People say you don’t have to suffer in silence, but you do. Because if I complained every day about how I was feeling or how my chronic illness was effecting my life, someone would stop following me because I am so negitive, or because I complain all the time, or because I don’t make changes that they think will magically “cure” my fibromyalgia. I don’t talk about being disabled because I am not legally ‘disabled’ yet, and I feel like I have so much left to do, but I am unable to hold down a job, which hinders my family. Surely if I just sucked it up or lost some weight I would feel better. After all- what could it hurt? There are days when I have to ride in the scooter at a store. A young, fat woman like me. I don’t look sick. I can stand up. I see the looks and stares from strangers who are secretly judging me. If I wasnt so lazy….. Maybe I could walk around the store or work part time or clean the house more or (insert action). When a cold knocks my husband out for a week and it takes me 3 weeks to get over the same cold. I must just be milking it. After all, he had the same thing and was better much faster. I must just like being in bed 300 out of the last 365 days. “I wish I could lay in bed all day” thinks a bemused friend who knew me once. The truth is I suffer in silence to make the people around me feel better because I deal with enough of these thoughts on my own that I don’t want to feel like when I put them out there for people, it’s so you can fix them- or tell me how your Aunt Marline was just allergic to gluten, and once she cut that out, she started walking and now she’s fine! Or that I should try a hot bath with epsom salt, or essential oils, or maybe if I cut out refined sugars or have I ever heard of Lyrica? Because you saw a commercial for it once. The person I was/am when I am healthy is not the same person I am when I am sick. And I know that it wears on the people who are closest to me most. And sometimes I am staring at the inside of my eyelids wishing the pain would go away, and I wonder if I am dying. I wonder if having a less obsequious illness would make it more relatable, more ‘real’ to the people on the outside. I guess I just have too much time to think on days like this.
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