I Live the Disability Paradox

If you think people with handicaps lead terrible lives, think again

The author with his wife at Longwood Gardens in the Philadelphia area.

Warning: This story mentions suicide. If you have thoughts of hurting yourself, call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.

Regardless of what you’ve read, I am not miserable.

Sure, as I’ve written elsewhere, I live with chronic pain. So do about American adults, more than 21 million of whom have high-impact chronic pain, like me.

I suffer from a rare genetic disease that causes osteoarthritis throughout the body. It crashed my career as a writer, editor, and marketer. I estimate my condition cost me $2 million.

I’ve authored dozens of essays that explore what it’s really like to live in chronic pain, including the physical and psychological effects. But I worry that I’ve given the false impression that my life is nothing but a pitiful existence.

It’s not. Nor is that true of a majority of people with disabilities, says on the topic.

Unfortunately, physicians and the public don’t understand that happiness and handicaps can coexist. This is called “the disability paradox,” so coined by around the turn of the millennium.