Living with Chronic Pain: My Frustrations and Limitations

New to the app. On here because as I get increasingly frustrated with my body and it’s unpredictability, which only seems to be getting worse with time, my sister said there must be some group I could talk to of people with chronic pain/problems. Then I saw an ad for this app so it felt serendipitous. My constants over the years have been back pain (moderate-severe, depending on the day), anxiety/related disorders, stomach problems/IBS More recently we’ve added crazy ovarian cyst pain to the list, which ruptured for the first time last year and I ended up at the ER, then upon follow up with my doctor was given BC options to keep the hormones under control and keep it at bay, went through the IUD process, and am still dealing with those symptoms of the recurring cyst. Was recently given more pain killers and anti-nausea as the solution for that 🙃 It’s hard not to feel like the problem child when every week there’s a new ache or pain, my loved ones worry about me and are confused, because we have no idea why I have all of the seemingly unrelated issues that I have. I walk around with a pharmacy in my backpack in case X Y or Z happens in public and I need to fend it off until I can make it home to lay down (sometimes on the floor), or to a bathroom. This past year I was so fed up of feeling so confused by my symptoms that I insisted I must have something autoimmune behind most of my problems, especially seeing as I’m always in pain, the same sicknesses hit me harder than those around me, I had problems with my tonsils (now removed), my blood work often looks like I “just fought something off,” even if I haven’t, and I have a blood relative who has lupus,etc etc. had a specialist tell me I seem like someone that may develop an autoimmune later, because I present like this, but that my blood work came back fine. Am I just unlucky? It’s so hard to tell people what’s wrong with me and why my quality of life is pretty low when I don’t have one solid thing I can point to as the cause. Sometimes I understand why others may feel I’m faking it. But then I lay in bed at night crying as my nerves shoot pain signals from my back down to my knee and I feel sad but validated. Some days I can do it all and ignore my symptoms because they’re milder than usual, often times it’s manageable. But the bad times are so bad that I get into this spiral of thinking how on earth can I plan for the future or be excited by it when I have no idea how my health will be? I don’t have a roadmap, a person or condition I can look to for answers. I feel like I’m living between bad back/stomach/ovary days. I feel like an inconvenience or burden to those who love me. I feel scared to accept anything with more time commitments or responsibility from school, like a job I was offered, because I don’t want to have to call out sick. I feel like I can’t be depended on. Idk man I’m trying to remind myself of all the good in my life, the people I love. If I didn’t have that I think I’d be majorly depressed like I used to be years ago. Instead I’m in this weird state where I’m upset all the time about my physical limitations/circumstances, while grateful that i can still do things. I may have pain but it usually doesn’t keep me from actually physically doing a thing… it just hurts. I feel like I live my life in the grey area. I feel like, I have too many problems to be considered a normal 20something, but not specific enough problems to be labeled with a condition. It’s a weird, frustrating place to be. Some days I can’t even do sh** around the house, other days I can go walking the city for miles… wth Thanks for coming to my Ted talk