BLOG 1: MY STORY WITH CHRONIC PAIN & FINDING A WAY FORWARD

Blog
Written by Rachel Kirkbride

Why I’m here

This wasn’t where I thought I’d be right now

If you’d told me a fifteen years ago that I would one day be writing publicly to help raise awareness of chronic pain and the extraordinary advances in modern pain science, that are changing how we understand and approach it, I would probably have been completely baffled!

I certainly never imagined that I would be teaching reformer Pilates, writing a blog series, developing a podcast or sharing my journey on social media! I expect would have asked:

Okay, why - and what’s a bloody podcast - or a reformer, for that matter?!

Partly because I assumed I would still be practising as a Family Solicitor: the career I spent more than six years training for and almost a decade building - funding myself to the max through undergraduate and postgraduate loans, countless part-time jobs and badly paid paralegal work.

And partly because I never pictured myself doing anything quite so personal…or so public.

My social-media résumé? Five Instagram posts, no reels and a relatively inactive Facebook account, that’s more a twice yearly family photo archive and Marketplace sales. My teenage twin daughters also think I’m ancient because (a) I still have Facebook, and (b) I continue to message on my phone with only one hand!

But that’s the point really - I’m not here because I’ve perfected anything I’m about to do. I’m here because the message seems too important to wait until things are ‘just right’.

This first series is about my lived experience with chronic pain and the new neuroscience of pain that has been fundamental to my recovery. Because it’s the story that changed the direction of my life. And, in many ways, it has taught me more than anything else.

I also believe parts of my story will sound painfully familiar to more people than we realise.

 

Chronic Pain: Why Greater Awareness Matters

It’s such a shame, but paradoxically, most of us don’t fully understand a condition until we, or someone we love, experience it first-hand.

By then, we’re already playing catch-up.

And chances are, at some point, you or someone close to you will experience a form of chronic pain, because it’s so incredibly common. Research suggests it affects around 1 in 5 adults globally, and is one of the leading contributors to the global burden of disease and disability.¹

And here in the UK, the numbers are even more striking. According to figures reported by the British Pain Society in 2024, chronic pain affects around 43% of adults - just under 28 million people.²

But despite its prevalence - and the he wider impact on individuals, families, healthcare systems and society - chronic pain remains widely widely misunderstood.³

Over the past few decades, pioneers, clinicians, researchers and advocates including Dr John Sarno, Dr Howard Schubiner, Nicole Sachs, and many others have challenged conventional assumptions about persistent pain and explored the relationship between the brain, body, nervous system, emotions and lived experience.

More recently, advances in neuroscience and pain research have moved that conversation considerably further.

Our understanding of chronic pain has evolved. And yet much of that understanding still hasn’t reached ordinary people.

Or not nearly enough, given what the advances in neuroscience has discovered.

That, ultimately, is why I’m writing this series. The more I’ve learnt, the more I’ve wondered why so many people living with chronic pain still know so little about this science. In her book Mind Your Body, psychotherapist Nicole Sachs describes finding herself, at times, almost despairing that she can’t simply “wave a magic wand and transplant this knowledge into the brain of every person” she knows! ⁴

I completely understand why.

Because once something has fundamentally changed the way you understand and recover from your own symptoms, it becomes very difficult not to wonder how many other people might benefit from learning about it too. What started as a need to help myself has slowly become a desire to help other people find this knowledge, hope and perhaps a way forward sooner than I did.

That’s really where Changing the Narrative began.

 

Changing the Narrative: What This Series Will Explore

This isn’t going to be the polished Instagram version of chronic pain, recovery or life. I’m not going to pretend I have all the answers or that recovery is linear.

I want to share the honest, frank and unfiltered version - what happened to me, what I was told, what I believed, what I’ve since learnt and what I’m doing differently now.

Through my own lived experience and my ongoing journey, we’ll explore what modern pain science has taught me about chronic pain and the brain; the pioneers, clinicians and researchers behind that work; why some of us may become more vulnerable to persistent symptoms; and the practical mind and body approaches that are becoming part of my own recovery.

Later in the series, I will look beyond individual recovery to the bigger conversations: the barriers to change, how this modern understanding and approach to chronic pain - and other persistent symptoms - might be given the greater recognition it deserves within healthcare, education and public awareness, and how better integration could help support both patients and clinicians moving forward.

Books, research, podcasts and conversations with experts have transformed my own understanding. But I also know how daunting it can feel to find, absorb and make sense of all that information, particularly when you are already exhausted, frightened or simply trying to get through the day.

I hope that by sharing the science, the recovery approaches and the wider conversations through my own story, I can make them a little easier to understand and relate to.

If afterwards you want to dive more deeply into the books and research, that’s amazing. But if not, I hope this series can still give you a clearer understanding, a little comfort and perhaps somewhere to begin.

If this work helps even a few people recognise themselves sooner, find hope earlier or simply feel less alone, then it will all have been worthwhile.

I genuinely believe awareness and conversation can be comforting. Understanding something that has previously felt overwhelming or inexplicable, can begin to change our relationship with it.

And perhaps one of the most useful things we can do - even if still a little unsure - is simply to become a little more curious.

Curious about what pain is.

Curious about what has changed in modern pain science.

Curious about what our symptoms may be telling us.

And curious about whether there may be more than one way forward.

Because curiosity is often where wider change begins.

That’s why, as this series develops, I also want to keep asking one question:

What could we do better?

For ourselves, for one another and eventually within the systems designed to care for us.

So, if you’ve ever felt confused by your symptoms, dismissed, overwhelmed by pain that doesn’t seem to make sense, or simply exhausted by trying to hold everything together…

I hope you’ll join me on this journey.

Let’s start talking.

 

Next Time…

BLOG 2: THE BEGINNING - WHEN PAIN ENTERED MY LIFE

I’ll take you back to where this story really begins. The months after my son was born, when pain crept in quietly, spread everywhere, and changed my relationship with my body, my identity, and my life, in ways I couldn’t yet understand.

 

Gentle Reminder : I am not a medical expert. Everything I share here and on Instagram is based on my own lived experience and the approaches that have helped me personally, drawing on research and literature from those who are experts. This content is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always speak to your doctor or another appropriately qualified healthcare professional if you are concerned about symptoms or a medical condition, and before beginning a new exercise programme where appropriate.

References and further reading

The references and further reading below, inform this ongoing series.

Join the wider conversation

This post is part of an ongoing Changing the Narrative Blog series.

If you’d like to see the accompanying chronic pain awareness and recovery Instagram reels, or related content across Pilates and Movement, Mind and Body Wellbeing, Calming Interiors or Feel-Good Fashion - or if you’d like to leave a comment:

You can find it over on Instagram @rachel_kirkbride

 

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