Thanks for sharing this. As someone whose partner experiences life-long chronic pain, I found this piece both resonates with our discussions about her experiences, and provides some new potential avenues for re-framing our discussions and her experiences with pain.
My partner is reaching a point in her journey where she’s actively navigating the “You are not your disease” question, and is trying to find meaningful activities, interests, and identities (in short, trying to find ways to answer the inevitable party/meet-the-family question of “So, what do you do?”) that don’t center her disability or her treatment. The track she envisioned for her life was completely derailed by her condition, and so this work is especially difficult. Thanks for sharing some things that may help.
