Dawn Jackson

Born-again Christian, wife, Granny, baker, cook, homemaker, nerd, super-recognizer, warrior against chronic pain and medical laziness.

[Dawn Jackson @DawnDemanda]

@genesimmons Beautiful lady! And you were so adorable!

[Dawn Jackson @DawnDemanda]

@ProudElephant @CherieCurrie3 That is a black MAN!

[Dawn Jackson @DawnDemanda]

@RealJasonNelson An entire generation isn’t necessarily selfish, but simply stuck in a system that requires them to still be working. I’m lucky that I am not and enjoy watching my grandkids. My kids were watched by their grandparents bcuz they were lucky to be flexible.

[Dawn Jackson @DawnDemanda]

@ThrillaRilla369 About 40 years ago and I will NEVER get another!

[Dawn Jackson @DawnDemanda]

@snowyxq1 I forgot D.C. and Baltimore. So many places have simply gone to hell in a hand basket.

[Dawn Jackson @DawnDemanda]

@snowyxq1 San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, Wichita, Savannah, Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Las Vegas.

[Dawn Jackson @DawnDemanda]

@atensnut Two great grandparents, all four biological grandparents, four step grandparents, and so many great aunts and uncles. I was quite blessed!

[Dawn Jackson @DawnDemanda]

@SteveG49958033 @miles_commodore Dad and I cried together. Armageddon did it too.

[Dawn Jackson @DawnDemanda]

@miles_commodore Richard Pryor, Jonathan Winters, and Don Rickles. I was lucky enough to see Cosby, Carlin, and Williams in person, just not front row. Legends all! I had stomach aches from laughing.

[Dawn Jackson @DawnDemanda]

@Updated_Jennie

[Dawn Jackson @DawnDemanda]

@ThrillaRilla369 I’ve done various things over the years: goose, lasagna, schnitzel (chicken and veal) with three sauce options, prime rib, taco bar and enchilada casserole, and gumbo. I am always looking for different options.

[Dawn Jackson @DawnDemanda]

@DinaMeyer @TheJakeBusey @DENISE_RICHARDS @caspervandien @StarshipMovie @comicconmalaga Just watched Inavsion and Traitor of Mars this weekend. The original is still the best! #WouldYouLikeToKnowMore

[Dawn Jackson @DawnDemanda]

@Becky_Weiss_ My grandma was a tomboy but it skipped a generation and now one of my second cousins is a tomboy, we come by it honestly!

[Dawn Jackson @DawnDemanda]

@RealJasonNelson Only the stupid women can’t take a joke. Personally, I’m a genius so I am fine. 🤣

[Sassy Devil Dog 🔥 @VinoNStrosGal]

Nobody tells you what happens when opioid medication actually works.

For a chronic pain patient, I mean.

Nothing spectacular.

That’s the part people don’t understand.

You don’t suddenly become euphoric.
You don’t forget you have chronic pain.
You don’t become superhuman.

You become ordinary.

You take a shower without negotiating with your body first.

You make breakfast.

You answer a text.

You sit in the car without wondering how many minutes your back can tolerate.

Maybe you go somewhere.

Maybe you laugh hard enough that, for thirty seconds, you forget to monitor every sensation coming from your body.

The pain may still be there.

It just isn’t narrating every second of your life anymore.

That’s what gets lost in almost every conversation about opioids.

For chronic-pain patients, successful pain treatment isn’t about feeling good.

It’s about having enough relief to participate in your own life.

Enough relief to become interested in something besides surviving the next hour.

Enough relief that your world gets bigger than your pain.

And maybe that’s why people who have never needed these medications misunderstand them so badly.

They imagine the medication adding something intoxicating to your life.

Sometimes what it’s actually doing is giving something back.

A shower.

A meal.

A drive.

A conversation.

A little independence.

A piece of yourself.

When opioid medication actually works, you don’t disappear into the drug.

You get to reappear in your own life.

[Dawn Jackson @DawnDemanda]

She gets it! Now, doctors need to understand it!

[Sassy Devil Dog 🔥 @VinoNStrosGal]

Judging who’s really in physical pain in 2026 America apparently goes like this:

“Cool story. Now prove it with the correct facial expression.”

“Rate your pain from 0–10.”

Say 10, and somebody thinks you’re exaggerating.

Say 6, and apparently you’re doing well enough to suffer quietly.

Say 8 while calmly speaking, and suddenly your facial expression has entered the peer-review process.

Cry? “Emotional.”

Don’t cry? “Doesn’t appear distressed.”

Use humor? “Seems comfortable.”

Stop using humor? “Flat affect.”

Meanwhile, the patient is sitting there thinking:

Would anybody like to know whether I can shower, sleep, cook dinner, drive, work, walk through a grocery store, or exist in my own body without negotiating with it every fifteen minutes?

Pain was never meant to be a personality test.

And a human nervous system was never going to fit neatly inside ten little numbers.

Maybe instead of asking only,

“How bad does it hurt?”

we should also be asking:

“What is this pain preventing you from doing with your life?”

Because sometimes the most important number in pain management isn’t 0–10.

It’s how much of someone’s life they’re still able to keep.

Just some food for thought for the anti-opioid knuckleheads out there.

[Dawn Jackson @DawnDemanda]

@JustineBateman I need a lot!

[Dawn Jackson @DawnDemanda]

@RetroMoviesDB @hollywoodscifi One of my favorite movies! It was so cool and different!

[Sassy Devil Dog 🔥 @VinoNStrosGal]

I challenge clinicians, especially the ones quickest to condemn opioids, to care enough to investigate why a patient is in pain in the first place.

Care about the patient who wasn’t blessed with perfect health or perfect genetics.

Care about the patient whose chart is complicated, whose diagnosis isn’t obvious in 15 minutes, whose pain doesn’t fit neatly into a checkbox.

Chronic pain patients are constantly told the goal is to reduce opioids.

Fine.

Then give us something better than a lecture.

Find the source.
Investigate the mechanism.
Treat the disease.
Treat the injury.

Treat the nerve, the joint, the spine, the inflammation, whatever is actually generating the pain.

I’ll speak for myself, and I suspect for a lot of this community:

I do not want opioids.

I want to wake up and not hurt.

I lived most of my life without them.

I became seriously ill, my body changed, and eventually pain became part of my everyday existence.

Medication became a tool because the underlying problems didn’t magically disappear.

So if you want fewer chronic pain patients taking opioids, here’s a revolutionary idea:

Give enough of a damn to get to the root of their pain.

Treat the cause successfully, and many of us would be thrilled to need less pain medication or none at all.

We are not asking to be medicated instead of treated.

We are asking to be treated well enough that we don’t need to be medicated.

[SJohn @Sjohn123Allen]

A letter to our Senators and Representatives.

Gentlemen,
I am a 64-year-old American that has worked and paid taxes since I was fifteen years old. I have never taken any type of handout from anyone, including the US government. After 49 years of working, I have decided to retire, at least partially. According to you, it’s “early  retirement”.  I don’t consider 49 years of working, “early”. Had I been a government employee I could have retired 29 years ago, or had I been a senator, I could have retired, what… 39 years ago? with full retirement pay and free healthcare for life.
Because I retired before reaching my “full retirement age”; which is decided by you, I have a reduced Social Security payment, which you refer to as a “benefit”. I see it as a return of my money that I have paid in for 49 years. This reduced payment is not enough to live on. The payment at full retirement age is not enough to live on. I have to work some, to supplement my income, but low and behold I can only earn a certain amount (which is still not enough to live on) and then you start docking my Social Security.
Apparently, I earned too much at some point because I just received a letter from the SSA stating that my next three SSA payments will be cut in half, and the real kicker is I still “owe” $38.00. I can’t work more to make up the difference because I will only be further penalized.
It is extremely infuriating, as an American citizen, to be treated this way. Look at the amount of fraud, look at the number of people, many of whom have never paid a dime into the system, receiving free benefits from the government. Look at the billions paid to and on behalf of illegal immigrants. All I want is the money I paid in and a chance to retire in peace.