Gifford, thank you for your feedback. I really appreciate it.

My mom has been struggling with fibromyalgia since roughly 1983. The doctors didn’t know what it was then (they don’t seem to have made much progress, tbh) or how to properly treat it, so she’s literally been suffering with this for 40 years. I continue to be frustrated by the kind of care she’s sometimes gotten, the accusations that the pain is all in her head, the ignorance of her doctors, and the impotence of much of the “treatments” that have done very little to help. So I’m aware of some of the issues you’ve brought up surrounding chronic pain and those who have to endure it.

But this post isn’t about chronic pain. It’s about factors that can impact how someone deals with pain, both when it happens and during recovery. From a fiction standpoint, those factors have to be taken into account when an author is writing a character’s pain response.

Another purpose of this post was to remind authors that most pain doesn’t go away immediately. This is something we often forget; a character is injured, and the pain is catalogued in the moment, but it’s never mentioned again. Recovery usually takes some time, and this is something we often get wrong when writing about pain, so the post focuses quite a bit on that recovery period.

Lastly, the post isn’t saying that people can be cured by having a positive mindset or adopting healthy behaviors—only that those things can aid in recovery and pain mitigation. This isn’t always the case because every case is different. But science shows that in many cases, these factors can help in recovering from an injury or illness.

I do see that I’ve used the word “chronic” twice when referencing pain in the recovery period; I merely meant “ongoing,” since it takes a while for the pain to subside with many injuries and illnesses. But I can see how that term can cause confusion, so I’ve changed those references.

Thanks again for letting me know your thoughts.

I have been a fan of your website for many years now. I rely on the emotion thesaurus all the time, and your recent “trope” posts are excellent.

But I tell you without reservation that, though this article reflects the current thinking about both acute and chronic pain, it is mostly B.S.

Do you know that, even as overdoses from illicit drugs soar, patients suffering from acute and chronic pain, and even post-operative pain, are being denied appropriate treatment when they “ask” for it? Do you know that the suicide rate among veterans and other chronic pain patients due to untreated pain have skyrocketed? I know of one woman who had her leg amputated rather than deal with the pain of CRPS: do you really believe that something as elemental as “changing one’s attitude” will minimize that pain, or the pain of Lupus, Fibromyalgia, or Sickle Cell Anemia?

If you’d like to see what is actually happening to pain patients and how we cope day to day, I recommend you follow Bev Schechtman (@IBDgirl76) and Claudia A. Merendi (@CMerendi) on Twitter (or X or whatever it’s being called today) and subscribe to the Pain News Network newsletter. You’ll get real stories from real patients who “practice healthy lifestyles”, “seek help”, and “self-advocate” to the best of their abilities, yet continue to suffer in this environment that offers only the same empty advice you’ve parroted here.

If you do, within a week, I guarantee your opinion will change dramatically.