Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Chronic Pain and Being a Shut-In

June is Migraine Awareness Month. This is my 3rd in a series of posts about my experiences with chronic migraines. The first was about a day in the life with chronic migraines and the second was about an unfortunate superpower that comes with migraines.

The picture for this post is a meme that has been going around on my Facebook wall. This is a feeling I know all too well. I'm a bit of a shut-in. 

Now my chronic pain isn't the only reason I'm shut-in. Since Todd works 2nd shift, if I go anywhere after work I have to have an Emily with me. Now that she's older, it's not as big of a deal but I still can't do things like table top gaming because she'd want to play and her reading ability isn't very strong.

Some days, it's hard for me to get out of bed. And some days I have to go straight back to bed once I'm done working. I rarely leave the house since I work from home and sometimes just being able to go to Wal-Mart is a treat.

Unfortunately, I don't get invited to a lot of things. I don't get the Facebook invites for Browncoat karaoke anymore among other things and I don't really have a lot of local friends. I even have been missing church a lot lately because of illness.

It's sad and I'm lonely, but I can't make people like me. This is something I found out the hard way over the years. I've lost several close friendships in part because of my chronic pain issues. My only really close friend anymore is Todd, and he's required to be my friend because he's my husband. I have Emily - but she's my kid and not a friend.

I'd like to try to make more friends, but it's hard because I've been burned in the past. And because it's hard to go anywhere lately because of having one car, lack of money and higher pain levels. My anxiety levels have been higher too which doesn't help.

I'm afraid it might be too late for me - that I probably won't have a best friend ever again beyond Todd. My life isn't too bad on the whole but I do get lonely especially for female friendships. 

If you know someone who is suffering from chronic pain, try to keep in contact with them. Even just an email or text would make their day!

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