect on a new way of living life with purpose; finding a new way to define ourselves.