Chronic Diva

Those of you who follow me on Twitter or Instagram probably have an idea of how the last two weeks has been for me. It hasn’t been great and I have not done a very good job at practicing what I blog either. I think this is a very harsh but honest reality for all of us struggling with chronic pain/illness, or any one with ongoing health struggles. As a writer and avid reader, I see so many good and great ideas about how to stay positive, stay motivated and strive to live the best life we can amidst the struggle of our illness, but when you are caught in the very real pain and very real, deluge of symptoms that you feel like you are drowning, it’s not so easy to keep those mantras alive in your head or remember those 7 Fantastic Tips, because all you want is to melt into your bed, pull the covers up over your face and just cry.

I get upset when people call it “Feeling sorry for yourself,” or having a “Pity Party,” or something equally insensitive, because sometimes we need to just cry, scream and rail against the world. We need to because it helps us in the end, get back up and face it all over again. I feel that in some ways it is a metamorphosis, maybe because I have a thing for butterflies and have several tattoos of butterflies, but the life cycle of a butterfly signifies change and I feel that each time we fall, and break down and cry and scream we are changing. If you get stuck in that phase it is obviously not good, but if you let it out and dust yourself off and continue the tough march onward, I think it does help you. Sometimes through tears we find a way to push ourselves forward again. It’s healing.

Now, all that being said I am working on my blog post and will make every effort to get it out by Sunday, which seems to be my personal deadline for my blog. My idea is a series of posts over Women and Chronic Pain. I want to discuss how doctors relate to us differently than men, I want to talk about why women feel the need to apologize for being sick, whether we need to explain ourselves at all. I often find myself in this position where I feel this need to explain myself to people about my illness; I find myself searching for ways to help them understand when in fact, will they ever really understand? I mean I don’t think those closest to me really understand so how can strangers or just acquaintances? So stay tuned, I have not fallen off the grid and I am fighting