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By Crystal Lindell

Last summer my fiancé and I moved in with my mom, my grandma, and my brother. Essentially, I was moving back home – and truth be told, I felt like a failure.

I hadn’t been able to find full-time work after being laid off in 2022, and the bills were just getting to be too much. Actually, let me be more accurate. It’s not that I couldn’t find full-time work, it’s more that I hadn’t been able to bring myself to go back to a corporate job while dealing with burnout and chronic pain.

And so, we made the hard choice to move in with my family in hopes of saving some money and getting our bearings.

Almost every day, we all disagree. There are debates over who needs to do the dishes; discussions about how often the bathroom needs to be cleaned; and lots of arguments about someone in the house being too loud when someone else in the house wants quiet.

Yet, even with all that, my only regret is that we didn’t move in here sooner.

In the United States, it’s still often culturally frowned upon to move back home. It’s often framed as a failure to be an adult living with your parents, regardless of the circumstances. But for most of human history, living with family wasn’t just accepted practice, it was the norm. 

And if you have chronic pain, living with family could be exactly what you need, if that’s an option for you. Especially if stigma is the only thing holding you back.

There are so many practical reasons that it just makes sense to live with family if you have a chronic illness.

First and foremost, chronic pain is expensive in so many ways. There are medical bills, reduced ability to work, and all the convenience fees you have to pay for services because you can’t just go out and do it yourself. Living with family almost always makes life cheaper.

But chronic pain is also draining. And living with family helps fend off the depression that creeps in on bad pain days. Even more so during bad pain months.

It’s hard to wallow in my room all day when someone in the house is always checking on me, keeping me in conversation, and wanting to hang out.

Yes, it can be frustrating to have arguments about who is responsible for vacuuming the hallway, and whether or not we can put the couch on the left side of the living room. But that frustration is more than countered by the benefits of living with family.

If you are at a place where dealing with chronic pain is just draining all the life out of you, then I would highly recommend moving in with relatives, if you can. 

And if you love someone with chronic pain, an invitation to live with you could be the thing that saves their life.