Relatable rant…I hope

I write today out of exhaustion. Frustration. Misunderstanding. Hypocrisy.

This post will be blunt. There will be very forward statements made and I’m warning you that if you can’t handle this, you may want to stop reading right now.

To date, I have been diagnosed BY MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS (in no particular order) with the following:
Depression
Anxiety
Fibromyalgia
Endometriosis
Potential PCOS
Asthma
Hypoglycemia
Chronic migraines
Chronic nerve pain that is separate from my fibromyalgia
Carpal tunnel in my right wrist from my break
IBS with potential IBD in my colon but I’m not strong enough to endure those tests again

I’m sure there’s more, there’s always more, but those are the ones that come to mind.

I have spent weeks fighting the nay-sayers. I haven’t slept in five days. Every time I doze off, I wake up screaming and with an inability to move from the pain. I’m trying to pack and be able to get my apartment ready for the move and the constant bending up and down is killing me.

Truthfully, I feel like I’m being killed from the inside out and there’s not a damn thing that anyone can or wants to do about it.

A few weeks ago, my panic attacks came back. There was no trigger, but I was back to hyperventilating. Back to hiding in a small space where I felt safe and shaking like I was having convulsions. I couldn’t let my boyfriend in the room to help. No one could help. The space just kept getting smaller and I just had to self-soothe my way through the end of the attack. But what do I know? That was just me being dramatic, right? I don’t need to go see my counseling PA about that at all because it will pass and adding more chemicals to the mix will surely make things worse.

Until I started having them 3 times a day and I was bashing my head into a wall during the attack. Still think I don’t need help?

How about the depression that can be so crippling without the assistance of the chemical to balance my brain back out, I have no desire to do anything. I cry. I fight. I’m mean. I’m cranky. And I have to fight demons that tell me I’m not good enough and that I’ll never be good enough for this world.

Depression is a chemical imbalance in my brain. It is hereditary. You are not crazy with a diagnosis with depression — you have a CHEMICAL IMBALANCE AND IT IS OKAY TO SAY THAY YOU NEED HELP. I cannot will my chemicals to get better. I cannot pray my way out of this. I have to bite down, claw, scream and cry my way to survive. But what do I know? I only live in my body and feel how WRONG it is without medication. I only fight the demons that encourage self-harm and suicide when I’m not on these medications helping me. I know nothing of what’s best for me. The cymbalta must be poison because it makes me feel like a normal human being instead of a mopey, emotional, raging teenager.

The medicine for my endometriosis, continuous birth control to stop the growth of the tissue, is one of the only medications that doesn’t get fought. Why? WHY? Because you saw me vomiting from pain? Because I was forced to CRAWL when the pain was so bad I couldn’t remove myself from the fetal position? Why is this one of the only medications that’s OK but has some of the riskiest side effects and is the medication most likely to interact with everything else? Why?

I’m tired. I’m frustrated but I am too exhausted to continue to fight the same battle every six months or less to be bullied anymore.

Listen to me: a daughter, a sister, a best friend, a girlfriend, a granddaughter, a niece, a neighbor, a HUMAN BEING–no one should have to live like this. No one. But instead of looking at the cross that I continue to bear, you are looking at Calvary and not offering any way to carry my cross for me when I am too weak to get from point A to point B.

I contemplated buying diapers, in all humility, yesterday because that’s how much of a burden it is to walk 3 feet to my bathroom.

I laid on the bathroom floor and cried when my shoulder and elbow joints on both arms were so swollen, I couldn’t reach around to give myself a suppository to stop vomiting.

It’s my hope that some day there will be understanding. That some day, society will realize the pain that we manage WITHOUT narcotic pain relief because our doctors, like you, believe we are seekers.

I’ll tell you what we seek. Pain free life. The ability to function without screaming or crying. The ability to do whatever we want, whenever we want, without repercussions and judgment. We seek freedom from the bodies that hold us prisoner.

So thank you for telling us that we’re poisoning ourselves. Thank you for telling us, however so politely, that I’m fat and that’s the source of all of my problems. Thank you for the reminder of why I feel I need some of this medication because having someone you love tell you you’re overweight and that’s the problem is JUST what we need to hear when we’re flaring.

Whatever happened to, “I’m sorry. I don’t understand what you’re going through but how can I help?”

When did “maybe you need to lose some weight” become an okay substitute?

I rarely eat because I’m so nauseous but my eating is the cause of my pain.

Thank you for your support. Truly, it means the world to me.

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