I've had a similar thing happen to me when I was in my early twenties - chronic pain, incapable of concentrating, grimacing during work, etc. Got fired, got unemployment (this was during 2008 crisis, so unemployment was two years, not 6 months), experimented hard during those two years (basically my full-time job was to find a combination of medication and lifestyle changes that reduced my pain and kept my mind clear). Luckily for me, I succeeded.

First thing to handle in this case: if you look around the studies, you will know that chronic pain is a precursor to proper, clinical depression. So, if you are not getting psychiatric/psychological treatment for depression, that's the very first thing to attack. A common response to this is "but I am in chronic pain, not somehow sick in my head!", and if that's an objection that seems to resonate with you, you should get over that objection, fast. Chronic pain causes depression. Your writings sure as shit sound like you are depressed (well, you know, it's not proper to diagnose people across a text forum, but I'll take an exception in this one case).

The combination of drugs and lifestyle changes that saved my life were Welbutrin for the chronic-pain-caused depression, and Lyrica for the actual pain, and private pilates workouts for the areas that were actually in pain in order to re-train the nerves and muscles around the area to send proper pain signals, and swimming to maintain general body health. I did nothing other than that for an entire year; sounds like you have a similar opportunity. Onboard yourself onto my cocktail across a period of four months, 1 item per month. Start with either lyrica or welbutrin.

Lyrica in low doses makes one drowsy, and in higher doses has a perking-up effect. If lyrica seems to fix your pain but makes you drowsy, the proper response is to go up in dose, not down.

Both lyrica and welbutrin are available as generics at this point, so you really just need to see a doctor that would be willing to give you these prescriptions.