Living in Pain… emotion and physical side and the daily battle
There is a kind of pain that never fully quiets. It doesn’t clock out, it doesn’t soften with time the way people promise it will. It lives in the background of every moment—sometimes louder, sometimes quieter—but always there.
For me, that pain is both mental and physical. It is grief that hasn’t found a place to rest, and a body that won’t let me forget its limits.
Losing my mother to Parkinson’s disease changed everything. Grief is often described as waves, but this feels different. It’s constant. It’s waking up every day knowing what she endured—and then seeing that same fight playing out in families across the world. It’s watching others walk the same path we did, knowing the heartbreak, the uncertainty, the slow progression that no one can stop fast enough.
That part doesn’t get easier. If anything, awareness deepens the pain. Because now it’s not just personal—it’s everywhere.
There’s a helplessness in that. A frustration. A quiet anger. You want to do something, anything, to stop it for someone else. You want no one to have to go through what she did. What we did.
And then there’s the physical side of living in pain.
Every morning starts the same way—waking up already hurting. Four failed back surgeries. Three failed ankle surgeries. Chronic pain that doesn’t ask permission before it shows up. And migraines that hit hard enough to stop everything, with no clear answers and no real relief despite seeing doctor after doctor. Somedays I just accept it is what it is but struggle to get though the day wearing ice packs 24/7 to attempt to hide the physical pain.
It’s exhausting.
Sleep should be the one place you get a break, but even that isn’t guaranteed. Nights stretch long, like this one—2 a.m., wide awake, knowing you should be resting but unable to shut everything down. The body won’t cooperate. The mind won’t settle.
And in those quiet hours, everything feels heavier.
Pain has a way of isolating you. Even when you’re surrounded by people, there’s a part of it that no one else can fully see or understand. You learn to carry it, to function through it, to show up anyway—but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
Still, there is something that keeps pushing forward.
Maybe it’s love. Maybe it’s memory. Maybe it’s the refusal to let pain—mental or physical—be the final word.
Because even in the middle of all of this, there is purpose.
There is purpose in speaking out.
In advocating.
In sharing the reality of what this disease does—not just to those diagnosed, but to families, to children, to entire lives.
There is purpose in honoring my mother—not just in memory, but in action.
Living in pain is not a choice. But continuing forward, even when it hurts, is.
And maybe that’s what this really is: not just a story about pain—but a story about persistence. About carrying grief, carrying physical struggle, and still choosing to show up, to speak out, and to fight for something better.
For my mother.
For the families still in it.
For a future where this pain doesn’t have to exist.
Photo Credit: University of Texas at Austin