Everyone experiences pain in some form at least once in their lives. To me – pain has become an intrinsic part of life as mental anguish blurs into physical throbbing. As a young, seemingly healthy woman, my pain has remained cloaked behind invisibility rooted in the intense emotional pendulum of my borderline personality disorder and the bone-crushing pressure of my thoracic outlet syndrome.
Having first experienced debilitating twinges of my physical disability at the age of 16 and then falling slowly but surely into the void of my mental health illness at age 20, I’ve had a decade to get used to one and six years to come terms with another.
Now, at nearly 26, what I face is less about the pain – both physical and mental- itself, and more about the guilt-ridden burden of feeling like I have to choose between which of my illnesses I allow myself to be vulnerable about.
