CRPS is one of the most severe chronic pain conditions known. However, it is probably one that comes with the least understanding, and is rarely discussed in general society. For my final project at Liverpool John Moores university, creating this radio documentary allowed me to explore how people affected by the condition cope day-to-day, as well as share my first hand account of how it impacted me in my teenage years.

My personal story is a narrative I rarely share in my adult life. But engaging with individuals affected by the condition served as a profoundly personal reminder of the resilience required to endure this type of pain, and also connected me to the broader human challenge of articulating experiences of suffering, something that feels more relevant than ever. This piece allowed me to touch on how language often fails to bridge the disconnection between those who live relatively unaffected lives and those who must navigate the complex, often invisible realities of chronic pain on a daily basis, and highlighted just how easy it is to take many things in life for granted.

I feel fortunate that thanks to the dedicated team at Sheffield Children’s Hospital, I was able to access regular physiotherapy and, with time and persistence, make a full physical recovery. The process was built from small, incremental steps that often felt insignificant at the time but, in retrospect, marked a lot of progress.

But the physical and psychological impact can often linger for much longer for many sufferers, and intense pain like this has a way of reshaping how you move through the world even after it subsides, as the memory of it stays well and truly lodged in the brain and body. What struck me most, speaking to others who have lived with similar conditions, is how often the mental struggle often goes unseen. We tend to talk about pain in terms of cure and resolution, yet for many people, living with or after pain means constantly negotiating its presence and trying to find language, meaning and connection in something that resists easy explanation.