Curing myself of comparisonitis

July 7, 2015

My friend P seemed to think that I was doing “better” than she was health-wise, because I was going out of the house more, running more errands, doing more housekeeping, taking more walks, and just doing more. I can understand how she felt. After all, she saw me on my better days.

The funny thing is, while she envied the way I could go out more on a regular basis, I envied the way she could take trips. They weren’t huge trips and they involved a lot of rest before, after, and even during, not to mention a lot of painkillers, but she took them. She could fly, while I haven’t been on a plane in more than 4 years (I used to fly 3-5 times each year!) But of course, I heard about these trips, and didn’t see the pain she had to endure to make them happen.

P envied one part of my life and I envied one part of hers. Sort of how I envy that blogger I follow who has created a great business she can do part time from home, when her health allows. And maybe you envy friends or family or strangers on the internet who seem to have that thing in life that you wish you had.

But when you really think about it, who are you actually envying? Who’s life are you seeing? Who are you comparing yourself to? I can tell you: a fictional person. You’re only seeing part of the picture, and you’re assuming the rest.

P saw that I was doing more errands and more housework than her, but didn’t consider that it was necessary because I have no one else to do those things. She has a husband who helps with them. I saw that P could fly, but I didn’t consider that she feels pressure to see her family, while my family is local. We were each looking at just a sliver of the other’s life. That blogger I envied? She probably has her own problems, but I wouldn’t know because I only know what she puts out there for the world to see.

Just like how you only know about certain parts of my life. Now, it just so happens that I’m very open about things on this blog, so you happen to know quite a lot about me, but obviously I can’t tell you everything. It’s not possible. Besides, it’s easy to focus on the things you wish you had and forget about the wonderful things you have that I don’t. Maybe I leave the house more, but on the days I don’t, I’m completely alone, while you have a spouse or children who you get to be with. I’m not responsible for anyone else, but I also don’t get to have the joy of having children or pets. I’m not on any medications with horrible side effects, but I haven’t found any medications to help me. You see, there’s a flip side to every coin.

I’m not suggesting my life is any better or worse than anyone else’s, only that’s it’s mine and so it’s the only one I truly know, just like yours is the only life you truly know. An interesting new form of comparison has come about with the spread of social media. Before, we might have envied the sliver of life we saw a coworker, friend, or relative leading. We might have compared our lives to those of celebrities. But it ended there. Now we can compare our lives to those of countless ordinary people on the internet who we’ve never even met. It’s so easy to look up any topic and find thousands of people who are doing better at that sport, playing that instrument better, or leading a healthier life than we are. But where does that get us?

It just leads to us feeling worse about our own lives.

So I decided today that I won’t do any more comparing. Well ok, I’m only human. I’ll do more comparing. But I promised myself that when I find myself comparing my life to someone else’s, I’ll make myself stop. I’ll remind myself that their life isn’t perfect and that while they might be kicking ass in one area more than I am, I’m kicking ass in plenty of others.

And now I’m challenging to promise yourself the same thing. The next time you find yourself comparing your life to that of a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger online, stop, and remind yourself of all the ways your life kicks ass. Then move on to something that’s actually helpful and positive. I bet you’ll be glad you did.

What do you think? Do you suffer from comparisonitis, too? How do you feel about it?

6 Comments | Decisions, Expectations, Frustration, Limitations, Rants, Relationships: Family & Friends & Dating & Sex | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

No! I’m not using my health as an excuse!

June 8, 2015

Somehow I had a strange insight when I was a kid. Well, the insight wasn’t strange, but having it at such a young age is probably unusual. I realized that if I ever used my pain as an excuse to get out of doing something when it really wasn’t a problem, no one would ever trust me again.

Maybe that’s why I felt so defensive today when someone accused me of that.

Ok, I’ll be fair. She thought I was doing it in an honest way. We were talking about her upcoming move out of state, and I said that I’d love to try moving someplace for just 6 months. I’d store my things in my parents’ basement and rent a furnished apartment near the ocean in Maine for 6 months, just to see how I liked it. She loved the idea, and pushed me to consider it. I pointed out that I couldn’t even think about it until my health was better. She asked if I was using my health as an excuse because I was really just scared to try it.

So I went on the defensive. I don’t talk bluntly about my health problems, but I’d had a recent setback that she hadn’t known anything about, and I was in no mood to have anyone suggest that being away from my doctors for 6 months was a problem only in my own mind. I told her something that she probably hadn’t realized: that while none of my health problems are fatal, that’s because they’re not fatal with proper treatment. But without proper treatment, yes, they could kill me. Ok, I didn’t happen to mention that death would take years, maybe decades, but that’s beside the point, right? And in the meantime, things could get awfully bad.

I’ll admit, I’m more fearful than I used to be. I used to jump at chances. Now, I’m weary. But who can blame me? So yes, I don’t take as many chances as maybe I could, or should. But then again, I take a lot of small risks on a regular basis, so who’s to say what’s right?

As for moving away for 6 months, I know that’s a risk I shouldn’t take. I don’t have a single doubt in my mind. What if I’d been away a few weeks ago when things went bad? I wouldn’t have gotten my blood work done, which means I wouldn’t have known to adjust my thyroid meds. I was having horrible symptoms of adrenal insufficiency, but I didn’t realize it until my naturopath pointed it out. My pulse was low, but I hadn’t checked it. My blood pressure was so low that she couldn’t even hear it. She tried three times. A machine wouldn’t have been able to read it either, so I wouldn’t have known about that. And if I was in Maine, I wouldn’t have visited my naturopath and started on folate (which I should have done a while ago, to be honest.) I would have gotten worse and worse until I couldn’t properly care for myself. Eventually, my parents would have had to come get me and take me to their house. I would have been bedridden. Now, I’m already seeing a bit of recovery. If I hadn’t caught it early, recovery could have taken months or years. So I have no doubt.

Even so, it sucks to have my judgment questioned. I know it’s hard for health people to understand this. As I pointed out to my friend, we’re taught that when you get sick, you take medicine and then you’re better. But for some of us it doesn’t work that way. We take the medicine and we stay sick. Sometimes we get even sicker. If we’re lucky, we stabilize. That’s what happened to me, I stabilized. Then that went to hell. I’ll probably never be stable. I may never be able to move away from my doctors for 6 months. I’m ok with that. I just need my support network to be ok with it, too.

2 Comments | Decisions, Educating, Fatigue, Frustration, Insensitive, Limitations, Medication, Pain, Rants, Support, Symptoms | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

I’m allowed to wallow in self-pity

May 28, 2015

I resent the idea that I should never spend a few days feeling sorry for myself. I see no reason why I shouldn’t be able to do that without judgement.

First, I’ll say that this is how I feel about my own self-pity. It’s different for everyone. I make no judgement on you just like I want no one else to make a judgement on me.

I set a few rules for myself. If I ever seriously consider suicide, I need to seek help. If it lasts more than 3 days, I need to pull my way out of it. If it leads to me not taking proper care of my health in a way that will have effects that last beyond those few days, I need to stop. I need to not feel bad or guilty about it. I need to let myself have my feelings.

That’s it. Those are my only rules.

Yesterday was one of those days. I was having pain in a new joint. Every 3-5 years this happens, and the pain is permanent. A long time ago I stopped hoping it wouldn’t be. So when I felt that all-new-yet-totally-familiar pain, I knew exactly what it was. And I was devastated. On top of that, it’s been humid lately, which means I just feel shitty in general. My pain is worse, my fatigue is worse, it’s all terrible.

Just 2 hours after the pain started I was sitting in my naturopath’s office describing it. The timing of that appointment was a tough coincidence. I started crying. One thing led to another, and she started offering me a homeopathic remedy to calm me down. She was careful with her words. She never mentioned “anxiety” or “depression” or anything similar, but obviously that’s what we were talking about.

Now, I understand why she wanted to calm me down. My adrenals are struggling. My pulse was low. My blood pressure, which is normally low, was so low that she couldn’t even get a reading after three tries. It wasn’t good. Crying like that would only make my adrenals worse. I get that.

But I also felt judged. Maybe it was all in my head. Maybe not. But that’s how I felt. The way she talked about my need to calm down and not lose hope didn’t sit right with me. And I resented it. Because I had every reason to feel bad.

Most days, I’m pretty happy and cheerful. On the bad days I’m less so. Occasionally I’m in a bitchy mood, but not too often. But every now and then, I just need a day or two of wallowing in self-pity. I’m dealing with life-long pain, fatigue, and disability. I spend hours every day dealing with my health in one way or another. My social life is planned around medical appointments, timing of medication, and how I think the weather will make me feel on any given day, among a dozen other things. Dates are too difficult to be fun. Making new friends feels like climbing a mountain, because they just don’t understand my limitations. I will be dealing with for this the rest of my life. It will most likely get worse over time, not better. I can’t work, and I can’t afford to live without a job. I don’t have the money to move to a nicer apartment, to get a dog, or to go to the theater. Technically I don’t have the money to pay my electric bill right now, either. I can no longer travel. I miss my friends who live farther away. My memory sucks. I have trouble remembering big events in my life, what I did last week, and the plot of the book I’ve been reading. I spend hours dealing with doctors, insurance companies, and pharmacies. I sit around the house wanting to be productive and get things done, and I just can’t do it.

Oh, and by the way, I also happen to feel like absolute shit.

So I give myself a few days to feel crappy. I feel sorry for myself. I feel like none of the treatments that I work so hard on will ever help me improve. I cry if I want to, I don’t cry if I don’t want to. I avoid going out. I avoid talking on the phone. I feel pissed off at the doctors, at my body, at the world. My anger and bitterness are so strong, you can practically see them vibrating off of me.

And that’s ok. I see absolutely nothing wrong with it. I know it won’t last. I just need to get it out of my system. I need to have a few cumulative weeks every year where I feel this way so that the rest of the time I don’t. That’s what works for me. And if it bothers others, well, then they need to deal with that themselves. They can’t put it on me. Because that’s not my problem. I have enough problems of my own to deal with, as it turns out.

4 Comments | Decisions, Expectations, Fatigue, Frustration, Healthcare, Insensitive, Isolation, Limitations, Pain, Rants, Support, Symptoms, Unpredictable | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

I make no apologies

May 19, 2015

Yesterday I wrote about how my entire personality changed because of my need to stand up for myself in medical situations. I want to be clear about one thing: I make no apologies for how I act.

Sometimes I’m wrong. Sometimes I screw up. I’m human, so of course I do things wrong. I try to take ownership and apologize when I’m at fault. Sometimes I screw that up, too, but I do my best. I’m not talking here about any of those things. I’m talking about medical situations where I’m pushy.

Like many of you, I was taught to be apologetic when I push too hard, but I only apologize when I truly cross a line. The rest of the time, I do what I need to do without apology, because if I apologize, then it encourages their low standards.

A couple years ago I had an appointment with a specialist. I waited almost 6 months for the appointment, but it was worth it so that I could see this particular doctor. When I finally showed up, I was taken in 30 minutes late to meet with someone else. My doctor was out and instead of calling and asking if I’d like to reschedule, they had me meet with this one. He was terrible. He said they couldn’t help me and suggested a psychologist. Before I left, I got the name of the person in charge. I called her and expressed my displeasure at the long wait and not being able to see the doctor I had been desperate to see. I was very strong in my expression of displeasure. I was not mean or nasty, I did not swear, but I was strong. Within a week she got me an appointment to see that doctor. Instead of the usual 15 minutes, he spent a full hour with me. Unlike the other, he discussed options, asked my opinion, took my view serious, and ran tests. He found that I had a serious but treatable problem. I called back the woman in charge, told her how well things went, and thanked her profusely. I certainly never apologized.

I asked my doctor to test me for lactose intolerance. He said there was no test for it, but that I should keep a food and symptom journal and he’d send it to a nutritionist. We did that, and he told me that nutritionist said I’m not lactose intolerant and I should just avoid foods that bother me. It didn’t feel right, but I went along with him. After 20 years of frequent diarrhea, nausea, cramping, and pain so bad that I literally wanted to die, I found out that I had Celiac Disease. Last year I was going through old medical records and found the letter the nutritionist had sent back to him. She said that I didn’t appear to be lactose intolerant but that something was definitely wrong and I should see her. I’ve been very sorry about that – sorry that I didn’t push for better treatment.

I have dozens, probably hundreds, of stories like these. I bet you do, too. I regret the times I didn’t stand up for myself but I haven’t once regretted the times that I did. So I’ll make no apologies. And if anyone has a problem with that, too bad for them.

P.S. If I sound defensive and bitter, you can imagine why.

Now it’s your turn. Have you had to be pushy in order to stand up for yourself? Did you regret doing it? Did you regret not doing it? Share one or two of your favorite stories in the comments!

3 Comments | Decisions, Expectations, Frustration, Gastrointestinal, Healthcare, Limitations, Medication, Milestones, Pain, Rants, Raves, Symptoms | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

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