For those of you who are single, do you ever wonder if you'll find Mr. Right, now that you're affected by a chronic pain illness? Do you ever wonder if there will ever be anyone out there, that will truly be able to understand and stick this thing called life, out with you? Is there anyone out there that is NOT affected by a chronic pain illness, that will truly be able to "get it" and be able to understand what we're going through on our bad days?
Those of you who've been around my blog since the beginning, know that my husband left me a couple months after my official diagnosis. That was lacking 6 days of being 15 months ago. I'm ready to move on. I'm ready to have someone in my life again. Someone who I can talk to. Someone to hold my hand, and to give me hugs. A man who I can take care of on my good days, and know that he'll take care of me on my bad days. Someone to spend the rest of my life with.
Having low self-esteem due to several factors, and not working for years due to my illnesses, I don't have a clue how to meet this Mr. Right. My teens kept telling me to join a dating site. My teen daughter would joke that she was just going to make me a profile behind my back and "hook me up". Finally, I caved in. I was upfront about my health problems from the beginning. I didn't want to play around, so if it's a problem to someone, I wanted them to know up front.
Responses have provided me with great amusement, I can say that much at least LOL. I've lost count of how many messages I've received from random men that say "So, do you smoke pot?" ...or "So, are you in pain every day?" ....or "How do you manage living with a condition that causes pain". I respond, and then if I'm lucky, I get back a generic response that says "Well, I hope your pain isn't too bad". That's pretty much the end of it.
Those questions are all pretty good for starting conversations about awareness. Not so good for starting relationships. It seems like whenever a guy reads that I have chronic pain conditions, they're curious about the condition ...but not about a relationship with me.
Then, we have my best friend of almost 20 years. We've dated in the past, as a matter of fact, we were even engaged once. No matter what though, we've always ended up remaining best friends. If ANYONE could understand, it'd be him. Well, he didn't. All I ever hear is "Amy, I'm so sorry that you have problems with your health". Well, me too Nate, me too. I finally couldn't take it any more and told him if I heard "I'm sorry" one more time, I was going to seriously come unglued. I live with a chronic pain condition. I'm not on my death bed. Then, he wanted to try a relationship. I finally start thinking that maybe I won't have to live my life alone, when out of the blue that is done before it even got started. He just treats me like I'm a complete invalid. I'm NOT. Then, he wants to party all the time. I'm not into all of that. I never have been. I couldn't even if I wanted to, because I take medicine every day. Back to just being BFF's. Another Mr. Wrong, for my situation.
I know that there are good guys (and girls) out there. I know that there are those who are willing to learn about someone's condition, and are actually eager to learn about it and stick it out with someone who has a chronic pain condition. I'm just not sure that there's someone out there like that for me. Fibro, arthritis, and COPD give me feelings of sadness and depression as it is, and my hopeless feeling about finding Mr. Right is really getting to me tonight. I think I'm just giving up for the time being. I'll do as I've done for the past 15 months. I'll sit here and hide behind my computer. I'll pour my heart and soul into doing what I can to create awareness about chronic pain conditions. I'll advocate for our patient rights, for further research, and for a cure. Please God, please let them find a cure. Then, maybe I can actually live for the rest of my life, instead of sitting around waiting to die.
