I get weird comments from people all the time regarding my health, or my life. I’ve had some people, for example, say to me that it looks like I have the perfect life, because I’m married and have pets, am in a stable environment, and am somewhat thin. The truth is, though, that this is anything but true. I struggle with constant PTSD and Dissociative symptoms throughout the day and depression, all of which tend to worsen in the evening to the point of where I get suicidal thinking almost every evening. I have issues paying attention to pretty much anything due to severe ADHD and the neurological symptoms of Lyme disease, and I have severe fatigue from Lyme, Epstein Barr, CMV, and Hashimoto’s, not to mention a slew of flu-like symptoms that I deal with on a regular basis like a sore throat. It sometimes feels to me like life is so hard that I just take it minute by minute to get through it. It’s not a lot of fun, but I hang in there the best that I can.
The other day my in-laws came over. My father in law asked me, “how are you dealing with the isolation of the pandemic?” I was totally caught off guard, because, I am no more isolated during the pandemic than I am during my regular life. In fact, I’m actually less isolated because my husband is working from home, plus a few people have actually stopped by to visit (while practicing social distancing), which is unusual for us. So, I just told him that I’m actually less isolated now, and he and his wife gave me weird looks. But, I was pretty floored that they don’t already know this about me. It just seems like, I’ve known them for over 5 years, do they not yet realize how much my health conditions affect my life? I guess they do not. It’s so frustrating for me to deal with this type of thing, and hurtful too.
Then my mother in law was talking about us potentially buying a house right now and moving, which is definitely something that I cannot do right now. She acted like moving was no big deal, but for me, especially with having both EBV and CMV reactivated right now, that would be a big deal. And I don’t know how to get through to people that this type of thing would be hard on me. I mean, having all these conditions put together is like living with a bad case of the flu but for 15 years straight, with people expecting you to function despite it. It gets pretty miserable.
I don’t know. So much of the time it feels like I’m just barely hanging onto life by a thread, you know.
So yesterday I was depressed all day after these interactions because I felt totally misunderstood. I didn’t get much of anything done and was ruminating all day and having flashbacks/repressed memories of rape. It sucked.
I’m hoping that today is better.
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