I have this issue with my author career and general life called chronic pain, so I thought I’d start doing these little update posts because so many people ask me how I juggle my health, writing, and running my author business without having some kind of mental/physical breakdown. The truth is, it’s not easy, and more often than not I DO end up having some kind of breakdown. November 2020 has been a prime example of this, with me having to be benched from author work for two whole weeks due to some serious health problems (I mean what else do you call over thirty shoulder dislocations in 2 weeks?). It’s frustrating as all hell, especially if you ask Mark, who will tell you I’m a total and complete nightmare when I can’t work. So, I thought I’d fill you guys in on what I’ve been doing for the last two weeks (besides pulling my goddamn hair out- it’s super long now too by the way and I need a haircut so bad- thank you lockdown!) So uh, without further rambling ado, I present… my life lately.

I think, and most of the Chronic Pain and Invisible Illness community will definitely agree with me here, that perhaps the most painful part of living with invisible diseases like Ehlers Danlos Syndome, isn’t the physical pain at all.

Instead, it’s the pain that comes with the social side of this condition that takes the biggest toll.

I think the holidays makes people like me, people with chronic pain and invisible illness, take stock more than others, and a lot of the time I think we end up more disappointed than average Joe. It almost seems cruel that with this disease you are faced with so many unknowns and yet one unwavering certainty, that you have this thing for life and that it will limit you, that it will take things from you.

A lot of people ask me one question in particular when it comes to living with chronic pain.

How do you do it?

Or similarly I hear-

I don’t know how you do it.

I don’t know how you live like this.

The sad reality of the fact is, that chronic pain is my life now, and I don’t get a choice. Well, I guess I could curl up in a ball and retreat into the depths of my very comfortable bed for all time and never be seen again, but that’s not much of an existence now, is it?