There is Tired and Then There is TIRED

I'm tired. Ah, yes. We all say it, and by "all" I mean all people, not just those of us living with chronic pain. The phrase is common and the sentiment is universal. Everyone gets tired, every day.

But there is tired and then there is TIRED. Any healthy person who has ever had a flu knows that the usual sentiment of tired takes on a whole new meaning when the body is being assaulted. It's exhausting.

Yesterday, as I heard myself say to hubby -"I'm tired"- I realized how inadequate those words are. I'm pretty good at using the word exhausted when I'm blogging but in everyday conversations I tend to use the word tired. But when I say tired, I mean TIRED, the sick-with-the-flu kind. I mean that:
-every movement requires motivation and effort
-every activity, no matter how short, drains you as if you had just run a marathon
-even thinking is draining
-the entire body is involved - every joint, every muscle

When you think about it, living with chronic pain is just another type of assault on the body, not that different from having the flu. Only worse because it doesn't resolve like the flu does, it just becomes another complicating factor in everyday life. The worse the pain is and the longer it remains at a high level, the more intense the exhaustion is. It's only during those rare moments when all pains are low, that I climb out of the exhaustion and move into tired.

I need to stop minimizing what I'm experiencing by using the word tired when I mean exhausted.