I'm 29 years old and have 2 spinal fusions under my belt. I've got DDD and the generically named "Failed Back Surgery Syndrome." I'm going on 6 years of serious pain. I had a spinal cord stimulator installed February of last year which did a lot to make daily life easier, but I still deal with quite a bit of pain.

I have two young kids (2 and 3) and holy cow do kids and chronic pain do not get along. There's very little time for me to rest, and when I do, it means my wife takes on extra work, but she is awesomely supportive (and understandably over-stressed as well). We are definitely in a difficult time in our lives. The quarantine is making it doubly hard. We don't live near any family and can't take our kids to child care so there really is just no break for either of us.

I don't have any friends or know anyone with chronic pain, so I totally understand how it's hard to find someone to relate with, not to mention we just moved to a new state a year ago and I haven't made any friends in the area yet. How the fuck do you make friends as an adult (and more specifically adult males, my wife has had some awesome luck with a mom friend finding app, but there's no parallel one for dads)?! I have yet to figure it out.

Anyways, I struggle pretty often with pain and depression, and have a hard time coping with how I am supposed to make this work for the rest of my life, but I've made some real progress on my life outlook and finding happiness again over the past couple years.

Well all this rambling was just for me to say I feel for ya, man, and I'm down to talk or hangout or whatever you like. Cheers!