Life Inside Pain #4: When Discipline Becomes Damage

After my first surgery, all I wanted was to go out for coffee with my husband Chris.

It had been months since I’d left the house for anything that wasn’t a doctor’s appointment. The pain kept me lying down, a cocktail of opioids lined up on my side table, my world narrowed to what my body could tolerate. But I needed to be out in the world. I needed to sit across from my husband to feel normal again, even if only for a moment.

We chose Zazie, our favorite San Francisco bistro. The bustle, the conversation, the smell of fresh coffee and gingerbread pancakes was intoxicating. It felt like stepping back into my old life.

I was always careful. Chris tracked my sitting time on his phone, aware of my limits. But that morning, I let it stretch.

Just let me relax with my latte—two or three more sips.

I told myself what I had always believed: this is how you got stronger. You do a bit more. You push further. You don’t give in.

But by the time Chris paid the bill, I knew.

Something had shifted. My pain had crossed a line. It was sharp, consuming, impossible to ignore. Walking to the car felt like moving through something dense and unyielding. By the time we got home, I was crawling back into bed, whimpering like a wounded animal.

The rest of the day disappeared. The next day and the day after did too.

And still, I told myself what I had always believed: push through.

It wasn’t a decision so much as a reflex. When something was difficult, you worked harder. When something stood in your way, you found a way around it. Endurance wasn’t just a skill, it was how I understood success, control, even identity.

So, when my body failed me, I did what I had always done. I kept pushing. Even when something inside me said, this isn’t right.

From the outside, it looked like discipline. From the inside, I was overriding my body.

There is a particular kind of harm that comes from not being believed. I lived that reality when doctors on three continents told me I was “fine.” But there is another kind that comes from not believing yourself. From overriding signals because they’re inconvenient. From treating pain as something to defeat instead of something to understand.

I didn’t yet see it that way. I still believed pain was the enemy, and that effort was the answer. So, I kept pushing.

As months turned to years, pushing didn’t make me stronger, it made me worse.

The harder I pushed, the more my body resisted. The more I tried to override it, the more it shut down. This was not a problem effort could solve.

For most of my life, resilience meant endurance—pushing through at all costs. But what I began to learn, slowly and painfully, is that not all pain is meant to be overcome. Some of it is meant to be understood.

Pain is information. The harm comes when we override it.

I didn’t get worse because I was weak. I got worse because I kept ignoring the signals meant to protect me.

If this feels familiar, you’re not alone.

Where in your life might you be overriding what your body is trying to tell you?

—Nancy