when you prioritize treating your chronic illness over burning yourself out every week, it forces you to form firm boundaries with people you don't even know yet
like, if we are friends and I don't immediately respond to you, I most likely don't have the energy to do so, but I trust you to respect me as a chronically ill person who cannot always be on call for everyone. eventually I will get back to you, and that's because I prioritize communication with the people who respect me. if you treat me with respect, especially in regards to my chronic illness, you know I'll get back to you eventually
but if I don't know you, or I only know you in passing, and you show disappointment or anger due to my response time, we are, at best, acquaintances, and from that point forward we likely won't ever be more than that. that doesn't necessarily make you a bad person, but it does show me exactly what you expect of and are supposedly entitled to from a complete stranger, and that is not something I will commit to blindly — I refuse to commit to a friendship or relationship where the expectations are beyond my maximum capability
usually, I'm running on empty already — why would I add another stop if I'm barely able to make it home in the first place? in plain speech, why would I commit to a friendship where I am expected to perform beyond what I am capable of without literally burning out my nervous system or sending myself into another flare-up?
and people who have never experienced chronic illness will never understand this until they eventually burn themselves out — like, I haven't taken the trash out in a week. Slsometimes I just don't have the strength to get out of bed. healthy people don't have those barriers — they can stick to their routine without problem, without intense fatigue, without worrying if you're gonna have a bad pain flare-up tomorrow because you stood up and did the dishes for too long today. they expect more of others because they don't understand what it's like to be disabled
but in order to recover, you can't overload yourself or use more energy than you have. so, to protect yourself from these "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" types, you set your boundaries, you take the ableist red flags seriously, and you distance yourself before you waste anymore energy on them
titsay
gummygunk
origamiaround
dailybridgerton
ellievsbear
