Available Now from Anacrusis Press
A memoir of chronic hidden pain, inherited silence, and showing up anyway
I spent a career on stage hiding pain I never named. Now I sit across from people learning to name theirs. This book is about the years I couldn’t do it for myself, and the father who carried his in the same silent way.
Goodreads Book Giveaway
The Pain of You
by Benjamin Bunte
Giveaway ends October 20, 2026.
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I live with Nervus Intermedius Neuralgia, a facial nerve condition rare enough that most neurologists never see a case. My father lived with primary progressive multiple sclerosis for more than twenty years. Every weekday morning at 6:00, we talked on the phone, and in hundreds of those calls, neither of us told the other the truth about what we were carrying.
The Pain of You is a memoir about what that silence cost. It’s the story of a son who learned to carry everything by watching a father carry everything; a diagnosis that arrived late; a love that waited twenty-three years; and what it took to stop answering ‘fine.’
This is not a self-help book. No steps, no program, and no promises. It’s testimony: what hiding pain costs, what naming it costs, and why the second bill is the one worth paying.
Benjamin Bunte is a Clinical Psychotherapist (LPCC, MA-CMHC) in Englewood, Colorado.
Before that, he was a professional classical bassist and an Orchestra Director. He wrote this book as a chronic pain patient and as a son.