The past few months have been hard. Due to chronic fatigue….which caused me to miss days of work… which increased my anxiety…. which decreased my sleep… which increased my stress… which led to more MS symptoms…. I had to quit my job near the end of November. Leaving my new job was just another loss to add to the tally of heartbreaks 2020 has brought me .
When I try to explain that I am unemployed at the moment and taking a month to rest, I can imagine people thinking to themselves, “that seems a bit dramatic”. And there are days where I get down on myself and feel the same way. I know I need to remember that I’m the only one experiencing what I experience everyday. I am the only one living in this body.
For as long as I can remember I have always felt the need to make others understand how I feel, which is part of why I’ve always been a complainer and I’ve always been an over-sharer. I did so in an effort to make people know where I was coming from. So they could quite literally “feel my pain” and understand . But that gets much harder when you’re living with a neurological disease that is invisible. I know people assume things about me and the choices I have been making, like staying home instead of working, taking long naps, and avoiding anything that over exerts myself. And as much as I wish it didn’t, it gets to me. I’ve always cared way too much about how people perceive me.
It’s hard to remain positive.
Even with all of my affirmations and reminders that I know what I’m doing, I have never felt more alone in this illness than I have the past month or so. I have had to be my own support system, check in with myself on how I’m doing and what I need to do to make things better. I know that a part of that is because of people’s judgments or assumptions. I feel like everyone must be thinking; she’s out of work, now she’s home all day with a cute puppy, things are fine. But they definitely aren’t. Quitting my job was incredibly hard. I miss the students so much already and felt like I was letting them and my team down. I’ve lost my sense of pride, and without that it is difficult to remain positive.
My social worker, who helps me manage the chaos that is my life, compared a diagnosis to the grief of losing someone close to you. At first, everyone offers their condolences and checks in on you and grieves with you. Then everyone returns to their normal life, while you continue living with your grief. Getting an MS diagnosis was similar. At first it’s new and scary for everyone in your life. Everyone says they’re thinking of you and continuously checking in on how you’re doing, then, people move on with their lives. But I continue to wake up every day without the pleasure of moving on, and instead, chronic pain and the anxiety over what my future with MS holds.
It’s been hard to remain positive, but I will end this post with some affirmations, because maybe they will help…
- I don’t need to explain myself or my choices to anyone- I am making the choices that are best for me and my health, and I don’t care what anyone else thinks.
- Things right now are tough, but I am tougher.
- There are people fighting bigger battles than I am and sticking it out.
- Nevertheless I will get though this difficult chapter, and every day I get to wake up in an able body and know that I have people who love me, so while I am currently a little bit mad at the world, I am also so very lucky for all that I have.