Chronic illness and pain leave you in a perpetual state of grief.
Imagine your biggest losses in your life… as we all know death is hard and final and the grief that comes with it can be all encompassing.
Losing my dad, losing my fur babies, my grandfathers, etc. all made huge impacts on my life but then imagine feeling that same grief every single day you wake up because you are grieving the loss of life you thought you’d have. Imagine waking up every single day with pain or fatigue that is so powerful, you are lucky if you can get from the bed to the bathroom…
Having answers is huge! Having a diagnosis is massive but it doesn’t change the grief. Instead I think of the amount of time that was wasted wondering… I think of the trauma I have experienced from being dismissed, ignored and treated like I was just attention seeking…
Imagine realizing that your entire life is never going to be what you had dreamed it would be. That is what chronic illness does. It strips us of our entire selves.
Pain changes you. And I think that it’s really hard for anyone who hasn’t gone through it to really understand it’s impacts.
My friends see fragments of what my every day life is and yes I have much to be grateful for but the psychological impact, the constant nagging voice of grief will never go away. I do not know a day without pain… and that really screws with your head.
My journey with endometriosis was a traumatic one that left me near death. My mental health journey has been beyond traumatic and it’s taken me 37 years to finally realize that it’s not my fault. That I have autism, that I’m not crazy but rather wired differently.
And now finally knowing I have Lyme disease that has been causing so much havoc… to the point I was actually losing my mind… the feelings I had were real. The anger I have with my husbands family is not going anywhere but my reactions were huge because my brain was inflamed from this disease… even so, I am not okay!
My PTSD is just proving it’s point. I am not safe in my own body and I’m terrified all the time.
This is why I say that life is grief. I spend my entire life grieving the loss of everything around me, including myself. I don’t know how I will ever be okay. All I can do is try…
