Have you come to terms with your illness?  Have you accepted your chronic pain?

Psychologist Richard Lucas at Michigan State University studied whether people rebound from negative life events.  Previously it was thought that if you experience a negative life event - for example, divorce or unemployment - your level of happiness would come back to your baseline, after a period of adjustment.  It was felt that your level of happiness actually stays fairly constant throughout your life, regardless of events.

An interesting aside is that your level of happiness will also be the same after you adjust to happy events.  After you adjust to marriage or your hoped-for new job, your level of happiness won’t stay at that peak of well-being.  You too will return to your usual level.  Investigators have shown this to be true even of multi-million-dollar lottery winners.

So back to Lucas’ study, which found 2 interesting things:

1. All events are not equal - and there is more variety in responses than previously thought.  People can adjust to minor events quickly.  But very serious, negative events - for example, the loss of a spouse - can take many more years than previously recognized.  Losing your life partner can take up to 7 years to rebound from.
2. Permanent decreases in happiness were reported by some people, including those who became physically disabled or severely ill.

So I have 2 questions for my readers:

1. Have you adjusted to your pain/illness or has it permanently colored your view of the world?
2. If you have adjusted, what helped you to do that?

I personally believe that adjusting to chronic pain, accepting our new state, is the hardest challenge we face.  I’ll be interested in reading your thoughts.

(Dr. Lucas’ study is in press in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science.)

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