There’s a phrase in Australia (and presumably everywhere that English is spoken) which is a play on words; hungry + angry = hangry. It defines the feeling of being grumpy and irritable because it has been a long time since you’ve eaten.
I for one, am guilty of experiencing mood swings when my blood-sugar drops (although I generally tend towards being sad and lethargic more often than sparky). As well as being a mood-modifier, hunger is also a definite migraine trigger for me, so I don’t go anywhere without a muesli bar in my handbag or a bag of jellybeans in my car.
[And at the risk of being ignored for all eternity if this blogpost is discovered by my children, let me whisper to you that my two teenage daughters are absolutely prone to being hangry from time to time… so… ice-cream anyone? A banana perhaps? Milo? No? … OK then… let’s all just back out of the room… slowly… and be sure to avoid making eye contact… slowly, slowly, quick!]
There’s also a less known phrase that I see a lot in chronic pain places;
pain + angry = paingry.
Painger often co-exists with chronic pain.
Because pain sux.
And chronic pain sux even worse… because waking up to feeling sore every morning, living through a whole day of pain, and then flopping into bed with it STILL there makes you want cry… or scream… weep… or vent…
And, from what I can tell from online mentions of the term, it’s not just the physical pain we feel in our bodies that makes us paingry, it’s having to explain pain-life to others who couldn’t care less. It occurs when other people don’t seem to understand what we’re going through or refuse to acknowledge (let alone validate) our feelings.
Painger can be directed inwards, outwards, towards the past, the present, the future, the condition we have, the situation we’re in…
Our painger can be directed at pretty much anything or anyone; ourselves, our family and friends, strangers, the lady taking too long to take our meal order, the kid who cut in front of us one the sidewalk, the dog that’s barking next door, the pillow we’re lying on, the light that’s creeping under our eye mask, the medicine we’re taking that’s not working fast enough to dull the pain…
Symptoms of painger include everything from fatigue, frustration, helplessness, depression, rage…
There’s a whole backpack of negative feelings and underlying emotions that might be feeding the painger; shame, guilt, confusion, anxiety, embarrassment, jealousy, grief, loneliness, rejection, stress…
It can strike at specific times (such as when our pain medication tapers off) or randomly seep into a whole day from dawn to dusk like a simmering, seething hot mess inside us…
Yikes.
I realize writing all this down probably makes me sound like a villain or a whingey-whiny ‘Karen’.
Which is so unfair.
Walk a mile in my shoes before you roll your eyes at me flipping out at the long lines of understaffed checkout counters… I seriously just want to get home to bed… you have no idea how f’ing hard it is for me to be standing upright in the here and now… so simmer down and don’t even think of cutting in front of me… because this ‘Karen’ might be projectile vomiting in 10… 9… 8… 7…!
I went looking for imagery on Pinterest that might assist articulate this particular state of being. I typed in “paingry” and didn’t get much other than pictures of coffee mugs with definitions printed on the side. When I searched for “pain and anger” or “angry pain”, however, I got a LOT more images that tapped into the feelings that might be going on when you’re angry at your life lived with pain.
Here’s a montage of the 5 that spoke the loudest to me and my migraine pain:
[Image sources: Pin on Thereโs A Hole / Pin on My Cutouts / Mandy Tsung – THE FLYING FRUIT BOWL / Reblog by @ronyogason / Pin on lovelive]
Agony and anger mixed with frustration, fear, and fed-up-ness…
It’s not a good look is it?
It’s not a nice way to live, that’s for sure.
What was interesting, is that as I was picking out the images that resonated most with me, I ALSO realized, I’m lucky enough not to feel that way very often anymore… thanks to mindfulness.
I still get migraines from time to time, but not the 15 days a month, every month, that is required to qualify for the diagnosis of “chronic migraine”.
I USED to – I lived with chronic migraine for most of 2022, all of 2023, and half of 2024, fluctuating between FOMO and painger.
But not now.
Now, when the pain starts to rise, I notice if frustration is rising too, and catch it before it can spill over and affect my general mood. I employ mindfulness techniques to calm myself down and avoid falling into the pain-fear loop I have written about before (here).
The techniques I use come from a wide array of things that I have tried over the last 2+ years and have slowly refined into a tool-kit that works best for me. Here’s a list of my top 10 with links to the associated blog posts – listed alphabetically:
- Better breathing
- Chair Yoga
- Distraction
- EFT tapping
- Glimmers
- Humming
- Massaging my face
- Power poses
- Tai Chi
- Walking
The trick is to try as many things as possible and then find the one that works for you. If you’re not sure where to start, click on the links above and have a go at any of the recommended videos there… or download my mini-mindfulness course that is filled with links to YouTube videos prepared by others.
Remember that if you feel paingry – you’re not broken or difficult – you’re just hurting.
Rational throughs have been replaced by reactionary feelings, logic superseded by intuition and impulse… your ancient lizard brain is winning. And as I say in that post about the most ancient part of our brains, it’s only focus is survival; food, f##king, fight or flight. The first two are useful when our ancestors had a little time on their hands, but when things were tough, every fiber of their being was focused on either putting up a fight to save their life or running away as fast as they could.
Anger and fear.
So it’s no wonder that when we’re feeling sick our brains resort to primal feelings.
The trick is to try to elevate your system, pull it out of the ancient mud and move it to a way of living that is more sustainable AND nicer to your nervous system.
If painger is a problem for you and you only have time to do one thing today – then my recommendation is to read up about your VAGUS NERVE and learn how ‘resetting’ it can help you move from a relentless state of fight-and-flight back towards a healthier rest-and-digest way of living.
Before I go – I want to leave you with some positive imagery. The pain might still be present, but if you’re able to separate it from fear and frustration, accept it (for now) and still feel an element of peace, then you might be able to feel… what?
Painappy?
Smilancholy?
Tendermour?
[The first suggestion is obviously pain+happy, the second tries to combine smiling even if you’re still a little melancholy, and the last one is a bit of a stretch… a mix of tenderness and mourning… you’re still sad you’re unwell and miss your old life, but in a gentler, more accepting way.]
Here’s how I imagine those feelings might look if you’re a recovering migraine-person like me:
[Image sources: Pin on mariane 27 ans / Mushroom or jellyfish / Pin on Acrylmalerei โ Ideen / Pin on Wallpaper / Pin on Soul]
Good luck everyone – onwards and upwards team – keep moving into the warm light!
Take care taking care, with as little painger as possible, Linda x
The Mindful Migraine 
Leave a comment