Autoimmune arthritis dilemma

Ones like me like to cope and think our disease is “””””treatable””””” yet the looming reality about just how some of us here, living in the US, are treated and put down by society when it comes to treating chronic pain does come to us every now and then. They give psych meds like candy but chronic pain meds? Well, good luck tackling your insurance company with that.

For me who likes to cope, well, at least I am not psychologically damaged. Chronic pain is a bitch but also others with mental health like bipolar and schizophrenia suffer just as bad when their own mental state becomes autopilot and they have random bouts of mania or worse psychosis. You can say those who are suffering on the mental chronic health side of things face less stigmatization however their mental issues can be debilitating

Maybe I am just in complete denial. I can not fathom that I am and will become disabled and already am despite living with this for nearly 20 years to the point ig my early childhood had this disease very mild. I did high impact sports for god sake these things run in a spectrum!

Or maybe. It’s not about a compare and contrast situation and that chronic illnesses suck no matter what. I may never know what type 1 bipolar can bring but I can atleast empathize of what being a burden in society can feel. We can’t control our faults. And whether which is considered “worse” comes from a very deep and complicated individual perspective that can’t be easily compared to what I am going through.

But what I do know is that we live in the 21st century and the medication that we have now, depending on the spectrum we fall in, can still “”””treate””” us so those days that come where we don’t know nor take notice of the pain, whether it’s mental or physical, is ignored by whatever is coming our way during the moment.

That’s why I feel comparing and contrasting autoimmune diseases is a lot more difficult as a grow older. The spectrum in which all these range in is the defining factor I feel. Crohns is a argued as more “severe” in some cases than that of rheumatoid arthritis, which is something I don’t even feel I suffer from given my age and gender, but a gut eating disease can be considered dangerous.

At the very least (for now) despite living almost 20 years of this I am thankful I am able to get out of bed like nothing ever happened (mostly). I think that speaks volumes of how “”lucky”” I am with my body dealing with this so much. Maybe it was a blessing I had this autoimmune chronic pain creeping up as far back as 2010

What I find the most interesting and my very unique and individual experience with dealing with a life that never was normal, I never once when I was extremely young, not even approaching the double digits, cried about the pain I had in the beginning

Makes me theorize if I had been dealing with this chronic pain for far much longer than at age 5 back in 2010.

Chronic illnesses truly are an enigma where you can only piece some things together that make sense.