As I've mentioned in previous posts (I think), my chronic pain started after a whiplash injury when I was ten. I honestly don't remember much of my life before that - just bits and pieces. I mean, I was ten 18 years ago! That's a fair bit of water under the bridge. So when I see posts from newly diagnosed CI patients, talking about what's changed or what they've lost, I have so much difficulty truly relating to them, because I never had any of that to lose.
I don't know what it's like to have a career, or even a part time job save for the few failed attempts I made. I don't know what it's like to be able to complete further education - both times I went to college, I had to drop out. I didn't feel like I lost anything, it just felt like business as usual. I'm so used to my chronic illnesses and pain getting in the way of everything that when it does, most of the time I don't even blink.
That doesn't mean I won't listen, that I won't try to understand, because I always will. It's just hard for me to understand people losing things I never had. I suppose to a degree I've become complacent. I expect it to get in the way, it gets in the way, I move on. Don't get me wrong, it's unbearably frustrating at times, and it's always hurtful when people get offended or angry when I have to cancel plans... but, I don't have that deep sense of loss that so many of you do.
I don't know if that makes me fortunate or not.
To an extent, I understand I've missed out on a lot of fundamental aspects of life, and that to a degree, the fact I don't know how to properly adult at the age of 28 is a result of that. I've had my own struggles, I've had my own disappointments.. but.. I've come to accept my illnesses as a fact of life, and I see them as a way to help others. I've had so much experience under my belt, learning how to cope, learning what works for me, what medications are good and what medications have side effects that far outweigh the benefits, home remedies for various aches, pains and other woes, that when someone asks 'do you know of anything to try for x? It's driving me crazy!' I usually have a suggestion or two to offer. I can also offer them a person they can vent to about their pain and about the lack of understanding of able-bodied people, because I get it.
I'm honestly okay with that. If being that person, the person people come to for advice or to act as a soundboard, is who I'm meant to be, I'm good with it, because even though what I do may not have value or worth to some, if I can help even one person, it's all been worth it.
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