I’ve reached a point in my life where exhaustion has exceeded desire. My body hurts, more so than that, I am in pain, intense physical pain. I feel like my mind is slipping, I am having cognitive issues that are a bit scary to me. I am fighting the “why bother?” mode with everything I’ve got, trying to push it into the arena of gratitude or thankfulness , an approach that has been successful through the many difficulties I’ve endured. I often wonder, how do others get through what they do? What carries them when they, too, come to a point of kaplunk?
Invisible illnesses suck. It probably doesn’t help that I “put on a happy, put on a happy, put on a happy face!” when inside I want to run to my bed, hide, and never see sunlight again.
I remember watching an interview with a survivor of the Holocaust, and another having been a prisoner of war for 3 or more years. I was enthralled with their words, their ability to smile, to fully grasp the beauty of the moment and with a gracefulness that I perhaps will never exhibit. Maybe I’m just being hard on myself, not giving myself enough credit… but then again, I’ve never survived the horrifying experiences that they have. To live entrapped in the palm of evil, then able to release it all, forgive and accept the things most of us cannot even fathom, and to go on to live happy, successful lives. WOW!
I forgive others for me. It sets me free from all the crap that begrudgment carries with it. I try to live life one day at a time and walk through it with a sense of pride, dignity and gratitude. Today I feel very little of all. Today I am too tired and drained to even think about the trek to the cottage of contentment, or the castle of gratitude. The destination there seems impossible, seems too far away. It’s a choice, an attitude, an option. It’s a ticket to peace, serenity, to rest… If you are there, would you mind throwing me down a lift? a tow? Remind me how our situations may not change, but when our attitudes do, everything else changes, and usually for the best? Remind me that even flowers and plants lie dormant under mounds of heavy snow, and yet come spring, the majority of them do reappear, and I enjoy watching them find their way through the dirt to sunlight. I enjoy looking at how bright and refreshing they look, and I bask in the pleasure of watching them grow daily, am mesmerized with how they can change and progress so quickly following rain. When their buds start to develop and you know blooming is just around the corner, it is a joy to watch them blossom.
Now I’m thinking about how short of blossom time some of them have. Within days you will find their petals on the ground, all that remains is their stem. Rain now beats hard on its stature, puddles around and floods their roots. In the blink of an eye, really, they are gone for another year. How quickly winter blankets the ground and brings with it the most beautiful display of earth tones, or, depending on your emotional or physical perspective, drab, sad and cold.
I rarely share on this topic, I am going to today. In 1995 I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and myofacial pain syndrome. I went to counseling to learn how to “adjust” to this new way of life..combatting daily pain, working around the many problems that come wrapped within this diagnosis. The first thing I decided was that I didn’t want to become “Donna Fibromyalgia Scully”… so I shared with close family and friends, at the time employment, which I later left because I couldn’t do the hours or work on a consistent basis, and I went on about my life.
Also in my lifes time I have battled three clinical depressions, three hospitalizations for such. Ever vigilant of the necessity of keeping busy, active, not to isolate, I found that self employment allowed me the flexibility of resting and working around my best days. This was fine when I had a partner, a second income, since I’ve been single (7 years) I have been unable to meet my monthly bills, and since breast cancer I have lost more time (thus no pay) than I care to remember putting me further in the hole. I owe family and friends because I was too stubborn, or too proud, or too dumb to say “I surrender”.
The recent surgery to my hand, a simple surgery compared to many I have had, but it has triggered in me a fibromyalgia flareup that isn’t going away. I have been miserable. I am miserable. This is worsening my situational depression to what I fear is clinical. In short, I made it through all the surgeries and daunting experience of breast reconstructions, through grieving my own BRCA2+ status, cancer diagnosis, and many other difficult draining things but I crashed into a wall, and I’m laying in a corner in a heap wondering, what the hell do I do now?
I feel like shit. I have no fight left in me. I just want to cover myself up and die. Yes, that is how I feel. As dramatic as that sounds, this is where I am at and have been for a couple of weeks. The one who chose naps over pain meds, the one who withheld information, or only wrote when I felt like I had something good to say, is talking… and it isn’t pretty.
Yes, I am seeing a Dr for this. Yes I know if I can hold out til dawn, yada yada yada. I’m just so exhausted and drained that I don’t care anymore.
If you pray and you would be so kind as to drop a prayer in for me, I would appreciate it. I seek not pity, but a passing of this difficult time. In the past 2 months I’ve had the hives three times, I’ve had colds, flus, just recently ear infection and when I had my stitches out Friday, an infection in my hand. My body is saying enough, my mind follows behind.
I surely hope this too shall pass and soon. Feeling like this is a dramatic post, and I despise drama… but this is where I am today…… signed by the dramatic and doomed donna