“This Is My Future?”: Understanding the Lives of Emerging Adult Women Living with Chronic Pain Through a Narrative Inquiry

Chronic pain disproportionately affects women yet is often underestimated by medical professionals. In Canada, chronic pain rates have risen significantly, particularly among those aged 20 to 29 without other health conditions. However, limited qualitative research focuses on chronic pain exclusively in women under 30. By focusing on gender, this narrative inquiry study examined how societal narratives and stereotypes uniquely affect emerging adult women's experiences of chronic pain, contributing to their dismissal and invisibility in both personal and institutional contexts. Two key narrative threads were co-created with participants through analysis of their stories: silenced, invisible, and locating self with pain, and resisting singular stories of people living with chronic pain. Participants' shared family narratives of dismissal, stories of being silenced in health care, and dominant narratives in the context of age and gender that shaped the participants' stories to live by. This study demonstrates the importance of recognizing people in the midst of living with chronic pain. Understanding unique pain experiences during emerging adulthood can improve treatment options and long-term outcomes for this demographic.