Having disabilities that require you to take pain medication to function is so frustrating and exhausting.
Everyone treats you like an addict. They assume you've tried nothing else for your pain and that you'd rather rely on the medication. They believe that there's no type of chronic pain that can't be cured by something else.
"Have you tried exercising?" We've all heard that one before. Every one of us. Multiple times.
You can tell them that you do/have done physical therapy and they'll say you haven't done enough.
You can say that exercising puts you in excruciating pain and makes you unable to function for the next few days and you hear "once you exercise more the pain goes away." (This is true for a small amount of disabilities, but it doesn't "cure" chronic issues.)
You can tell them that one of your disabilities can be partially helped by physical therapy (like my back & knees) but it doesn't help your other issues and they look at you like you must be lying about having more than one source of chronic pain.
You tell them you have a condition that can't be fixed by exercise (in my case, fibromayalgia, PCOS, and endometriosis) and they tell you "well, there's gotta be SOMETHING else you can try." (We've tried.)
Once they realize they can't suggest exercise, they move on to "have you tried seeing a chiropractor?"
Yeah I absolutely LOVE taking a medication that I'm not allowed to refill reasonably early and can go into withdrawals if I go without. And the stigma of people assuming I'm high when I'm only just in half as much pain as I was before, fantastic!
