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I need to vent

Pain is exhausting. Being sick is exhausting. They can be soul crushing and brutal. But they aren’t as bad as some of the things people who I care about say. I can’t do this alone, there’s no way, yet…I wonder if I would feel less guilty and ashamed and as if I am a burden. Pain and illness have become a religion and I’m the only one who knows that the faith is not fruitless because I’ll be damned if these sadistic gods let me ever forget their “blessings.” But I can’t pull a goddamn (pun intended?) antibody or MRI of my ruptured discs out of my ass and say “LOOK! DO YOU SEE THIS? PLEASE SEE MY PAIN, PLEASE DON’T MAKE ME PUSH PAST IT AND PROVE IT TO YOU. Please. Please just have faith in ME when I tell you that I’m in pain”

Some people think I’m only in pain when I “don’t want to do something”. Yet it’s only when they tell or ask me something that might affect my day. It baffles me. I don’t WANT to do laundry or dishes or mop the floors but I do them anyway and yet no one asks if I was in pain. But then when I do speak up and ask for help or say I’m in pain, suddenly it’s only because I don’t want to do something. No, fuck that. Because, really, when I’m in pain it’s reversed. I do want to do all this mundane boring house shit. I really really do. Because I want to prove that I can do things and I am strong and I get so fucking PISSED OFF at myself and my body that I beat the shit out of it quite literally by doing physical work that my neurosurgeon would slap me with his model spines with. And when it comes down to me asking for help, 98% of the time I’ve already sat there telling myself I’m a super shitty person for needing to ask. Which SUCKS because I don’t truly have low self esteem. At least not until my body went to shit. But with every doubt and “wait, weren’t you just fine when you went to hang out with people?” (pro tip: NO but I decided I would deal with the pain because it was better than sitting in the house), I feel like I’m getting knocked down one more step of the proverbial “worth a damn” ladder. I may be strong and resilient but it’s not easy to maintain.
The real kicker is when I’m not even asking for help. Just saying, hey I’m in pain so I’m going to do XYZ or not do TUV because I need to take care of myself. Yet then it’s the same remarks and accusations as the times that I do ask for help.

I’m begging you to please…PLEASE please please please understand. Please don’t doubt my pain. I feel like I’m punched in the stomach or my heart shatters a little whenever it happens and I know that getting frustrated is inevitable; I know that there are times where it’s too much to handle and it’s going to be more rough than it usually is. But life would be a hell of a lot easier for all involved if people wouldn’t doubt the one thing that is constantly there for me. My pain.

Just…think about it this way…I don’t want to be in pain anymore than YOU want to help me deal with my pain. I don’t want to ask you to help any more than YOU want to try to figure out how you can help when you have, oh I don’t know, your own personal hygiene to take care of. I DON’T WANT TO BE IN PAIN SO WHY WOULD I FAKE IT

I used to think there was nothing I would not do or give to be pain free. Now, though, I’d take the pain if there were a way to make people understand.