Why Keep Your Pain When You Can Write It Away

My wife keeps my ailment diary.

She tracks everything that pained me on any given day. I used to tell her about my tiny struggles as they happened, and she simply couldn't process or retain them all, which, obviously, also pained me. Every day we had to start from scratch. So she came up with the brilliant idea of writing it all down. It's a diligent and dignified system. I feel acknowledged, and whether she truly cares or is only pretending, not one drop of my pain gets lost in the fray.

I'm not old, but things pain me a lot. It's just the nature of things: a combination of subpar genes, over-sensitivity, low resilience, good old-fashioned hypochondria, and the well-documented male capacity to suffer.

One day it's the fingertip paper cuts, courtesy of psoriasis. They're relentless, because almost everything I do involves fingertips, so there's no forgetting them. The only way I get on with my day is to seal them with liquid bandage. Then there are the toes. You may not realize this, but your entire weight rests on them whether you're standing or lying down.

Let's not forget the bloating. That one, apparently, is up to me. If I don't eat x, y, z, or more precisely f, o, d, m, a, p and s, I'll be perfectly fine, just like everybody else. I tried it once. It was awful.

Daily pain gets so mundane it could drive you insane. It slips by, unnoticed and alone, seemingly insignificant, yet so obviously there.

There are two ways of dealing with this.

Method one: the scientific way. This is what I did, and I'd recommend it, even if it cost me dearly.

I'd been told I had IBS, the diagnosis you get when your gut clearly hurts and nobody can yet say why. So I went looking for a better answer. I signed a waiver acknowledging that a maximum number of tubes and wires would be inserted into a select choice of orifices, none of my choosing, and that I might walk out with a permanent diagnosis rather than a fleeting one. Celiac disease, for example.

I made that choice. I trusted the process, and the process delivered. Now I live with the consequences. I no longer have to navigate the FODMAP madness. I just need to avoid gluten. Well, not avoid it, more like run from it as if from hell itself, because even a trace of cross-contamination can set my immune system off on a full rampage against my own body, whether I feel it or not. I almost wish I didn't know that. But now that I do, it's easy-peasy. Skip the fresh bread with the crackly crust. Skip the sun-dried tomato and pesto pasta. Skip the beer… wait, what?

Method two: lie low. Sign no waivers, embrace it, and simply write it all away. Like in the children's movies: write it down, close the covers, blow on it, twirl three times (but only if you haven't recently twisted your knee, which is easily avoided if you follow my motto: skip the fame, don't breathe or ski, and cherish the mundane).

As you can see, I take this method very seriously. You don't have to treat your pain superficially, in bullet points. You can go all out. Bind it in a book, or frame it and immortalize it with a nail and a hook.

The neat thing about a pain diary is that you'll never run out of material. I've been particularly blessed with never-ending content, because autoimmune conditions like to travel in packs. Normally that would be a pain, but when you're on a mission to write it all away, you want to make sure nothing goes to waste. No pain unnoticed, unacknowledged or tossed aside. Your pain matters.

For best results, dictate it to someone else. Several things are at play here. You don't have to do the writing, which one of your many ailments may prevent anyway. And it quietly transfers some of the pain onto your spouse, parent, sibling or friend. I've never tried it with random bystanders, so I have no research to back this up, but I imagine it wouldn't carry the same weight.

The best part is that the results are instant. You feel relieved and unburdened. You no longer carry the pain alone. It's out there somewhere, living its own life, while you get on with yours.

If you're worried about giving something away, something you've grown fond of because it's always been there, let me reassure you: your ailments are not like gasoline. You will never run out. They're more like the sun, temporarily hidden behind clouds and rain, but all still there, waiting for the right day. New ones, old ones, ones you wrote away so many times you thought you were done with them for good. They'll be back, like family at Thanksgiving, whether you invited them or not.

Once you've written it all down, keep the diary under something heavy. An encyclopedia, if you can find one on the curb. Failing that, a jar of pickles will do. If you decide to eat the pickles for the sake of your gut flora, keep a jar of kimchi or kefir handy, just in case. I'm told there's a whole diplomatic situation going on between Triborulacolis fantasmus and Acidofallus grumpicus, so I stay forever wary.

It may not work for you, and it is work. But would you rather let your ailments eat away at you in silence, or would you rather acknowledge them, and their hard work too? They don't want to kill you, or they'd be gone as well. They just want your attention, like everything else does. Why do you think the leaves rustle when you walk by?

So let them live. Or carve them into a stone and throw it in a river. The farther you throw it, the better you'll feel. Unless you sprain your wrist doing it, so always weigh your options carefully.

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The little things that actually help

Since you've made it this far, here are a few small things that genuinely make my days easier:

• Liquid bandage for split fingertips
• Toaster bags if you share a toaster
• Keep your own labelled butter and jam jars
• Cotton gloves over a thick ointment at bedtime

This is a personal story, told with a sense of humour. It isn't medical advice. If something's bothering you, talk to your doctor, and yes, sign the waiver.