I went to the hospital today for an appointment I’ve been waiting about six months for, and I had to answer the most dreaded question I face when I see a doctor: “can you describe the pain?”

Ummm yeah… this has always been a weird question for me, because I know it’s not helpful to say it hurts or that it makes me feel angry, annoyed, sad, alone, and useless—or that it makes me pace around, unable to sit still or concentrate on anything other than how much I hurt.

They’re looking for specifics—aching, throbbing, burning, sharp, shooting—with bonus points if I can point to exactly where it is and when it happens.

I try, but I tend to compare instead of describe—it feels like I scraped it, like I’m being stabbed, like a paper cut but worse, like I was hit by a Mack truck—and honestly, that probably says more about how my brain works than the pain itself.

This has always been a problem for me, and now I understand why—there’s nothing wrong with me, I just experience and communicate things differently.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone.
When I started reading more about this, I learned that a lot of autistic people experience pain communication differently:

• Locating the pain: Difficulty pinpointing exactly where it’s coming from
• Describing it: Struggling to use words like “stabbing” or “throbbing,” and instead just knowing it hurts
• Time awareness: Not always being able to tell how long it’s been happening

Do you struggle with describing pain too?