Living with Chronic Pain: My Struggle to Find Relief

Hii, I’m 17 and have 8 herniations up my spine from a car accident in 2019. The pain is unbearable and I feel very stuck, as it just came up on a year of me being in pain. It feels like my muscles are trying to choke me around my neck because they’re all so stiff, my entire body feels like a cage that I need to get out of. The pain is constant from the moment I go to sleep and wake up the next day, nothing has helped so far. The only time I feel alright is when I’m exercising, but the moment I stop the pain sets in. One time I had a really good stretch and it felt like I released all the tight muscles in my upper back and shoulders. I was so shocked and happy because my back legitimately felt normal, I ran downstairs to tell my mom because I was so excited. Literally 10 minutes later I felt all the tightness come back and with more pain. I’m trying to stay hopeful but it’s hard. I was starting to do a lot better in December, I was on cymbalta and it was really helping with my mood and wasn’t crying about the pain often like I usually would. My dad passed away on the 17th of December and any of the progress I had been making kinda went downhill after that.