Is there such a thing as a "pain personality"?
May 14, 2008 by Marijke Durning, RN
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
We’ve all known, seen, or heard of someone who is always in pain but not taken seriously. Maybe that person is you. I remember as a child being told that I couldn’t be having as much pain as I complained of.
But, just as there are people who have pain and aren’t believed, there are people on the other end of the spectrum who appear as if they are making their pain worse by catastrophizing, or believing that only the worst is happening and will happen.
According to an article in Psychology Today, if you have pain, you may appear to be angry or frustrated, but it could be the pain that is talking – if you treat the pain, the personality may change.
This all goes hand-in-hand with the idea of helping people learn how to cope with their pain as part of the overall treatment plan.
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That’s like the “migraine personality” – yeah, I fit it to a T, although I don’t really buy into it. It says something like Overacheaver, high strung, OCD, workaholic, yeah they have me pinned, but what about the rest of the migraineurs out there??
And yes, my personality does change when I’m in pain – because I’m in pain!!!! LOL
Kerrie at The Daily Headache has a great post about migraine personality that you might find interesting:
http://www.thedailyheadache.com/2007/03/a_migraine_pers.html
Hi Eileen, I agree with you completely. If we act stressed when we’re in pain, we’re told it’s because we’re stressed that we have pain. Yeah,*that’s* going to help!
Diana, thank you for that link; I hadn’t read that post. It was interesting.