#chronic pain discussion

[buried-in-autumn-leaves]

As a fanfic writer, I've always faced more judgement for headcanons that involve making characters disabled than ones that make them queer.

Both of these are matters of projection for me, yet one is always seen as just a touch too far for people to handle.

Disabled people exist. Queer disabled people exist. Chronically ill people exist. Diabled people are not required to ignore their existence when it comes to media. They deserve to be seen just as much as able-bodied queer people do.

If seeing disabled people in media makes you uncomfortable, I can only imagine how you might treat disabled people in real life.

[britcision]

Regular reminder that sudden and severe weight loss is a pretty serious sign that something is very, very wrong

[cane-goth]

Are there any like.. idk studies? That look at the permanent effect chronic pain has on the brain?

Because i feel like even if i was magically cured and woke up tomorrow with 0 pain and never had it again, I would still for the rest of my life have issues with regulating my emotions, seeing things rationally, being sociable, etc etc etc.

If you took a person and inflicted non-stop pain on them for years on end and the only time they could possibly take a break was to choose between the pain or taking drugs, that would be considered literal torture and they’d have severe trauma and so many mental issues for the remainder of their life.

But my body being in 24/7 pain that stops me from functioning unless i take pain killers so strong they make me high is just life and I’m expected to get on with it.

I really wanna know what kind of mental toll years of chronic pain, especially in cases like mine where the chronic pain started before I even hit puberty and shaped my entire development.

[inkskinned]

i've been in pretty much constant pain for the past 4 months. i have a slipped disc. the mri this weekend finally confirmed what i'd already suspected. mostly, i just put up with it.

i've been in a pretty bad mental space since winter began. my brain is leaking out from between my ears. i just don't care enough to listen to the rabid wet whispering of hope. i'm mostly just bored of being here, the swaddled joyless apathy.

the back pain ebbs and flows, but it's there, so i take care of it. i do my physical therapy. i get in with a specialist. i'm lucky - there's no immediate need for surgery. it's bad, but it could be worse. when i talk about how i did it (it was a very bad sneeze), i usually start laughing. it's funny! i am never comfortable, but hey. i'm young. i'll bounce back, or so they keep saying.

i just found out it's not normal to wake up every night with a category-five panic attack. i'm lucky if i am still able to remember how to spell my name right. i spend my days in a weird blank haze, exhausted, desperate for respite - only to be unable to rest during the night. i say with a laugh - i really hate it when my mental illnesses start working together. i mean, sure. unionize. it's fine. i have lost all sense of myself. there's nowhere that's actually warm in my mind.

i feel bad how often i complain about my back. my friends immediately shush my apology. dude, you slipped a disc. continue complaining.

as a kid, i think i only really admitted to the bad things... twice. for some reason, when he didn't just dismiss it - it made my dad angry. he slammed a door at me. you're fucking ungrateful. what do you have to be sad for?

what an odd delight: the slipped disc gave me the oddest wave of relief. i'm allowed to actually hurt about this thing.

i have chronic conditions which aren't "real" things. i could write a novel on the weird ways people respond to my POTS & the rest of my fun physical acronyms. i am kind of ashamed to admit - i like the way it feels to be able to say well, because of a slipped disc. a slipped disc is a real thing. a slipped disc is serious and painful. there's diagrams and infographics about slipped discs. upon my diagnosis, they immediately offered me narcotics.

i haven't been able to get up out of bed for more than a few hours. i do less and less and less and less. i have started to sit down in the shower. sighing my way from deadline to deadline. this again. in one day and out the other. people tell me i don't really need my meds. i have run out of times saying i have depression, it's become almost transparent. it's so bad my therapist suggested meeting more than once a week, but i don't want to worry her, so i never finish setting up a second meeting. every creative spark in my soul has been entirely ravaged - but that's just capitalism, baby. i don't even take the day off of work. i just show up and do a bad job and get yelled at for it.

it's not real, after all. the pain is just imagined.

[worstwolvie]

logan and wade helping each other deal w their chronic pain <3

[james-p-sullivan]

I really think we need to start talking about the stigma around hysterectomies and their place in the treatment for the symptoms of endometriosis.

Something I see often is the phrase 'hysterectomies don't cure endometriosis', which is very true, but do you know what a hysterectomy can cure?

Pain.

And you know the pain I'm talking about. The gnawing, all encompassing agony that surrounds our entire lives. The one that keeps you from going back to school, or uses up all of your sick days and vacation time from work combined, the one that leaves you dry heaving for hours until you pass out on the bathroom floor. That pain. There's truly no describing what it's like until you're living it.

And I cannot describe to you how free I feel knowing I will never have to suffer through that ever again.

If we continue to talk about our pain journeys we can end the stigma against hysterectomies. It will never be a cure-all, but remember that you are not a baby machine, you are a human being who deserves to live pain free. And I'm telling you, it's possible.

[dreamsicle262]

gives everyone in bsd chronic pain. thank you for listening

[autistic-sidestep]

someone remind me to write up my fh disability theory reading meta at some point

[aro-culture-is]

quick note - this blog is gonna be sparse again for at least this week. trying new medications and tbh initial side effects are not super pleasant + actual effects build up. as a result: currently as if unmedicated for mental health, with anxiety+ side effect, extra fatigue, dizziness, and fatigue. it's uh, sure something.

totally recognize that most of y'all know we're absent at times due to health things, just wanted to give a heads up that this one is at least anticipated.

[dashing-hyphen]

Important Doctor Appointment Today. Wish me luck!

[itsbansheebitch]

People who go on and on about how AI art is an accessibility tool are the ones you can 100% GUARANTEE don't follow or know any disabled artists.

There are artists without hands that hold paint brushes with their feet, their are blind people who sculpt, there are people with chronic pain that have their own break schedules, etc.

But you know what AI art generators do? They steal from disabled artists. They dehumanize them and then claim they're making a tool to help them. They see you as a "style" not a person.

Would it be too far to say that the rise of AI art has only made our consumer culture worse and made A LOT of people think they are entitled to someone else's work just because it's "available"? I'll let you decide.

[arctic-hands]

Time and distance heals things I guess. My parents got into an abusive fight with me after i took markers and pens to most of my clothes in middle school to scribble doodles and social justice messages (most prominently, Save Darfur–which really needs to be a rallying cry again given that the genocide has kicked up again as the Sudanese civil war rages). They were worried I'd look "unpresentable" in my massively oversized boy graphic tees and baggy jeans held up only by the grace of God (this was all by choice btw, i had and have always despised tight clothing and by middle school I had shunned girl clothes all together). But now at 31 I make mention of writing messages in sharpie on new t-shirts and my mom thinks it's cool and my dad offered to buy me proper fabric markers (I declined bc the cheap shirts will prolly wear out before the sharpies fade anyway). Go figure

[ink-asunder]

Having demand avoidance in a medical setting is literally hell. Like, patient autonomy is already absolute ass. It's only made worse when doctors CONSISTENTLY tell you what to do and act like you HAVE to do it instead of consulting with you first like normal fucking people.

[disgruntled-lifeform]

Question for my fellow chronic back pain sufferers:

I went to the doctor today to get my results for my knee and lower back scans and surprise, surprise, there was nothing showing on the results that would indicate why I'm in pain.

Botox injections for my back pain was suggested and my knee-jerk(ha!) reaction was "nope".

It sounds scary af to go for needles every 2-3 months and have them stab somewhere that is tender already. Not to mention how unnerving the word Botox is to me...

Have you ever done the injections and what was your experience with it? My doctor gave little to no info and it felt like pulling teeth to even get this far so any input would be better than me falling down a search engine hole

[youngchronicpain]

"good foods" this "bad foods" that

I think it is silly to assign a moral value to food

and as a disabled person, I think it is especially harmful

it can sometimes be really easy not to eat, especially if you are chronically ill

(when you don't feel well enough to get out of bed because of a flare, when your meds are making your stomach feel off, when loss of appetite is a side effect of a medication)

and when you imply (or just flat out state) that it is better not to eat than to eat "bad foods" (cheap, accessible, processed) you are spreading a pretty damaging message

because not everyone has the access, or the ability, to make the foods you deem superior

and honestly, sometimes I feel terrible and just want to eat a cookie for breakfast, okay??

[redfeathered]