Chronic pain and disease are not just pain or sickness.

It is frustration, sadness, anger, anxiety, emptiness, and loneliness. It is wondering how on earth you will make it through, and if you can cope with this forever. It is wondering how you can pay the bills, buy your medications, and visit the doctors, while still putting food on the table for your family. It is missing your life, the one you had before you got this sick and being scared of the future.

Surviving with chronic pain, or illness means that each morning when you get up (if you can get up) you face the day with uncertainty and fear. You try to put a smile on your face and cope the best you can, but often failing.

Those of us who have this battle withstand so much mockery and blame from others, there is so much misunderstanding and…