My chronic illness posts (one and two) weren't very popular, and that's okay. I honestly didn't expect them to be. But here's the crux of those posts; the reason that I felt like posting them was so important.
This is what I really want to ask everyone about all of my medical (physical and mental/emotional) issues:
Don't you think that I hate them too?
Don't you think that I would love to see all of the people and do all of the things all of the time?
Don't you think that I'd rather hang out with you (as planned) than attempt to sleep while feeling nauseous and keep getting up to sit on the toilet for ridiculous amounts of time with stomach cramps?
Don't you think that I'd rather spend time with all of the people that we drove two days to see instead of being shut up at my friend's apartment attempting to get some rest so that I might end up feeling well enough to be able to spend at least a teensy bit of time with them? We sure didn't just exhaust all of our funds and travel for a ridiculous amount of time so that I could be sick and make not only the traveling take way longer, but also make it so that we couldn't do nearly as much as we'd like to be able to once we got there.
Don't you think I'd actually like to be a productive human that gets up at a decent time and gets things done with time to spare to have fun?
Don't you think I'd rather be fit and healthy instead of getting light-headed and having labored breathing because I expended the energy to take a shower?
Don't you think that I feel awful for being late all of the time?
Don't you think that I wonder how I even have friends when I constantly have to cancel or push back plans because I feel too sick or too exhausted to follow through?
Don't you think that I'm sick of my life being a daily Russian roulette of whether or not I'll actually manage to do a single productive thing or not that day?
Don't you think that I hate constantly having to wonder how sick I'm going to feel tomorrow? Or how much my PTSD is going to ruin not only my day, but the day of everyone that depends on me?
Don't you think that I'd like to be able to live a normal life where I can set plans and not have to wonder if I'll actually manage to do them this time?
Don't you think that I'd like to not have to make bargains with God where I literally say that "I'll feel awful for every second of the day tomorrow if that means that I can feel well enough the next day to make it to and through all three hours of church on Sunday?"
Don't you think that I don't feel horrible each time I'm up late having a panic attack because I know that that means that I'm going to be too sick and tired to do anything the next day? Regardless of whether it's something that I WANT to do or not.
Don't you think that I hate every second of being in bed or sobbing all over my husband instead of going out and living my life?
Don't you think that I hate seeing my to-do list remain undone for days, weeks, months on end because I couldn't do any of them today because I felt too sick?
Don't you think that I hate that I try so hard every single day to be better and fail over and over again?
Don't you think that I'd love to be able to live my life like a regular, functional, healthy human being?
Because I do.
So please cut me some slack.
You don't know how hard it was for me to show up at all. You don't know how frustrated I got for being late or for having to bail out on plans because I physically can't handle them right now, no matter how excited I may have been for weeks to do them.
You don't know how dang hard I try every single moment of my life to be better. How often even doing the bare minimum is absolutely exhausting. How tired I am of "celebrating the small victories" when sometimes a win for me is getting out of bed, eating, and then brushing my teeth before getting back in bed for the rest of the day.
You don't know that I don't wait until I feel "good" to do things. I wait until it's barely tolerable and then I go and do it while still nauseous and exhausted. And I slap a smile on my face because I'm just happy to be out of the house, even if I still feel fairly horrid.
You don't feel the despair of wanting to be a good wife, student, friend, sister, daughter, employee, ward member, etc. and feeling like I'll never, ever be able to consistently be ANY of those things.
So before you say "surprise surprise, she's not coming", "she's going to be late", "she's being so inconsiderate/selfish" please ask yourself "Don't you think that she feels bad enough about the situation as it is?"
Because I can guarantee you that I do.
*Phew*
I typed all of the above up on my phone as we were driving back home from Rexburg. It was a really rough trip on me physically and emotionally for various reasons that I'm not going to get into right now. But my last night there spurred this post. It brought up fears that have been swirling around inside of me for as long as I can remember, and especially right now as I start a new life in Ohio.
You see, my whole life, I've worried about what other people think of me. I think most people do.
But for me, it hasn't just been whether people think that I'm pretty or not or talented enough or whatever (although I've had plenty of those worries too). No, my whole life, I've worried about what people would think of how my chronic illnesses effect my life.
In a previous post, I talked about how I always struggled to make and keep friends. I then went on to talk about some of the reasons that it was so hard for me. Though I didn't delve much into it in that post, I have always felt that most of it revolved around my mental and physical health. Making friends has always been a scary venture for me because I feel like, even now, there is always a small part of me that is waiting for myself to become too much for people. Waiting for them to realize that I'm too sad, too sick, too messed up to keep being friends with.
I remember talking to at least one companion on my mission about being terrified that no one would ever want to marry me because my medical stuff is just too much to handle.
And that is a fear that I've had my whole life.
Obviously I've found someone that decided to take on the challenge of dealing with my messy life. And I am so, SO incredibly, indescribably grateful for him. And yet, those fears of pushing people away, of being too much to handle, are still very much there.
Moving to Ohio has been extremely scary for me for a multitude of reasons. But the one that I've struggled with the most is my fear of rejection.
In Rexburg, I have been so blessed to have made so many wonderful, supportive friends. People who have been understanding of my many, many medical problems, both physical and mental. Leaving those people has been terrifying in all honesty. After spending my whole life in fear of rejection, in fear of losing every person that I ever care about, leaving the people who finally stuck around has been awful. Contemplating trying to find a group of people like that again has been very taxing.
I was very blessed to be able to make it through all of the craziness of this summer. Driving from Rexburg to Ohio, Ohio to New York, then to Pennsylvania, then back to OH, then back to PA, then back to OH, then getting married, then back to PA, then on to the honeymoon in NY, and then finally starting to settle in Ohio until we drove all the way to Rexburg and back.
My health got me through the wedding and first two receptions.
The honeymoon was rough because my body was spent from all of the traveling and stress. And then I got a cold halfway through. I still thoroughly enjoyed it simply because I got to spend a few days of interrupted time with my amazing new husband, but it was still clear that my body was done being nice to me.
The few weeks that we had between the honeymoon and our trip to Rexburg has been really hard on me, both physically and emotionally.
People keep asking me how married life is and I struggle to know what to say. Because Jonathan makes me happier than I've been capable of being in about two years. But I also am majorly struggling.
Our financial situation is awful. Jonathan has been having to work SO much just to keep us afloat. We don't have our own place yet. My physical health has dive-bombed again after being so miraculously nice to me over the summer. This means that while my husband works all day, I struggle to get out of bed for longer than an hour or two at a time. I have been feeling so incredibly useless. I want so badly to be able to help contribute to our marriage more; to be able to get a job and help make money. Or at least to be able to better support my husband in all that he does for me every day.
But I feel like I'm trying to keep my head above water in the ocean.
During a tsunami.
While wearing a denim dress.
Needless to say, feeling sick- and thus useless -all of the time has not been great for my mental health. I have had so many anxiety/panic attacks over the last few weeks. I am trying so hard to stay afloat; to "get better" so that I can be a contributing member of society. And in the midst of all of that, there is the fear of rejection from those around me. I don't really know anyone here yet, but I'm afraid to get to know people because I don't want them to see how broken I am. I don't want them to know that I am struggling so much and so deeply. I want people to see why Jonathan married me, but I don't even fully understand why he did.
Why would anyone want to deal with this- with me -all of the time for the rest of forever? Why would anyone want to be married to someone who is just a bump on a log most of the time? Unable to contribute financially or otherwise to supporting our family? Why would anyone be willing to put up with multiple panic attacks a week? And constant weakness and fatigue?
How am I supposed to prove to anyone else that Jonathan made a good choice in marrying me if I can't even see how it possibly could have been a good choice?
I am so afraid of letting the people here see how broken I am. How much I sleep because I'm nauseous and lightheaded, how much I sob uncontrollably, how much I often feel like the shell of a person instead of a functioning human being.
I want to make friends, but I don't want people to know who I really am. Because I'm afraid that if they do, they'll turn tail and book it away as fast as they can.
You would think that the positive experience that I've had with my Rexburg friends would help to calm those fears, but it doesn't. Instead I'm not only afraid of not being able to make meaningful, lasting connections here; I'm also afraid of losing the friendships that I have in Idaho. It's just this never ending cycle of fear, and sickness, and sadness.
With all of that being said, I do have a radiant beam of sunshine in my life that keeps me going each and every day:
My husband.
Jonathan is the one person that I am always certain loves me and wants me in his life. It doesn't matter if I don't understand why he does, if I feel that I don't deserve it, or that I'm struggling to love myself. No matter how I feel about myself at any given moment, I know without a doubt that Jonathan thinks that I'm amazing, beautiful, and worthwhile.
I had the worst panic attack yet last night. Sobbing uncontrollably on the floor, telling God that I don't know how to keep doing this, feeling like some loathsome creature that doesn't deserve the love that He, my husband, and my friends and family give to me. It was terrible, to say the very least. And yet, no matter how completely, horridly awful I felt about myself and my situation, I never once doubted that God loves me, knows what He's doing, and wouldn't put me through a single moment of pain that would not help me.
I also never once doubted that Jonathan actually does like being married to me for some reason. That he really does see so much good in me. And let me tell you, the way my brain has been beating on me, the fact that I never doubt my husband's love and devotion to me is one of the biggest miracles of my entire life.
After feeling rejected so much in my life- after feeling over and over again like I am letting everyone down, after being beaten down by my past fiance, who was supposed to be the one that never made me feel like I wasn't good enough -I know that I have one person that isn't going anywhere.
So when people ask me how married life is, it's hard to say. Because it is excruciating. Not because of my husband, but because of everything else. But it is also full of love and joy. Not because of everything else, but because of my husband.
I wish that I didn't feel like I constantly just want to take people by the shoulders and try to explain to them why I am the way that I am. I wish that I didn't live in constant fear of what others will think of me because of everything that I'm struggling with. I wish that I didn't always have thoughts of "Don't you think that I'm not already being hard enough on myself?" But I am also so blessed to know that even if no one else understands- even if no one else can fully comprehend the agony that I go through each day as I try to live a simple, functional life -one person does.
I don't ever have to ask Heavenly Father "Don't you think?" Because He knows. And because He knows, He's sent me the biggest blessing that I could ever receive; my husband.
And so no matter how defeated I feel, no matter how much all of this hurts sometimes, I know that I have to keep going. I can't just scream "Don't you think?!" to everyone and resign myself to a life of being misunderstood.
No matter how many panic attacks I have or how many days I struggle to even work up the energy and motivation to get up and brush my teeth before heading back to bed, I know that all of this is happening for a reason. I don't know why. I don't know when it's going to get easier. I don't know when I'll start consistently feeling "okay" again. But I know that I will.
Because even if no one else can fully understand what I'm going through, God does. And that's enough.
Don't you think?
PS- I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone that has stuck around. I know that I'm not always very easy to deal with. I know that being close to me means having to cut me a lot of slack, as well as having to pick up a lot of slack for me. I know that I can be very difficult to handle. So thank you for loving me anyway. Thank you for seeing the good in me even when all I can see is the bad. Thank you for wanting to be in my life even when sometimes all I want is to find a different one that's not so painful.
Thank you for trying to understand where I'm at. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for forgiving me for the many, many times I've had to bail on you because of my health.
It honestly means the world to me.
I struggle to remember sometimes that there actually are a lot of people that think that I'm enough. It's hard to believe that when I don't feel like I'm enough. When I sometimes feel like I never will be.
So thank you.
