I reread your post this morning. And I have a question that will be for you and everyone. Something that I have often thought about and that I was just talking to my mother about the other day was how to have a positive attitude despite all the pain. How do you be happy, even joyful through any of it? Some people who are in pain or who are disabled I noticed have a cheery disposition and I think they are born with it more than anything. And then there are people like myself and my mom who cannot feel positive or feel any kind of happiness or joy at all while our bodies hurt so much. How do you get your mind to feel different from how your body feels and live it. Not just practicing self-awareness all the time. I have been trying to teach myself this. You sound like the first. I have tried and tried but I cannot get away from the depression and thinking/talking negatively almost constantly. I feel not only physically sick, but a huge amount is mental because of the injustice of it all. Not just about being sick but also things that have happened in my life. I can't help how I feel, or I would have changed because God knows I have tried. I am a Christian and I have tried even this, practicing for years what it means to be a Christian, and it hasn't helped. But even with my Christianity and what it teaches about having a positive attitude I cannot. Of course, it isn't just being sick that has done this but a lifetime of mental exhaustion and letdown as well as I have mentioned. But a lot of people have miserable lives and illness and still manage to be a happy person.
Have you always been a positive person? How do you be positive and most importantly joyful or happy while your body is at that moment aching or throbbing in pain? I ask this to everyone. How do you not get bitter over time for those of you who have not?