Jo Malby

September is Pain Awareness Month, a time for people with chronic pain conditions to inform their communities, medical professionals and government leaders of the challenges that affect their health and well-being. With conversations about access to medical marijuana and opioids heating up this election season, raising awareness this month counts more than ever. We teamed up with the US Pain Foundation to ask our Facebook communities what they want people to learn about chronic pain.

Chronic pain changes everything in life, most entirely invisible to outsiders. Many people do not seem to understand chronic pain or just how extensive its effects are, how exhausting always being in pain is, how displacing and uncertain, nor how hard that pain makes it to concentrate and think.

Just as an artist wouldn’t be able to rework a blank canvas, a writer cannot edit a blank page. Making mistakes is part of the process; don’t smother your creativity out of fear and doubt. Everyone has ebbs and flows in their creativity.