I have lived with chronic pain from a very young age. I am now 56. I have been married fro 9 years. My husband and I have my handicapped brother living with us, who also lives with chronic pain ( he is a kidney transplant survivor of 39+ years, deaf, and has severe neuropathy and brittle bones).

What I have learned over the past 4 years, is that my self and looking after me comes first. If I don't look after me, I can't be in good shape to look after the house, be there for my husband, or look after my brother. So I come first. Not that they do not count - but I have to be in good shape so that I can be in good shape for them (that includes physical, mental, and emotional).

@deewallach, Yes no work after 42 yrs I still get up by 5, or the stabbing pain in my spine, Head, neck,pain, Thanks for adding me, I do try to have some balance, My home, upkeep, my 39 yr old live with me, so we have each other, Have a good sunday everyone,

Im with music man, haven't worked for 2 yrs, (but I did work for 42yrs) I only have myself, (my 39 yr ole) to deal with. So I don't balance anything anymore . I watch my SOns dog, only if I feel like it.

Unfortunately I lost the job I loved 4 yrs ago because of my chronic pain, Fibromyalgia & other symptoms so I don't hv to balance work anymore. A couple of my close work friends keep in touch but it's hard to see them as they live quite a distance away & I kno how busy their working day/week can be.

I pray that 1 day I will get back some sort of work but for now I'm just concentrating on being able to get through each day & hold myself together for my family. Also the pain meds & treatments I'm on mess with my memory - I found out after I left work there were a few minor things that I had/nt done & this was due to me trying to work through pain & pain meds I was on at the time. Thankfully it wasn't serious things but who knows what could hv entirely wrong if I'd been able to carry on cause as far I was concerned I didn't kno there was anything wrong with my mind - how could I?!

My advice to anyone that is able to work with their condition is if there is someone u trust ask them to check over some things u do, just incase. Cause we all kno how hard it is to concentrate through our pain on even simple tasks, or even conversations, but unless someone tells us we are not aware of any mistakes we might make especially if on strong meds.

Best wishes for a lesser pain future 💜

Ohh yeah but they don’t have that sort of stuff where I live except for in pharmacies. Regardless none of them help me unfortunately. Thx for the input tho!