One thing my therapist is helping me realize is that many of the things I do for my health are actually choices on my part. I often feel trapped, like I have no options, but that’s actually not true.
Take the party I went to recently. I put on my sexy new dress: tight, red, showing cleavage, and making me look hot. This is the sexiest dress I’ve owned, and I didn’t want to ruin the effect by wearing my big, bulky knee braces. So I made a choice: I didn’t wear them.
The dress I wore with the knee braces I didn’t
I wear those knee braces every time I leave the house, but since I knew I wouldn’t be doing much walking, what if this time I didn’t? What’s the worst that would happen?
Well, long term I could do permanent damage by wearing away cartilage, but that wouldn’t be an issue for one evening. I would be in pain, but maybe that would be ok? I know the pain, and it would be manageable. I should still be able to drive home, which is the deal-breaker for me.
So I did it. I brought the braces with me, just in case, but I left them in the car. I wore cute sandals with my orthodics in them. The dress calls for heels, but I knew that level of pain wouldn’t be worthwhile. I’m better off in sneakers, but really didn’t want to do that. I wanted to look good, damn it!
I was in a lot of pain for the first part of the party. Eventually, though, I found a good balance between sitting and standing. It meant sometimes sitting when I would rather stand, but that happens a lot even when I wear the knee braces.
But it also meant that I felt good about the way I looked. I kept forgetting that I was “passing” as healthy, so when I asked a guy out on a date and he said yes, he didn’t know about my health issues. When I showed up to our date in a cute dress and knee braces, I had to explain. I wasn’t doing it to pass, though. I wasn’t trying to hide my health problems. No, I was simply trying to look good in my new dress. And what’s so bad about that?
It is a privilege that I was able to make that choice. I know that some day I might not be able to. But somewhere in the midst of everything, I realized something important: I wasn’t simply choosing to not wear my knee braces. I was choosing to boost my emotional health at the cost of my physical health. That was the true choice that I made.
Within two days my knee pain levels had returned to normal, but the memory of how I felt all dressed up has stayed with me. It’s spring now, and even though I wear skirts and dresses almost every day, I will be wearing my knee braces whenever I go out. That, too, is a choice that I am making. The thing I have to remember, though, is that it is a choice. I am choosing whether or not to do the thing that is best for my physical health. And occasionally, it best not to do that thing, and to give my mental health a boost instead.
Chronic Rants 