Explaining Chronic Pain – The Wet Socks Metaphor

Happy Spring everybody!

As it warms up, I can’t help but resent the rainstorms that bring the beautiful flowers. My love for rain has decreased over the years as my ability to predict the weather with my joints has increased. I call it a superpower, but it often doesn’t feel like one.

Today I want to talk about something that has always felt just out of reach for me. How do you explain your chronic pain to other people? I’ve tried many things over the years but sometimes, it just feels impossible. How do you describe that deep ache, that persistent itch you can’t scratch? Most days it’s not the pain that bothers me, but the incessantness of it all.

Most people who haven’t experienced chronic pain before tend to compare it to their acute pain: a broken bone, a sprained ankle, etc. I applaud them for trying, it takes effort to empathize. But my kudos stop there. Chronic pain isn’t just physical, it’s a mental game. It is waking up in the morning knowing you are about to fight the same battle. It’s losing sleep. It’s canceling plans and developing a relationship with pain killers you never thought you’d have.

Many days I feel as if I haven’t comprehended the longevity of what it means to have my disease. I have the ability to enter remission, but even in remission, I can have flares. The acknowledgment of permanence is heavy.

So I introduce the wet socks metaphor. The wet socks metaphor helps explain the permanent discomfort to something they can all understand: the gross and squishy feeling of having wet socks. I came up with this metaphor sometime in 2019 after struggling to explain this concept to my friends. Here is what I wrote:

My socks are always wet.
They will be wet on my best days. And my worst. I've learned to ignore it, or at least I've tried to. 
They will be there, some days wetter than others. Some days leave footprints on the sidewalk, the familiar squish echoing for miles, and others just a damp residue.
I don't get to take my socks off when I get home. I tuck them in just ilke the rest of myself- and hope my sheets are not soaked through in the morning. 
My socks aer there when I am in love and despair. I will have wet socks at my wedding and at my graduation.
The dampness is inevitable and ingrained in my self-love and self-loathing. 

While it doesn’t capture the physical pain element of chronic pain, it captures the longevity. People tend to forget that chronic pain happens on your best days too. The days where everything else has gone right. The days where you are surrounded by love and happiness. The most important days of your life all have the possibility of being touched by pain.

This might seem like a pessimistic viewpoint to take. In fact, I’ve had many friends tell me that I shouldn’t be so negative about my illness; that things would be better if I just think positive all the time. That’s an unsustainable and quite frankly, defeating mindset. It’s far healthier for me to be realistic about my limitations and take preparations during my day to minimize my pain. The awareness doesn’t foster negativity, it fosters a life that I can live.

For example, I tend to avoid plans immediately after I wake up because that is when my pain is highest. I usually need half an hour to decrease stiffness and pain levels before I feel ready to tackle the day. I keep a stash of ibuprofen everywhere: my purse, my backpack, my car. I don’t drink alcohol when I’m flaring, so I’ll make plans that are appropriate for my pain level.

Accessibility can be a tricky game with illnesses that fluctuate. I can’t know if I will need accommodations until that day. It can be hard on my relationships as well. It is hard to be the one that other people adjust to, especially when I’ve been a people pleaser all my life. The wet socks metaphor has helped me with some of the times when my life feels variable and chaotic.

I hope that this metaphor can serve as a tool for people in your life that might struggle to understand what you mean when you tell them you have chronic pain! Let me know if you have any thoughts in the comments!