Living with Chronic Pain: When Positivity Doesn't Help

Pain changes the brain and our moods. Be gentle with yourself everyone. Nobody understands what we go through But there are many loving and kind people out here that want to love and help others. Keep asking for help when you’re really struggling. Do not give up. I am trying also.

My most valuable connections right now are three friends, one of whom experiences anxiety nearly as consuming as my own, the others both have severe and disabling chronic pain conditions and PTSD. These three friends are the people I message on days like today, where my girlfriend and I had a fight because, as she explains it, I'm grumpy and not fun to be with when I'm having a bad pain day, so she wants to help me feel better so we can do fun physical stuff together, and is hurt when I explain that unless she can start ejecting Percocet like a Pez dispenser, the only things she can do are pretend she doesn't notice or actively give me a space in which I can complain about my symptoms without feeling personally attacked because I'm not super cheerful or cutting me off to tell me I should just be strong and ignore my pain like she does.

This is what I’ve tried to get my parents to get. They just think “oh pull yourself up by your bootstraps and you’ll get better” or “hard work” and they don’t see how it makes it worse

i completely relate to this, seeing someone else write this when it’s what i’m feeling is insane… i wanna say i hope things get better but we both know the only solution is for ur pain to go away :(