I will say, as someone who lived through chronic pain for years, saying I have pain, rather than saying I’m in pain feels quite distinct and… Less hopeless? You’re not incorrect, you’re just not recognizing the impact and power words can have. There are whole therapies that specialize in reshaping our narratives, despite “I am sad” and “I feel sad” essentially meaning the same thing grammatically.
If it helps you to view language this way, then I think that’s great. But you should also recognize that yours is not a universal understanding of what’s connoted by this grammatical structure.
I really sympathize with chronic pain, as I also suffer chronic pain. But for me, I don’t think changing the words I use would really help me.
And that’s completely ok if it doesn’t help you, I don’t mean to invalidate your own experience. I was using a personal anecdote to show how language can influence thought, though there are better examples- like the Australian Aboriginal tribal languages that lack words for “left” and “right” and refer to everything relative to cardinal directions. As a result, they have impeccable senses of direction.
Or another example, linguistic relativity in colours (ie. Languages without a word for a colour like pink might have trouble distinguishing pink from red).
And if reframing words wasn’t helpful for some people, there wouldn’t be Narrative Therapy centres still running.
I will say, as someone who lived through chronic pain for years, saying I have pain, rather than saying I’m in pain feels quite distinct and… Less hopeless? You’re not incorrect, you’re just not recognizing the impact and power words can have. There are whole therapies that specialize in reshaping our narratives, despite “I am sad” and “I feel sad” essentially meaning the same thing grammatically.
If it helps you to view language this way, then I think that’s great. But you should also recognize that yours is not a universal understanding of what’s connoted by this grammatical structure.
I really sympathize with chronic pain, as I also suffer chronic pain. But for me, I don’t think changing the words I use would really help me.
And that’s completely ok if it doesn’t help you, I don’t mean to invalidate your own experience. I was using a personal anecdote to show how language can influence thought, though there are better examples- like the Australian Aboriginal tribal languages that lack words for “left” and “right” and refer to everything relative to cardinal directions. As a result, they have impeccable senses of direction.
Or another example, linguistic relativity in colours (ie. Languages without a word for a colour like pink might have trouble distinguishing pink from red).
And if reframing words wasn’t helpful for some people, there wouldn’t be Narrative Therapy centres still running.
“In pain”, to me implies that it’s happening right now, where as “having pain” is a long term thing.
Fair! To me it meant something that I was carrying with me, and made it feel more transient.
I learned to work with language when I was experiencing chronic pain, too - it helped my mental framework a lot
Ah interesting.