Sometimes, don’t you just want to shy away from life when you don’t feel well? For me, I go for long walks in the woods. For someone else, it might be a couch-laden day with the world kept safely on the other side of the door.
So when a client told me the other day that she didn’t go out much because her responses to people could sometimes be edgy—and she worried those interactions kept people from seeing who she really was—I wasn’t surprised. When we don’t feel like ourselves, it can be easier to stay separate, stay inside, and avoid the possibility of being judged for a version of ourselves we don’t entirely recognize either.
Her statement brought me back to how I felt years ago. I would retract from physical touch, I hurt so much. Anyone in pain knows that pain steals your joy.
I had gotten to know her over the last year of working with her. While chronic pain wasn’t the initial motive in doing one of my programs, a usual side effect is increased emotional awareness. When we have managed emotions like this for so long, we don’t often realize it’s become a part of our programming.
When we don’t feel well there is a gap between who we are and how we show up. Withdrawing from human interaction is a form of self preservation. The edgy responses weren’t necessarily representative of who she believes herself to be. That disconnect is dichotomous however— people only experience the response, not what is underneath it. Being misunderstood often leaves us inside the house, and in our heads, numbing ourselves in an effort to not feel the pain, not even realizing what we are doing. Isolation feels safer than having to explain yourself.
My favorite forms used to be binge watching Netflix with a good bottle of wine and too much chocolate. Hope that wasn’t too raw for the folks that think dietitians hang out watching what other people eat and judging them. We don’t. Well, this one doesn’t.
As I listened to my client, I recognized that same instinct toward self-preservation. She wasn't necessarily choosing isolation because she didn't want relationships. She was trying to protect herself from being misunderstood. And perhaps, like I once did, she had become so accustomed to managing how she felt that she hadn't fully recognized how much it was influencing her relationships.
Pain absolutely changes behavior. Chronic pain can shorten patience, increase irritability, disturb sleep, consume cognitive bandwidth, and keep the nervous system more reactive. Our society often labels someone a “personality problem”, or someone you may not want to hang out with may in part may be due to a person managing significant physiological strain. Our society celebrates those who anti up on the “tough guy” or now “tough women” front. Party on. Take more supplements. A designer drug perhaps. Repeat.
Often, I suggest that pain is the gift that tells your that something is wrong. Please know that I came to that understanding mostly from the experiences that I’ve had. While I also say that signs are symptoms, neither are meant to minimize the experience of ‘pain” or “symptoms.” To the contrary, pay close attention to them and what they are telling you. Ask your body why this is happening?
And just so it’s not thought that I haven’t had pain in my life. …While dealing with significant cellular inflammation from toxin exposures most of my life, I have also had 3 back surgeries and still have 3 metal plates in my neck. My most recent experience with pain was a shattered heel in the last year. When I asked the trauma PA how many pieces, he shook his head and said, “too many to count.” As he gently pushed it back in place to avoid surgery. That hurt. All this to say, much of my life has been a painful experience. I don’t look for sympathy however because I have still chosen a rich beautiful, active life. If I hadn’t told you, you would not have known. I walked 3 miles this morning before breakfast.
I will say, however, that the greatest pain I’ve endured in my life has been emotional abuse. There is a particular kind of pain that comes from feeling disconnected from the people we care about most, especially when those are the very people we hope will see and understand us. So when I say that pain can be a gift, I don't say it as a casual dismissal of anyone's suffering. I say it from a place of having lived through it and learning to recognize what pain was trying to tell me. That understanding is part of what keeps me teaching others to look beyond their symptoms, advocate for themselves, and keep moving forward.
It has also taught me that choosing healthy relationships—and recognizing when a relationship is harming us—is a cornerstone of our overall health. Sometimes healing isn't just about what we put into our bodies. It's also about the people we allow into our lives and whether those relationships give us the freedom to be ourselves.
It’s tough being judged by the behavior rather than understood through it. Someone sees the sharp response. They don't see the poor sleep, exhaustion, fear, inflammation, stress, or years of compensating that preceded it. And they mostly don’t care.
And then there is the pain of not recognizing yourself any longer. “I'm not an angry person. Why am I responding this way?” That can introduce shame and self-doubt. Instead of people close by asking, “Hey, what’s up with you? Are you doing okay?” A quiet back is turned. This is different kind of pain. The pain of unchosen social isolation.
One of the most challenging parts, is not being seen by healthcare. When we do decide to get help and healthcare dismisses the symptoms because lab values are normal and you have done a good job managing your weight, is painful. I had one doctor tell me, “ Look at you! You look like you could beat me up!” I didn’t say it but I kind of wanted to after that interaction. He told me I needed a shrink. So I went to the shrink. She said, “You are not crazy, you are dealing with chronic pain.” Thank you. Could you please sent a letter to the aforementioned person that calls himself an MD so I can smile the next time I see him walking down the hospital halls. I worked with this person. These experiences are part of what drives me today.
I thought about my client again. She worried that people couldn't see who she really was because of how she sometimes responded to them. But what happens when we begin to see ourselves through other people's reactions? When we're repeatedly misunderstood, dismissed, or judged, it's easy to start questioning our own experience. Sometimes we withdraw not only from other people but from the parts of ourselves we've come to believe are unacceptable.
Over the year we've worked together, I've gotten to know the client behind those edgy responses. What struck me about our conversation wasn't simply that she had withdrawn from others. It was that she recognized the disconnect between who she knew herself to be and how she sometimes showed up in the world.
That awareness matters. We can't always change our circumstances or eliminate our pain, but recognizing our patterns can give us an opportunity to respond differently. Sometimes the first step isn't changing how other people see us. It's beginning to understand ourselves.
And sometimes, the only way out is through. My most recent personal experience with this was trying to become physical active after my cast came off. I couldn’t walk 10 feet. It hurt. Then, I couldn’t walk 20 ft without it hurting. Then 30, you get the picture. I got up one morning and decided I was going to walk a 1/4 mile. It hurt. I think it’s important to distinguish pushing through discomfort from ignoring potentially harmful pain. It hurt but I could tell it was the healing kind of hurt from doing this so many times following back surgery. It was this one simple act that made me realize that the further I walked the better I felt. It didn’t take much to get to 3 miles after that. The first 1/4 mile still hurts but I’m building my stamina now. I would not have known this was possible had I not decided I was going to push through. I would still be on the couch.
The biggest step forward may be understanding that being seen begins with seeing ourselves. That shift is essential, and sometimes it takes a while to get there. Quietly, I thanked my client for reminding me, in her own way, why I got into this work to begin with.
Maybe this is the new programming: No matter how much pain I’m in, I’m choosing to show up for myself today—and every day. It’s reconnecting with ourselves. It’s recognizing and removing the interference that keeps us from being who we really are. And it’s choosing to be seen, even when the version of ourselves that shows up isn’t perfect.
Because it was never about perfection. It’s about being willing to take that next step—the one that moves the needle, even slightly, toward living our best lives. And perhaps, as we learn to truly see ourselves, we become a little less dependent on who else shows up to see us.
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