Shortest definition of chronic (moderate to severe) pain

Was it Hemingway who entered and won an informal contest to write the saddest and briefest short story? If I recall correctly, it was "New crib for sale, never  used." This tears/tares me up some.

Chronic pain is of course multi-faceted, so a brief 3-5 words cannot possibly cover it, yet may create vantage points of meaning much like a prism does to light.

Informal rules: no limit to # of entries, be brief say 1-5 words arbitrarily, a little longer OK. The focus is the challenge to distill meaning in a few words. There is another place for paragraphs, pages, tomes, which I/we have written on occasion.

I look forward to your shared insight.

My first entry is

"chronic pain, loss of self"

Jerry Hesch, MHS

participating in the world