I was that woman in the commercials. You know the one, sitting on a bench, sad-eyed and exhausted, while the rest of the world moves around her, waiting to tell the camera about her daily battle with chronic pain and fatigue. I\u2019m sure you recognize her. Maybe you\u2019re her too. Maybe you\u2019re starting to become resigned, like I was, to a life of discomfort, medication, and missing out. Or maybe, like I did, you\u2019ve had that breakthrough moment when you decide you are sick and tired of being sick and tired. It\u2019s a powerful feeling to take control of your pain, and whether you believe it yet or not; it is possible to do that.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been experiencing chronic pain and fatigue since I was 15 years old. I\u2019ve been tested, talked, poked, prodded, scanned, and psychoanalyzed. I\u2019ve had physical therapy, diets, massages, and acupuncture, and I\u2019ve taken enough medication to fill a pharmacy. My health wasn\u2019t the only thing suffering. Between the pain and fatigue, and the endless side effects that come with taking a handful of prescription pain pills every day, my whole life felt like it was off-track. My work performance was lackluster. My social life took a backseat to lying in bed. College fell by the wayside, and my goals and dreams seemed further and further away. Finally, there I was, in my late twenties\u2026 the \u201cprime of life\u201d\u2026 a depressed, exhausted, hurting, anti-social wreck, when, out of the fog (you know the fog I\u2019m talking about), came my own breakthrough moment.<\/p>\n
I stopped eating the mountains of prescription pain medication that the doctors gave me every time I told them that what they were doing wasn\u2019t working. I decided that I\u2019d rather live with the pain within my own body than cope with what the pills were doing. It was a miserable few weeks of withdrawal, but coming out on the other side meant that I could finally know exactly what my own body was doing, unmasked by medication and side effects. Next, I did what I\u2019m doing here. I wrote. I wrote for anyone who has ever dealt with the misery of a so-called \u201cinvisible illness\u201d that others, including doctors, don\u2019t seem to understand. It wasn\u2019t so much a cry for help, but a cry for understanding, and it wound up as an editorial in the local newspaper. Over the next couple of months, I got phone calls, e-mails, and letters from people across the country who shared my experience, or who finally understood what a loved one was going through. It meant a lot that I had touched lives, but one of those calls would change mine completely.<\/p>\n