I wish Simon Wessely was right. I wish this illness really was just psychologically perpetuated. I wish that the more I pushed myself Monday to make cookies and candies for friends and family this Christmas, the more that constant icky, flu-like feeling would have receded into the background and Id have seen how great it was to enjoy life again instead of making me too sick to make cookies and candies on Tuesday.
I wish Peter White was right and I could let go of my attachment to this bed. Get out of this stifling apartment and roam the streets of downtown like I used to. Its so pretty this time of year with all the lights and evergreens. I wish that the more I had pushed myself yesterday to get out and do some errands -- go to the store and the post office like a normal person -- the more it would have made me forget I have a debilitating illness instead of leaving me weak, nauseous and listless today.
I wish Trudie Chalder was right. I wish that letting go of my aberrant illness beliefs last winter and taking the baby step of joining a writing class once a week at the church next door would have provided the courage to take even more classes and return to graduate school instead of making me crash so badly that Im still trying to recover 10 months later.
Every time I have a good day, theres always that little voice in my head that says maybe theyre right: this illness is just some construct I must break out of. I just need to push myself a bit and eventually I can get the life back that I let slip away with my weak will.
But after 11 years of wishing it was all in my head, of thinking that those silly rules about energy envelopes and aggressive rest therapy dont apply to me because they just make me pay too much attention to what are normal somatic sensations. Of using all sorts of tricks to distract myself from that horrible pain and weariness so I can bull my way through using sheer force of will to do what I want. After all the stubborn, wanton disregard for whatever my body tells me (Its normal to feel tired, right? But everybody else keeps going...), I end every year sicker than I was when I started it. My functional capacity decreases. I spend more time in bed (is that even possible?). Im on more medication.
Its just...I just so want them to be right.
(Cross-posted at Behind the Surface)
I wish Peter White was right and I could let go of my attachment to this bed. Get out of this stifling apartment and roam the streets of downtown like I used to. Its so pretty this time of year with all the lights and evergreens. I wish that the more I had pushed myself yesterday to get out and do some errands -- go to the store and the post office like a normal person -- the more it would have made me forget I have a debilitating illness instead of leaving me weak, nauseous and listless today.
I wish Trudie Chalder was right. I wish that letting go of my aberrant illness beliefs last winter and taking the baby step of joining a writing class once a week at the church next door would have provided the courage to take even more classes and return to graduate school instead of making me crash so badly that Im still trying to recover 10 months later.
Every time I have a good day, theres always that little voice in my head that says maybe theyre right: this illness is just some construct I must break out of. I just need to push myself a bit and eventually I can get the life back that I let slip away with my weak will.
But after 11 years of wishing it was all in my head, of thinking that those silly rules about energy envelopes and aggressive rest therapy dont apply to me because they just make me pay too much attention to what are normal somatic sensations. Of using all sorts of tricks to distract myself from that horrible pain and weariness so I can bull my way through using sheer force of will to do what I want. After all the stubborn, wanton disregard for whatever my body tells me (Its normal to feel tired, right? But everybody else keeps going...), I end every year sicker than I was when I started it. My functional capacity decreases. I spend more time in bed (is that even possible?). Im on more medication.
Its just...I just so want them to be right.
(Cross-posted at Behind the Surface)
