The Isolation of Chronic Pain

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I talk about my chronic pain a lot, but a lot of time my words are guarded. I try to not to seem too depressed about it, because I've lost friendships in part because of my chronic pain.

Yesterday my pain levels were very high. The highest they have been in a long time. I couldn't do much beyond lay in bed and watch TV. Emily joined me for a while and colored while I watched TV. I managed to get out of bed to make dinner, but that's all I did yesterday. I even missed Todd going to work because I was napping and that made me sad.

On high pain days, I try to stay off social media because I don't want to complain too much. But that just another thing that isolates me. I don't have a lot of real life friends so most of my friendships / human interaction comes from the internet. But I also don't want to lose the friends I have now.

I worry that Todd will leave me because of my pain too - though he's been around since the beginning of it and stuck around so far. I've already lost friends, family, in part because I deal with this invisible illness.

The invisible part makes me isolated too. I don't look sick, even yesterday when I was considering going to the ER because the pain was that bad. I don't look like I feel - if I did, I'd have a huge head wound. As it is, it's all internal.

I never want sympathy, but I'd love to be able to talk openly about how I'm feeling. I'd like someone or someones who I could text and not worry that I'm being too depressing. But that just leads to bad things. I've lost two "best" friends in part because of my chronic pain, and that hurts a lot. I'm not perfect and goodness knows that I've made mistakes in my life, but nothing to warrant the pain and isolation that I suffer from.

I do have good things in my life and I try to focus on that. I still can work, I have Todd and Emily, I do have friends in my computer and my health, while crappy, is better than other people's out there. I just wish there was a way for me to be honest with how I feel everyday, with the highs and the lows. But for now, I will probably stay a bit guarded, no matter how isolating it may be.