If you suffer from chronic pain, then you know how if affects your social life. Interacting with people is difficult because you cannot do all the same things they can do. You have trouble keeping up with the flow and people do not understand how you feel.
Having chronic pain can affect the holidays and your ability to participate. Along with chronic pain, also comes chronic fatigue. You can get very tired and need to rest. This can also cause frustration in dealing with family and friends who may not understand that you need to rest.
You have the right to take care of yourself and you need to keep your boundaries about what you can and cannot do. It is easy to get depressed when you are struggling through the holidays.
Some people end up self isolating for a variety of reasons. It can become tiresome to keep trying to explain to people about your condition. Some people find that they cannot get people to believe them. Invisible pain is invisible…and thus non-existent to people who cannot empathize.
You may have become alienated from family and friends who became tired of adapting for you. This can be a very painful experience and the holidays can be very triggering and depressing of you have lost people you once spent time with.
Then there are some people who hide their pain and try to keep up. You might do this because you do not want to burden people. You might just not talk about your pain because you know the people will not be sympathetic or they will not believe you.
If you are feeling alone, or are struggling with chronic pain today, feel free to connect with us about how you are feeling. You can leave a message in the comments below or you can write a post and leave a link for people to read.
GentleKindness 