When Talking Hurts

Looking at me, you would never know. Sometimes, I still see my reflection in the mirror and forget that the person looking back may look like my old self  ̶  except she’s not. This “new” me constantly yanks me back with painful reminders and crushing fatigue whenever I try to work or live like the old me. Still, I have that incessant drive to advance my chosen career fields of Training and Organizational Development and Human Resources. Except that drive no longer has an outlet.

Old me had a successful nearly 20-year run in major companies and consulting, holding multiple career certifications and a graduate degree from a top flight program. She was highly employable and earning a comfortable living.

Fast-forward 10 years to “new” me. This me strives to maintain an even keel at all times. If I don’t, I know I will pay my price in the currency of pain. Talk to relatives at a holiday gathering, and pay in pain, nausea, dizziness, and hissing in my ears like the seven-year locust season. Have a deadline or an argument? Instant shot of all-over pain that lasts even when the stress subsides. The one pain trigger I can’t choose or predict: Barometric pressure.

I was in good health until New Years’ Eve day, 2004. That afternoon, a few blocks from home, a silver flash of car changed my life. A distracted driver ran a red light. Our lives intersected at my driver’s door, from which the paramedics extracted me with the Jaws of Life. My own jaw, would become my primary disabling source of pain, with my back and head vying for second place.

Several surgeries, innumerable pain injections, painful radio frequency, braces and prescriptions serve as constant reminders of multiple chronic pain conditions. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Occipital Neuralgia, Fibromyalgia, Tinnitus and sleep disruptions are all new conditions along for the ride. My brain suffers most, with bouts of vacant stares into space as empty as what seems to be left between my ears!

Not one to easily give up, it took me rounds of stubborn attempts to continue trying to live and work as if nothing had changed  ̶  only to realize everything had. Pretending only cost more pain and time. Every pain control treatment became a “reset” button. I had a lot to learn about managing chronic pain!

I now know my limits and accept that my old careers lead me directly into the path of pain. Wanting desperately to be useful, I’ve spent years learning the hard way about working when talking hurts. Here are the top 10 things I’ve found:

1. The greater the talking required, the greater the pain, locations in pain and exhaustion. Simple. Same for stress, another given in my past work life.

2. You can’t promise consistent levels of performance when factors out of your control impact your pain. Thinking takes twice as long as it would for the “old me” – and likely for any other “normal” person. That costs you and your employer money and time. In my experience, colleagues need to pick up slack and help me focus or remember what I’m doing or saying.

3. Forget about consulting work requiring you to “do whatever it takes,” (e.g. work at night, through weekends, etc.), to meet a client deadline. You might be willing, but you can’t promise you’ll be able. Clients expect consultants to deliver on last second requests. You can’t control when the client will expect you to jump through hoops at the last second or how you’ll feel that day. Even if you were doing well, simply the stress of the rushed request is enough to ramp up pain.

4. Working on site, even in a job that doesn’t require much talking, stillinvolves talking. You have coworkers, customers and others around you. Even the smallest amount of talking required to forge and maintain good working relationships will add up quickly. It isn’t realistic to think you can plan to cut talking out of your work life. This narrows your options to working at home or elsewhere alone.

5. If you have a naturally extroverted personality, you enjoy interacting with others. In fact, this interaction fuels your energy. When talking hurts, the only type of work you can do will be much more solitary. That will drain your energy and feel stressful because it goes against your very nature. This stress, then, will cause you more pain.

6. Today’s interviewing processes often require multiple steps and interviews. That means lots of talking and stress. Even pursuing one job will take its toll.

7. Too little stress causes pain when you are “wired” to contribute and can’t do meaningful work.

8. Most volunteer work is like paid work. Finding activities that don’t require talking or much driving is difficult. Other volunteers often do so to socialize, and want to engage you in conversation.

9. The intellectual equivalents of piecework – like resume writing or online survey taking – pay what amounts to pennies after taxes. To be fair, that is greatly due to my mental lapses while thinking. Any “normal” person might be able to eke out a living – but not “new” me.

10. Finding the evasive non-talking job seems to lead in circles; every source leads back to the same types of jobs: customer service, phone sales, transcription, coding, etc. Those with jaw pain won’t be able to tolerate headsets required in all of these roles, even those with less talking. Tinnitus, a frequent companion of jaw pain results in frequent hissing and ringing in the ears, which interferes with the keen hearing required.

Why should someone give up their hopes and dreams? What is a person to do when talking hurts? I still don’t know. What is wrong with this picture that we can’t find ways to accommodate talented individuals with talking pain disabilities? We can and we should. It is time to get us back to being productive members of society.

Thanks to the TMJ Association, I realize that I am not alone. I recently wrote a patient experience piece for their blog that raises similar questions about refocusing one’s career after being stricken with atemporomandibular disorder (TMD). The TMJA needs your help to continue its crucial support of groundbreaking research into the reasons for comorbidity of TMDs and other chronic pain conditions and advance their treatments. Please visit TMJA at tmj.org.