Pain Dictates. Yes, yes it does. Pain in the long term extreme variety does dictate. It changes you, the way you think, your ability to focus, the things you do, or rather can't do, it affects everything in your life, and no matter how hard you try, it wins.

One of the most interesting things is the way those who do not have it regard you. I seldom talk about it but when I do I usually get offered some personal story about their "pain" which I assure you is NOT like the time you pulled a muscle and it hurt for three days. And your childbirth did not last for years.  In short, I appreciate your supposed well meaning attempt to make it all about you, but fuck that and you.

Oh wait, do I seem angry, or bitter, well, yes, as a matter of fact, I am. I'm tired of my constant companion, sick of it's intrusion, of it affecting my relationships with others and lessening my already meager ability not to choke the shit out of the stupid or willfully ignorant ones. I spend a lot of time biting my tongue or struggling not to go off while being told tales about nothing that only a Seinfeld character would find interesting or witnessing the seemingly endless random acts of stupidity that plague my world.

But what I really resent is that there is no going back to "normal", of being forced to accept that this degenerative condition, and its pain, is the "new normal".