I saw this on facebook this morning and I chuckled to myself. You're probably asking yourself, Chuckled, why? The reason I laughed is because I don't care how many times the world reads something like this there is no possible way they could ever understand it, that's all. I look at the photo and think how in the world can she even have a job being chronically ill? I don't know how people do it but I know some are forced to work because the bills still need to be pain and chronic illness doesn't care, nor do the bill collectors if you are in pain or tired to the bone.
It is funny because when someone is sick and I listen to them complain about their cold or how tired they are I usually think to myself, imagine living like that everyday. I don't say it and I know I shouldn't think like that. I keep my mouth shut but my crappy sinner side wants to shout it out. I don't want to be like that it just happens. I apologize. I do my best but sometimes it is hard. Even as hard as I try to understand it all I still can't. It doesn't matter how far I dig into my thoughts there isn't one part of it that makes any sense no matter how deep I go. It's like I want to blame someone so having those thoughts I shouldn't have kind of help me feel better, in some odd way. But it's okay I don't believe we always have to understand everything to go on and make a good life for ourselves. It is almost impossible to understand everything plus what fun would it be if we had all the answers we would never learn anything. It makes for an exciting life because you never know what you are going to get from day to day. You learn to take them as they come.
After my little chuckle I thought of a friend who posts some really deep stuff on her facebook page. By deep I mean really deep some of the things she posts are thing no one else ever ponders about in their daily living. Relationships, hurts, mental illness, and all the other struggles the real world never thinks about unless they are struck by some of it. I read a lot of the articles she posts and I get it. She doesn't get many likes because I am sure the real world skims over them and thinks she is nuts for posting such nonsense. To the real world stuff like she posts really is nonsense. Ah yes, the real world doesn't have time for reading that garble and many times doesn't have time for the chronically ill. Yes, some of the real world may know the person with chronic illness but rarely do they take the time to understand. My heart aches when I think of this. Sadness fills my soul when people don't care or in an odd sort of way don't know how to understand or just care. I get my friend. I know right where she is coming from as we live a different life. We have the time to dissect all that life throws at us on a daily basis. We have the time to try to make sense of it all by reading articles, books, webpages, and other sources that are there for us to process all that is happening to us. Sadly, even with all of the information we pour into our brains we still don't get it so how can we, as the chronically ill, expect anyone else to understand? It isn't going to happen. Well, unless it happens to them and believe me we do not want that to happen. I think, I know, this is why the little things mean so much to us. Example, when I turned on my phone this morning it went off three times with texts messages, and NO I do not sleep with my phone on, sleep is much more important to a chronically ill person than the phone. The three messages were from Katie, one from Steph, and one from Richie. I thought to myself before I read them, "Thank you God! What a great way to start the day." Hearing the three rings brought me joy that maybe a working person would think, who needs what now. For me it was like a big gift wrapped full of love. I live for little moments like that which are senseless to someone else but to me are my world.
Yes, when you see me out in public I look just like you as do all my chronically ill friends. Yes, there are those rare few who may use walkers, have oxygen tanks, or cane, etc but for the most part we look normal. The sad part is under all that lipstick and normal look there is the person in the photo above. The person you don't see. The person who struggles every time they are doing anything physical. It is funny because I have this cheerleader in the back of my head all the time telling me, you can do this. The voice pushes me when I am loading groceries onto the belt at the store, loading them in the car, or walking into a business to do what has to be done in life. Every time I have a doctors appointment the voice tells me it will be okay even when I don't think it will. You must understand when you are ill you are tired and like the above states the only way you can even remotely explain it is imagine having the flu all the time. A way I like to explain it is if you ever had surgery and you know how tired you get after surgery? You can't explain it but the fatigue is there and real, you get tired very fast. Well, that is how chronic illness fatigue is. I can be doing okay and wham it hits and I have to rest. My body will scream at me to sit or lay down NOW. I can't explain it just as most cannot explain that fatigue after surgery. It isn't a, I need a nap tired, it is different, a nap doesn't make it go away, it is always there. I wake up tired even when I had ten hours of sleep. It is a way of life. Just a being healthy is a way of life for others, illness and fatigue is a way of life for me and my chronically ill friends. It is what it is.
God Bless!
Dianne
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