Joanne Smith found that most chronic pain patients share personality traits like high conscientiousness and self-sacrifice. These valued qualities aren't harmful in themselves, but they may be linked to developing or maintaining chronic pain symptoms.
But what you will find is that many, many people will recognize many of those personality traits, especially those that have had a long-standing history of chronic symptoms, for sure. I've not met one person who doesn't tick many of the personality styles, if not the majority of them. It's really rare that somebody doesn't have them. And that they do develop chronic symptoms. So this is why it's so important that we do raise awareness and do talk about this and share this and recognize it for ourselves. Because if you do recognize yourself in this and think, oh my gosh, you're definitely not alone there. And it's a very common pattern in, like I said, the majority of people. So they're not They're not even bad personality traits. These traits are what people love. You know, no one's going to turn around and say, Jo, stop being more conscientious. Jo, stop putting other people ahead of yourself. It's very rarely that someone will ask you to stop doing these things because other people love it. You know, they benefit from that massively.
