So I had a mega breakdown last night.
It has been building for awhile. I've been harboring anger, guilt, shame, and heartache in a tiny little bottle inside of my mind. It shattered. Exploded. I am now typing this with the remnants of yesterday's swollen eyes.
The straw that broke the camel's back was that Jon told me that I needed to grow up. He didn't say it maliciously in any way, but hearing those words (which I've heard SO MANY TIMES from SO MANY PEOPLE), just killed me.
I have been trying to act as grown-up as physically possible ever since I was a child in order to try to counteract my volatile emotions and terrible feelings in my body. I have no idea where they come from. As such, I have always been compensating and it is EXHAUSTING. I am grown up. I am a big girl. I have circumstances that I cannot deal with as neatly as some other people.
Pain never ends. I wrote a list of my symptoms for my new doctor on Friday and it's two pages long. It terrifies me and it wears me down.
I have no control in my life. Whatsoever. I never have any idea how I'm going to feel at any given moment. I have a hard time in social situations without an easy way to get home. I don't get to contribute to the finances, and thus it feels like EVERYONE else runs my life. I would love nothing more than to hold down a job and actually contribute and make my own money.
The guilt makes me feel like a loser, not a grown-up. I should not feel ashamed. None of this is my fault. And yet the ill are a marginalized part of society.
The sadness is easing but it never fully goes away.
I just keep telling myself that my emotions are important, and it's not my fault that I ended up sick.
Mantra: I am a good person and I do make life better for some people.
I'm going to have to go read
How To Be Sick by Toni Bernhard again. Get my Zen on.
Thank you everyone for listening. It is healing to even write out the guilt of not being up to a so-called "standard".
Does anyone else feel this way about their illness and their limits? Do you have breakdowns too? What do you do to deal with the guilt in a positive way?
xoxo,
Annie