Living With Chronic Pain: A Narrative Inquiry Into Identity Reconfiguration Among Canadian Veterans—A Research Note

Abstract

Approximately one-third of Canadian Veterans live with chronic pain, which can profoundly disrupt identity as they transition to civilian life. Little is known about how chronic pain reshapes the moral and embodied dimensions of military identity. Using narrative inquiry, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 Canadian Veterans with chronic pain. Data were analyzed through iterative thematic analysis, guided by concepts of biographical disruption, biographical work, continuity/flow, and anchored biographies. Chronic pain functioned as both an embodied and institutional disruption that fractured military identities. Veterans described pain as a biographical rupture but engaged in biographical work to repair coherence and reclaim dignity. Being categorized as disabled was described as a moment that fundamentally challenged identity, built on strength and endurance. For these Veterans, chronic pain transformed, rather than erased, their military identity. Veteran-centered care should integrate moral and institutional dimensions while supporting meaning-making and re-anchoring of self beyond service.