Your family lives with your pain too. Although they can't feel what you feel, they suffer from knowing that you suffer. They may feel helpless and lost at times, not knowing how to help or what the future holds. They may struggle with feelings of depression, anxiety, loneliness, distress and poorer health. They need help too. Even though you live with chronic pain, you can still provide support for your loved ones. I have listed some ideas below.
- Try to see the world from their perspective: how they see things, what they feel, what worries them, what makes them happy, what triggers depression. Show that you care about how they are feeling and what they need.
- Offer kindness and warmth – sometimes it is easy to skip this when you are hurting. But, a kind word, a gentle tone, a touch, or taking the time to listen shows that you care about your loved one.
- Direct communication can be very useful to your loved ones who may not be sure how to help. Ask for what you need. That makes it eas
ier for others to help. Try to convey ideas as clearly as possible and work to understand what is being said to you. Try to avoid jumping to conclusions, reading people’s minds, or assuming you know what was “really” meant.
- Show affection – we all love to receive affection and giving it feels good too. No matter your own level of pain, you can still let others know they are loved.
- Have fun – do some fun things every week. They don’t need to be expensive or elaborate or even time-consuming. Having fun is mostly a state of mind.
- Be respectful – saying “please”, “thank-you”, and “I am sorry” shows that you care and respect each other.
- If you think your loved one would benefit from therapy, suggest it, gently. Offer to help find a therapist.
- Give top priority to your relationships. Love matters.
About the Author. Dr. Linda Ruehlman is a social/health psychologist and researcher, co-founder of Goalistics, and director of the Chronic Pain Management Program, an interactive site that helps people with chronic pain to manage their pain and live richer, more effective lives as well as Think Clearly about Depression, a self-management program for depression.
DISCLAIMER: This blog is provided as an educational and informational resource only. It is not intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional psychological or medical advice.
I really believe I honestly try to do all these things, I am sure I may not be as adept at it as I might think. However it is my wife who really seems to need help in following this list. I guess she is drained from so many years of my issue, and especially my lack of making money that has put us in rough spots. Now I am the one who needs to be there for her, she over the last couple years has developed severe kidney failure and is on home dialysis. Yet she is still able to work, and that makes me feel about 1 inch tall. I am sure it looks really good to the rest of our family and friends as well. Here she is going through a horrible health problem and she goes to work and provides for the family and her loser husband has a headache and is on disability…
Hard for me to swallow too.
God bless,
George
George,
I’m sorry you and your wife are both struggling with issues. It sounds like you have a tangled set of upsetting beliefs and thoughts that include shame and blame and worry about what others might think of you. You might benefit from talking a lot of these things through with your wife and/or a solid counselor. It is easy to let such things bounce around in your head where they will only make you more upset and take on too much power. Best wishes ~ Linda
Thank you for taking the time to read and respond, I am trying to find someone who is willing to take medicare and that is hard. I hope that being here and trying to get her to read some of these types of articles might help give us both some perspective to better cope. I failed to add last time that I too enjoyed your article, I tend to come off on the whiny side…
Thank YOU!
You are welcome. It sounds like you and your wife have been together for a long time; that is not easy for many couples to achieve, with or without chronic illness. A good place to start is to sit down together and talk about your joint goals and how to move forward…what are the steps? what are the barriers? what resources do you have and what do you need? Good luck.
This is a great article! I am taking away the reminder of “Try to avoid jumping to conclusions, reading people’s minds, or assuming you know what was “really” meant.”. Living with Chronic Pain and other related illnesses pushes my shame buttons sometimes. This is most often related to income. Sometimes, my Supportive Spouse makes a comment about his stress level with working so much. I take that as a direct attack on me as I am only able to work PT due to my health (had to quit my FT corporate job). After I get upset and react for a while internally, I talk to him about it about my reaction and ask him to clarify what he means. 100% of the time it is NOT meant to be a direct comment towards me and not being able to work FT but rather that he simply wants to be heard. The other ideas you have a great too. Thanks!
Thanks Jen. I really like your approach of “reacting internally” first, letting your emotions cool, and then talking it out with your husband. Our hot emotions often get in the way of responding rationally. Glad you liked the post.
Thank you for this article. I honestly think about this all the time! I have Behcets Disease and it does effect the whole family I have come to realize .
You are welcome. If you have any additional ideas to share, readers would appreciate your input! Best wishes ~ Linda
As a chronic pain sufferer of 13 yrs I found your article very insightful and right on. Thank you.
Thanks!
I try to do all these things for my family and for the most part I can. There is one area I feel that I am really lacking in. I have 32 medical conditions, 5 of them rare, and 2 with a high chance of dying of it within 10 years of diagnosis, and majority of them cause chronic pain. I am only 34 and have been sick most of my 6 year marriage. My husband has been so wonderful through all the surgeries, hospital stays, and emergency room visit. I wish I could do more.
You husband sounds like a great guy. You can do more by letting him know how much you appreciate all that he does.
Thank you very much.
You are welcome!
Its only less then six months since when my tratment for psoriatic arthritis has started. All the fingers of both my hands been already affecte..and I cant manage some of my daily chores without assistance. My family despite being shoked trying to cope up with my sudden surge of short temper, irritation trigared with or without any reason etc. etc..It is me who actually needs to read more about maitaining quality of life and act like a wise man. However I agree with all your sggestions. Thanks and god bless you. Regards, Rudra
I love this site, as a chronic pain sufferer with unknown causes of it I become very frustrated along with a short fuse/temper. I can not seem to hold my tongue when my family does things that I feel they should realize bother me ie loud noises, I have had a headache for months now and the doctors are not even going there to investigate that. But I also feel like the medical society just doesnt really know how to help chronic pain sufferers even at Pain Management Clinics. I am so feeling alone with this and the depression is just overwhelming me. Every time I go to the PM Clinic at a large Hospital I am getting the feeling that everyone is just going thru the motions to help along with pushing opiates that I have told them does not help me. whew, needed to say this to someone, thank you.