That's the exact mistake I made in the beginning. I tried to explain it completely. The symptoms are so whacky that your own sense of coping inhibits you to explain it well. And you do have a part in it! Most people can't listen to long explanations. They need to be told something brief, simple. If they don't get it even then, then they don't get it. I'm not wasting my breath on those people by writing them long letters hoping for sympathy. I don't need sympathy. The people who do understand will come to you, won't run from you.

That's why now I tell people who ask that I had a car accident, that I have a lasting and disabling complication from it and that that complication is called CRPS. I leave it at that unless THEY ask for more information. That seems to be understood better than summing up the whole symptoms list and telling everyone that you're in pain.

Keep it short and to the point. People will be much more understanding.