12 Quotes by Sonya Huber

Our fix-it-itis is not a simple social gaffe but the evidence of a deep blind spot born with the help of the market. We are educated about illness by television commercials... A puzzle like me that cannot be solved is a point of discomfort, a disjuncture, a black hole... My body is a discomfort, a burr in the hide of the marketplace itself, a reminder that not all pain can be treated with a purchase.

I do not try to look sexy or cute. Pain pushes even gender out of the way, even vanity, even the hopes of looking like someone else. In some ways, pain returns me to childhood, my eyes to the naked, peaceful orbs of animals.

Desire and love have to grapple first with reconstituting themselves in a body that has been altered to its core.

I will be living with chronic pain for the rest of my life. I don’t have the mobility, energy or life options I used to have. I work hard to manage the pain, and I want the medical system to be a respectful and effective partner, not a jailer. The opioid crisis is not my doing.

Chronic pain patients like me are not the cause of the opioid crisis; only 22% of those who misuse opioids are prescribed them by a doctor, and only 13% of ER visits for opiate overdoses were chronic pain patients. Most chronic pain patients are rule-followers who just want to function.

I take opioids to treat chronic pain. Stigmatizing them will harm me.

I have tried and I enjoy yoga. But if you tell me to try yoga, then I will have to fight you. You will win, but I might nip at your jugular with my sharp incisors first.

I should just ignore foodies as i ignore football, because both cultures have nothing to do with me - but the culture of saffron and creme fraiche gets under my skin. The competitiveness makes me feel insecure, and this weakness is the insecurity of a woman who can't quite believe that domestic goddessery is really not expected of her. (Right?)

I want to be better than my pain, but I cannot will my way through it. I have willed my way through so much pain in my life, and now I have come up against pain that is bigger than my will.