I want to talk about an experience I call “pain-shaming.”
I cried after calling the doctor’s office the other day. Afterward, in a wave of fury, I called my mother. She answered FaceTime with her usual big smile, and I could barely talk.
She knew something was wrong. I told her I had just made that dreaded call for another prescription — the stuff prescribed for “severe and disabling pain.”
The receptionist who took my call said, “It’s only been a few days since your last script. The 25th, actually — almost a week, but not quite.”
Through gritted teeth and desperate composure, I replied, “I have had chronic pain for five years. The doctor has written this for me before.”