From Chocolate & Vicodin: My Quest for Relief from the Headache that Wouldn’t Go Away
The only people who seemed to understand how to talk to someone with a chronic illness were other people who were sick. I didn’t need advice, I didn’t need them to say they were sorry, I just needed a hug. Pain was lonely. I wanted someone to stand next to me and share my view of the world. I wanted someone to look over the smelly, rotting landfill my life had become and reassure me by saying, “Yeah, this really sucks.” Ironically though, pain could be isolating. Pain made you want to curl up in a ball in a dark room. This wasn’t the best position from which to seek out sympathetic suffers who might understand what you were going through.