Born Into Pain: A Life of Unseen Strength

From the moment I arrived in this world, I saw it for what it was. I wasn’t born into the soft-focus glow of safety or ease. I was born into pain – literal, physical pain – and into a world that demanded my silence and my endurance.

I have a rare, painful vascular condition: a mass of roped, clotted, and pooled veins across my right chest and down my right arm. It’s been with me since birth. It puts me at constant risk of blood clots. There’s no medical procedure to “fix” it. Top surgeons and specialists have scanned, photographed, and documented me for decades, only to tell me: “We can’t help.”

Several times a day, my veins remind me of their fragility – sudden stabbing, itching, throbbing pulses that can stop me mid-thought. In heat or exertion, they swell and harden. I’ve learned to raise my arm to drain the pressure, to calculate every movement, to live in a state of quiet vigilance. Every choice I make is informed by the knowledge that my body is both vessel and battlefield.

And yet, I was never treated as fragile. I was expected to keep up – at a man’s pace, in a man’s world. I never received government assistance or accommodations. My only “special treatment” was my mother driving me to MRI appointments when I was a child. Otherwise, I was left to navigate life’s obstacles on my own, to confront danger, disappointment, and disbelief without anyone noticing.

I survived childhood abuse, sexual violence, financial exploitation, and the long shadow of men who pursued me not to cherish me but to drain me – for sex, for housing, for money, for the soft power of my empathy. I recovered from alcoholism, self-harm, and anorexia. I spent decades in therapy. I did the work. Every scar and every memory became a part of the foundation on which I would build my life.

All the while, I built my body and my inner world because I couldn’t rely on the superficial. My vessel, marked and visibly different, attracted stares, snickers, and invasive questions from strangers. People fear what’s different. Most hide in herds, following trends, seeking approval for looking and acting like everyone else. I was never afforded that luxury. I had to cultivate strength, resilience, and independence out of necessity – and later, out of devotion to myself.

And still, I made my body into a weapon of life. At 43, despite the pain and risk, I can do pull-ups and chin-ups. I can deadlift 200 pounds. I can ride a road bike 500 kilometers in heat and cold. I can lift, carry, chop wood, play sports, and even shoot a hunting rifle – carefully, mindfully, courageously. My body is my altar and my instrument, a testament to survival.

Meanwhile, I’ve watched healthy people poison their bodies with unnecessary additives and botched vanity surgeries while complaining about minor inconveniences. I’ve seen government funding flow into elective procedures while people with real medical conditions like mine are left to fend for themselves.

And still, the men in my life tried to erase my strength. My ex-husband once told me, “You’re not a strong woman.” My father, when I was 12, looked me in the eye and said, “You’re not special.” I’ve spent decades proving them wrong.

This is not self-pity. This is fact. This is art. This is me naming, in public, what I’ve carried in silence. Because there are others out there who feel unseen – who live with hidden conditions, with scars, with burdens that the world neither acknowledges nor accommodates. People who have never had the privilege of “fitting in.” If that’s you: I see you. I celebrate you. You are truth and beauty. You are the epitome of strength. You are living proof that real power doesn’t come from conformity or from being handed an easy life. It comes from surviving and still daring to love, to create, to lift yourself again and again.

At 43, my greatest act of rebellion is to acknowledge myself – my victory, my self-acceptance, my self-reliance, my self-love – and to write it down. Because no one else may say it, but I will: I am strong. I am special. And so are you.

• #Resilience

• #ChronicIllness

• #TraumaAndRecovery

• #Feminism

• #SelfAcceptance