Trusting yourself and invisible diseases
March 13, 2015
There’s a scene in West Wing when President Bartlet comes to the Oval Office, hopped up on narcotics that always cracks me up. I’m only like that on painkillers the first 1 time I take them, they just don’t seem to take after that, but I’ve definitely been at work on one of those woozy days.
All sorts of fun, lemme tell ya.
But that was me for a lot of years – I insisted that I knew myself, that I can do more. Sometimes I can. Evidenced by the times I powered through some pretty rough times. But for some reason, this led me to the conclusion that I’m just being lazy when I don’t want to do something, I didn’t trust that despite my track record, I would get back up again if I just let myself sit and be still.
Rest? What the heck is that?
I was certain as anything that because I wanted to sleep for a week or lay down forever, I couldn’t rest. If I let myself have a break, I’d never stop being on break.
Talk about underestimating and being totally out of touch with myself.
“Here’s what I think we ought to do… [long pause] Was I just saying
something?”
That distrust got even worse with pregnancy. What do you mean I need to rest? What do you mean I shouldn’t be lifting all those heavy things? What do you … oooooff. Oh. Oh that’s what you mean.
I’d thought that I’d accepted my limitations years ago, but really, I hadn’t. Or at least, I wasn’t at peace with it so routinely pushed myself too much, and crashed and burned.
It took being pregnant to finally respect my limitations at any level – there were days I simply absolutely could not do more than the bare minimum. It took the whole length of pregnancy for me to understand why things seemed to be different.
I was still living with the so-called invisible diseases: chronic pain and fatigue.
Meanwhile the pregnancy was a tangible and visible thing that also brought with it pain and fatigue. The key difference here was that visibility and subsequent familiarity.
People weren’t confused by pregnancy. This is a known quantity for the most part and the right questions were obvious.
The considerate ones paid attention to how long I could be on my feet, were conscious of the fact that I shouldn’t be lifting things, etc. These are same considerations that I’d need for my pain and fatigue but could never ask for because it’s simply not clear why I’d need them. Rather than explain and face skepticism and loads of unwanted medical advice from the uninformed nonmedical professional, I always just stiff upper-lipped it and figured out my own accommodations as best I could. Accepting help when pregnant was foreign and uncomfortable but I had to and the experience was so different from asking for help solely because of the usual culprits.
Having figured this out, I don’t exactly know what to do with the information. Maybe I will one of these days but, for now, I’ll settle for not being so hard on myself. Life has already got that angle covered, thanks.
It takes some time to find a balance, but it is important to find one especially having a good gauge of when to listen to your body and when you can push through it. Pushing all the time will in the end catch up with but do not get me wrong pushing is a good thing because when you get better it’ll make the process easier.
Don’t hesitate to ask for help. Invisible diseases are present and should never be discounted.
Yeah I think I used up all my “just push through” during my 20s. Here’s hoping that taking a few years off gives me back some of that oomph.
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