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slauren
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PathStep 2 Compassion hearts10 Forum posts2 Forum upvotes6 Current upvotes6 Age GroupAdult Last activeOctober, 2017 Member sinceApril 30, 2017
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Anyone Else Experience Chronic Pain & Lack of Understanding from Friends and Family?
Disability Support / by slauren
Last post
 June 5th, 2019
...See more Lately I've been really frustrated because I feel like my friends and family are constantly annoyed with my chronic pain condition and as a result we're getting more distant. I've had multiple failed spine surgeries leaving me with arthritis and sciatic pain on both sides even though I'm only 22. Prior to these injuries I was healthy and athletic. As a result it's painful to sit, stand, exercise or be active. My family has made comments like 'there's people a lot more disabled than you that do a lot more than you do' and I don't think they understand how hurtful this is because they don't physically know what it's like to have my body and that I work as much as I can and socialize as much as I can but that I have to respect when my body needs to rest. I feel bad when friends try to make plans with me and I commit but have to cancel because the pain or I'm hesitant to commit to plans because I can't predict when the pain will be too bad. As I'm sure you all know it's already mentally and physically challenging living with chronic pain that's disables ones social, professional, and personal lives so I wish the people around me were more supportive and understanding instead of judging me and thinking that I'm not prioritizing them. How have you all learned to deal with friends/ family not understanding when you can't do what they want because chronic pain? How do you cope with being left out of certain group activities because they don't think you can handle it physically? Any tips for explaining chronic pain to friends/ family without coming off like I'm complaining? Any tips for emotionally dealing with them not understanding without getting angry myself? And tips for dealing with the guilt of letting them down for having to cancel or say no to plans? Any tips on how to explain chronic pain and expectations? Many thanks!
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