I know this actually occurred back in February 2018, but I'm just seeing this. Anyway, back in February, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke during an address at the US Attorney's office in Tampa, FL. Sessions is reported to have said, "people in chronic pain should just take some Bayer aspirin sometimes".
ARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!! Since I can't type what I really want to say. I'm going to copy and paste a quote from an article that appeared on this subject. ...
"That’s the thing about pain when it’s not yours, it’s incredibly easy to endure. All you really have to do is throw around clichés about being a strong person, and maybe sprinkle in some lame advice about yoga and acupuncture. Depending on your mood, you might even add in a few judgmental asides about avoiding gluten and getting enough exercise. And just like that: Voila! You’ve dealt with it! Problem solved. But when it’s your pain. When it’s eating away at your soul, it’s never that easy. And it never gets easy."
The Fibromyalgia community specifically and the Chronic Pain community in general need lobbyist to give us voices and faces at state capitals and in Washington, DC. We use to visit, call, write our lawmakers in masse and so many of us did television interviews. We need to revive this.
The Chronic pain community needs to outreach and include all forms of chronic pain. For far too long, this author has witnessed and even been subjected to chronic pain bias from others with various forms of chronic pain. A former, life-long friend and co-worker, expressed such deep-seated contempt for me and my Fibromyalgia. We both experienced work-related injuries as police officers for the same police department. He endured a horrific disfiguring accident. I endured a series a seemingly insignificant injuries. The nature of my chronic pain disorder, Fibromyalgia, resulted in my being placed on disability pension. He chose to reinforce the stereotype of John Henyrism and thus subjected himself to unnecessary torture and poor quality of life. He constantly looks down on me and my Fibro actually mimicking people like AG Sessions and takes every opportunity to tell me I should have "just taken some aspirin and continued to work".
With politicians looking to demonize people in chronic pain, we need to work together against a common foe, not against each other.
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