chronic pain

When you hear about a person with a chronic illness working or not working or considering quitting a job, these decisions were not made lightly.

This article by AnnaMarie Houlis first appeared on Fairygodboss and  has been republished with permission.

Chronic pain affects anywhere from 11% to 40% of people in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In fact, in 2016, an estimated 20.4% of U.S. adults had coped with chronic pain, and 8% of U.S. adults had high-impact chronic pain. 

I was so busy making sure that I had a handle on my pain that I didn’t have any extra energy to even consider dating. Pain has a way of narrowing one’s focus, and I was focused on how to handle and decrease my pain — not dating, not even looking.

I haven’t always been as big a proponent of marijuana as I am these days.

On loving a partner who's in chronic pain.

When I think sexy, the first thing that comes to mind is acting with abandon and being lost in the trance of feeling and response. My body might want that rapture, but it has to crawl through its own junkyard to get there.

When I think sexy, the first thing that comes to mind is acting with abandon and being lost in the trance of feeling and response. My body might want that rapture, but it has to crawl through its own junkyard to get there.