Showing posts with label socialising. Show all posts
Showing posts with label socialising. Show all posts

Pain is a disability


Anyone who suffers from chronic pain knows that it precludes us from a lot of enjoyment of life. Pain makes the vicissitudes of life that much harder to bear. 

Everything is exaggerated both physically and mentally, and the only thing I can do is accept that this is not my usual self, for pain changes people.

Pain disables us in many ways. from physical activity. from family life. from sex. from sleep. from patience. from social life. from functioning normally. from life generally.

The effects of pain cause us to withdraw from people and become reclusive. It makes us feel isolated and unable to really feel understood or validated. We learn to be distrustful of others.

Because chronic pain, in my case fibromyalgia, causes us so much mental as well as physical angst, we decide to retreat to our home often preferring it even if we had enough spoons to leave.

Seeing as pain is such a disabling affliction, it makes no sense to me that we are often regarded by doctors with suspicion when we request heavy duty pain relief such as opiates.

Most of us cannot get enough medication to adequately help us with our pain. We often then succumb to depression and live as recluses  due to agoraphobia. 

We who suffer from chronic pain know that it is a disability. Invisible and destructive. We live in the knowledge that pain is disabling. 

We just wish doctors were as aware of the ongoing relentless disability called Pain.


And the icing on the cake is...



Friday we went to the chemist and were treated to a cup of tea behind the counter. In between customers, we chatted and caught up. 

We were amongst the first of their customers and we have gone solely to them and rejoiced with them as their business grew. 

We don't go out much, and he and his wife know this. They are lovely people and we will miss them if we find a new rental- so much so, that we have decided we will still go to them for our prescriptions. 

Thanking them for their hospitality, they asked us to call in every Friday for coffee. Well, it looks like Fridays will be script days!   

In saying that, it will depend on whether my fibromyalgia allows me to travel. There are days when I just want to stay home as my spoons are few. But  just knowing that whenever we do see them, we will be welcome and missed is precious.

It does get lonely sometimes here. It's nice to have friends. The icing on the cake is that they are Christians!