Last midnight, I took my granny to the emergency room. By this morning, she was admitted.
Staying up all night is something most people can relate to. We’ve all done it for exams, work, deadlines, or life pressure. I used to think exhaustion was the hardest part of those nights…
But this night was different.
My granny wasn’t awake because of responsibility or stress. She was awake because of pain, severe, rolling abdominal pain, layered with sharp facial spasms from a neurological condition, and the quieter but constant ache of joint degeneration. I sat beside her, and for the first time, I felt something very clearly…
Health problem is universal.
But pain is deeply personal.
No one can step into another person’s body and carry it for them. We can stay. We can hold a hand. We can wait together. But pain still belongs to the one who feels it.
That realization stayed with me because most of my life, I have lived in pain too. sometimes emotional, sometimes physical. None of it was immediately life-threatening. From the outside, it probably looked manageable. Ordinary. Something people could “relate to.”
But pain doesn’t measure itself by how dramatic it looks. It is experienced from the inside, in a language only the body understands. What is survivable can still be exhausting. What is invisible can still reshape how you think, how you react, how you live.
Now, living a healthier lifestyle, I can finally enjoy things I couldn’t before. My body feels lighter. My mind is clearer. And because of that, I’ve come to understand something else:
It is incredibly hard to stay positive, to think differently, to “just be strong,” when you are in pain.
When I was in it, I couldn’t always see beyond it. Now that I’m on the other side of that chapter, I can reassure myself during difficult moments. I know that down times pass. I know my body can heal. I know my mind can soften again.
But if you are still in the dark phase,
If your pain is physical, emotional, or something you don’t even have words for yet,
I want you to know this:
I understand that you are being strong for yourself.
I know you are in pain.
And if you ever need to share it, I am here to listen.
Because pain may be universal.
But it is always, always personal.
