an important/helpful PSA from tumblr:

'chronic pain fucks up your perception' and 'putting it into the this-could-be-worse perspective also fucks you up' these breakdowns are GOOD

for example: My ma. Love her to pieces, she was a great lady even tho we fought a lot when I was a teenager, but that is neither here nor there.
24 hours after brain surgery. BRAIN SURGERY. She's sitting in her ICU bed with a drainage bulb sticking out of her head and basically a hole in the top of her skull, plastic mesh instead of the removed bone

(there were reasons, like this was her third brain surgery and it wouldn't heal right again and the mesh was safer but anyway)

Doc asks her: 'how's your pain?' and she says. THIS BITCH SAYS "FOUR I THINK?"

Luckily she had a good doc and he said: "okay, sure, I could just take that but how is this pain in comparison with the gallstones that sent you to the ER?"

and that's when she says: "Oh, like nine. Eight if I close one eye."

so yeah 10's not 'the worst pain you could theoretically feel' but more 'the worst pain you have actually personally felt before this pain'

ah, the joys of chronic pain.

see also: if you have a doc that doesn't believe you? FIRE THEM, with actual fire if necessary

very useful/helpful scales

also this one, thank u forever Allie Brosh

The breakdowns are so helpful. Chronic pain fucks stuff up for sure.

and oof, what is it about moms? sounds like before my mom's neck surgery, they asked her and she said 4/5, to which I gave her a look and said something like "compared to other days maybe, but what is it ACTUALLY right now?"

y e a h

I think she was doing the 'it could be worse, you could be actively poking my brain right now' thing

(yeah I know there's not actually any nerve endings up there, shh)

I actually have the first pic saved to my phone, so that way I can make sure that any doc is on the same page that I am.

smrt!

if something goes wrong, I know I won't be up to Google it.

haha cool, "I'm literally always uncomfortable" isn't just a meme!

one of the weird things no one talks about with having pain is, being so used to it that when there's an out-of-scope fucky wucky? like, say, a broken finger

have to actively ACT OUT THE PAIN to get adequate care because all the strategies you actually have for pain are like, "Nah, this is cool, I can do this"

^t h i s