The situation
I’ve had chronic back and nerve pain for three years. Some days are manageable; on others I can barely get out of bed. I’ve cancelled so many plans that friends have stopped asking, and I’m tired of explaining myself. Worst of all, I feel I’ve lost the person I used to be.
Your situation, reframed
AI interpretationThree years of pain is exhausting, and grieving the life you had before it is a fair response. The Stoic distinction that helps is between the pain itself, which you did not choose, and the verdicts that build up on top of it: that you are a burden, that your life has shrunk to nothing, that tomorrow will be as bad as today.
The dichotomy of control
AI interpretationYours to act on
- How you pace yourself on good days and bad ones
- Telling a friend honestly what you can manage, instead of cancelling in silence
- Which parts of your old life you keep, in an adapted form
- Working with your GP or pain clinic on treatment and support
Not yours
- The pain itself and when it flares
- How quickly treatments work, if they do
- Whether other people fully understand it
- The plans that have already fallen through
The Stoics said
Verbatim from the source · full citationsMarcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.26
Let the part of thy soul which leads and governs be undisturbed by the movements in the flesh, whether of pleasure or of pain; and let it not unite with them, but let it circumscribe itself and limit those affects to their parts. But when these affects rise up to the mind by virtue of that other sympathy that naturally exists in a body which is all one, then thou must not strive to resist the sensation, for it is natural: but let not the ruling part of itself add to the sensation the opinion that it is either good or bad.
Epictetus, Enchiridion 9
Disease is an impediment to the body, but not to the will, unless the will itself chooses. Lameness is an impediment to the leg, but not to the will. And add this reflection on the occasion of everything that happens; for you will find it an impediment to something else, but not to yourself.
Cicero (on the Stoics), Tusculan Disputations 2 ¶53
… Accordingly, when he had seen him and paid his compliments, and had spoken with great respect of him, he said he was very sorry that he could not hear him lecture. “But indeed you may,” replied the other, “nor will I suffer any bodily pain to occasion so great a man to visit me in vain.” On this Pompey relates that, as he lay on his bed, he disputed with great dignity and fluency on this very subject: that nothing was good but what was honest; and that in his paroxysms he would often say, “Pain, it is to no purpose; notwithstanding you are troublesome, I will never acknowledge you an evil.” And in general all celebrated and notorious afflictions become endurable by disregarding them.
What this means here
AI interpretationMarcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.26
Marcus is not pretending pain away here. He accepts that what happens in the body reaches the mind, because body and mind are one whole, and he is plain that fighting the sensation itself is pointless. What he resists is the extra layer: the verdict on top of the pain that this is a disaster, that your life is ruined, that you are failing. Many people who live with long-term pain find that the struggle against it, and the story about it, wear them down as much as the sensation does.
Translation note: In this translation, the ruling part means your reasoning mind, affects means feelings and sensations, and to circumscribe is to draw a boundary around something.
Epictetus, Enchiridion 9
Epictetus draws a line between what an illness can stop and what it cannot. Pain can stop you lifting, walking far or keeping plans; it cannot by itself stop you being honest, kind, patient or curious, or decide how you treat the people around you. That is where the person you used to be still lives. You have lost real things, and they are worth grieving, but the core of who you are was never your back.
Translation note: In this translation, the will means your power of choice: your judgements, intentions and character. An impediment is an obstacle.
Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 2 ¶53
Here Cicero, discussing the Stoics, recounts a story about the Stoic philosopher Posidonius, who suffered from severe gout. When Pompey came to visit, hoping to hear him lecture, Posidonius taught from his bed rather than send him away, and in the worst attacks he would address the pain directly: troublesome, yes, but not the thing that decides whether his life is good. Notice that he does not deny the pain. He refuses it the final word, and he keeps doing what he cared about in an adapted form. That is a model you can borrow: not the full version of your old life, but the parts that matter, done from wherever you are today.
Translation note: Paroxysms are sudden attacks of pain. An evil, in Stoic language, is something that harms you as a person, as opposed to something merely painful; honest here means honourable or morally good.
Nothing here asks you to pretend the pain is not there. Marcus separates the sensation from the verdict on it; Epictetus separates what illness can stop from what it cannot; and Posidonius shows both ideas lived out on a bad day, with a visitor at the bedside. The work is not to win against the pain, but to stop it from deciding everything else.
One action for today
AI interpretationSort what's yours from what isn't · the dichotomy of control
Make two short lists today: what the pain stops you doing, and what it does not stop you doing, however small, such as listening well, making someone laugh, reading or choosing your words. Then message one friend who has stopped asking, explain honestly how things are, and suggest something that works on a bad day as well as a good one, like a short visit at yours or a phone call. If your pain is not being properly managed, ask your GP for a review or a referral to a pain clinic.
A line to carry
“Disease is an impediment to the body, but not to the will, unless the will itself chooses.”
— Epictetus, Enchiridion 9