http://www.pelvicpain.org/html/resources_responding.html
To Those Who Live with Chronic Pain Patients
As a person who lives with someone who experiences chronic pain, you are probably aware of the emotions that your loved one experiences - frustration, anxiety, depression, anger, and hopelessness are among the most common. You may have thought less about the fact that you may go through many of the same - and some different - emotions. Furthermore, you as the caregiver and your loved one as the patient probably both hope for relief from the situation chronic pain has brought to your home. You may struggle with your own needs and desires, and you may (or may not) feel guilty about needing to express those when your loved one is in pain. You may not understand how someone can be in pain when the doctors cannot find the cause of that pain.
Whatever your own emotions, please be assured that your loved one is in pain, whatever the cause. Researchers know that pain is a multidimensional experience. This means that it impacts across many areas of a life - physical, mental, emotional, social, and economic. Most experienced practitioners today try to deal with the first three on a primary basis, with the social and economic areas benefiting from the improvement of the physical, mental, and emotional.
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