#chronic inflammation

[demiboydemon]

“It could always be worse.” Yes but I would like it to be better ❤️

[endometriosismemes]

[redd956]

Being chronically ill is like playing flappy bird, but you are the bird

[crps-chronicpain-ptsd]

Chronic pain problems •

[kellylynncurry]

The Unseen Math of Survival

Some days, chronic illness feels less like “being sick” and more like living with a body that runs on an invisible, shifting budget. Not money, it obviously runs on energy. It’s the kind you can’t see, can’t measure with a neat little chart, and the kind you can’t predict with any real accuracy. You wake up and you don’t know how much you’ve been given to use that day. You don’t know if you have enough for a shower and a phone call, or if making breakfast will be the thing that tips the whole day into a downward spiral. The worst part is that you still have to plan as if you do know. You still have to make decisions like a responsible adult, while your body is out here spinning a roulette wheel behind your back.

People love to talk about “listening to your body” as if it’s a calm, mindful practice. Like you simply pause, take a breath, and receive a gentle message from within. My body doesn’t send gentle messages. It sends consequences. Chronic illness teaches you the hard way that you can’t spend what you don’t have and if you do and you push too hard, carry too much, say yes one too many times, your body ends up collecting interest. It collects in pain, in fatigue, and in symptoms that don’t just inconvenience you but derail you. A flare isn’t a bad day. It’s a takeover. It’s your body staging a coup and reminding you who actually runs this life. Newsflash, it’s not my mind or my will. I would be an archaeologist if it were up to me and not my disabled body.

So you become strategic. You become cautious. You learn how to live like you’re always one wrong choice away from collapsing into a heap. You pace. You ration. You rest before you’re tired because if you wait until you’re tired, it’s way past too late. You don’t just manage your time; you manage your threshold. You learn that “productive” isn’t a goal, but a risk assessment. Then you mourn because there are things you gave up that don’t come back.

I gave up finishing college. I gave up the version of my life where I could map out a future and trust that my body would simply… come with me. I gave up my dream of being an archaeologist and getting to dig through history with my hands and my curiosity and doing work that felt like a calling. I gave up the fantasy of being self-reliant in the way people romanticize it: independent, unshakeable, and capable in all the ways the world rewards.

I didn’t give those things up because I didn’t want them enough. I gave them up because wanting doesn’t cure anything. That’s the part no one tells you: chronic illness doesn’t just steal energy. It steals options. It steals ease. It steals the casual confidence of making plans without calculating the cost. It steals identities you haven’t even grown into yet.

The grief is deep, and it is complicated because you’re still here. You are still trying, but trying doesn’t always look like triumph from the outside. From the outside, chronic illness can look like inconsistency. Like flakiness. Like “she was fine yesterday.” Like “she doesn’t do much.” Like “must be nice to stay home.” They think it’s a life they can assess by peeking through a tiny window and making up the rest of the story

And GOD, are people obsessed with productivity! We live in a world that treats output like proof of worth. If you’re busy, you’re valuable. If you’re tired, you’re lazy. If you can’t keep up, you’re not trying hard enough. If you need accommodations, you’re an inconvenience. If you rest, you’re “giving up”. So, you learn quickly that you’ll be judged by what you can produce and by how much you can do, how well you can perform as “normal,” and how often you can show up without your body betraying you. You learn that your pain won’t count unless it’s visible and in a way that makes other people comfortable.

And if your disability is internal? If it’s chronic pain, autoimmune chaos, neurological nonsense, fatigue that doesn’t go away, plus organs and joints and nerves doing their own haunted little tango? Then you get the special bonus game: proving it.

People don’t believe you if they can’t see it. As if the only real suffering is the kind that looks good in a PSA. As if the body is not, famously, made mostly of things you can’t observe from across the room. Shocker: most of our body is on the inside. But disbelief is not neutral. Being denied that belief is harmful. It is harmful because it turns your life into a courtroom where you’re always presenting evidence. You’re constantly trying to translate something complex into something simple enough for someone else to validate. You’re constantly explaining your limits like they’re negotiable. You’re constantly trying to get people to understand that no, you can’t “just push through,” because pushing through is exactly how you end up in that downward spiral you’ve spent years learning to avoid.

And it takes a mental and physical toll. It takes energy to advocate for yourself. It takes energy to defend yourself. It takes energy to be misunderstood and still try again. It takes energy to swallow the humiliation of having to justify rest. It takes energy to be kind about it when you want to scream.

So, you end up doing this exhausting math:

· If I go, will I crash tomorrow? · If I say yes, what will I have to say no to later? · If I do the dishes, will I lose my ability to shower? · If I work today, will I pay for it for three days? · If I rest now, will people think I’m lazy? · If I don’t rest, will my body punish me?

This is the part people miss: chronic illness is not just symptoms. It’s a constant calculation. It’s living like you’re always budgeting for survival while everyone else assumes you’re being dramatic about a simple expense. Plus, you’re still expected to be inspiring. Grateful. Positive. Palatable. You are expected to make it make sense for other people. Meanwhile, you’re grieving the life you thought you’d have. You’re grieving the person you thought you’d be. The student. The archaeologist. The self-reliant version of you who didn’t have to build her entire existence around symptom management.

You’re grieving spontaneity. You’re grieving the ability to be taken at your word and you’re doing it while still showing up and still pushing the boundaries of what you’re physically capable of. This and still trying to build a life inside a body that keeps shifting the rules. Somehow, even that isn’t enough for some people because when your worth is measured by productivity, you can never “win” when your body is unpredictable. You can hit the wall, and someone will still ask why you didn’t climb it. You can accomplish something huge and someone will still notice what you didn’t do. You can survive a week that nearly broke you and someone will still call it “not doing much.”

So let me say this plainly, for anyone living inside this reality: If you are chronically ill, you are not lazy. You are not unreliable. You are not exaggerating. You are not failing because your life looks different.

You are adapting.

You are managing a body that requires more from you than most people will ever understand. You are making daily decisions that are not about preference but about preventing more than just exhaustion. You are sacrificing things people take for granted. You are carrying grief while being asked to act like it’s absolutely nothing. You are doing the work of staying alive in a world that only applauds visible effort. If you’ve given up dreams, if you’ve changed paths, if you’ve had to let go of a version of yourself you loved, none of that makes you less.

It makes you someone who has had to become inventive about survival. It makes you someone who has had to build meaning from the wreck. It makes you someone who deserves belief without a presentation. Because the truth is: the hardest part of chronic illness is not always the pain.

Sometimes it’s the relentless expectation to explain it. To prove it. To make it make sense. You shouldn’t have to. You have already given up so much.

[chronicallycorey]

https://coreycreates27.etsy.com

[disability-and-cats]

my disability limits me in my ability to celebrate valentine's day how i'd really like to, and i know i'm not alone in this

many other disabled people will be in the same situation today, as well as during any other holiday or celebration.

try to enjoy what you can do, even if it's something simple : ]

some thing's i'm doing:

♡ playing all my favorite video games to see what valentine's day events they have for today!

♥︎ sharing a clip of me and my partner online

♡ wearing valentines themed clothes

♥︎ decorating my animal crossing new leaf town for valentines!

♡ spending the day in together with my partner

♥︎ simple crafting with my partner!

♡ (we might visit the library in our neighborhood to color some coloring sheets!)

[sockeye-run]

06.13.26

So much has been going on this week, again lol.

I postponed most bee work as we were under threat of thunderstorms all week, just for it to be a complete lie and I wasted a week of good working weather. Damnit!

I am almost completely done with my friends requested quilt pattern for her wedding gift! This was a smaller, less intricate pattern, so it came together fast.

I also helped the kiddo finish her dad's quilt and make a pattern for her mom's quilt, which she's starting soon. She's been doing the cutting first, and it's easily her least favorite part (same lol), so she's dragging her feet a little. But she asked for another ear cartilage piercing this summer, and she got it done yesterday :)

I shipped out a ton of honey too! Some to family, some were ordered.

I had a random check up to confirm my Adderall prescription (boooo), and my doctor finally decided this was the time to believe me about my inflammation issues, and formally diagnosed me with fibromyalgia. I'm kind of half and half about it though; half relieved she finally decided I'm not just whining for attention, but half still annoyed because fibromyalgia is just an umbrella diagnosis for symptoms they don't understand, and nothing else will change with this acknowledgement, as far as I can tell. She did offer some blood labs and next steps once the labs came back.

They have come back, unfortunately/fortunately lol looking perfect of course 😂😭 But hopefully we'll talk again soon and she'll refer me to either a rheumatologist or neurologist; based on personal and family medical history, she thinks it's inflammation based.

And I've been in a painful, exhausting flare up all week 😔 feeling frustrated.

Oh and google though it would be cute to remind me that I graduated from highschool 20 YEARS AGO 😭