Chronic Rants

When the doctor told me I needed to avoid stress because of my autoimmune disease, I laughed to myself. If it was that easy, wouldn’t everyone do it?

But over the years I learned how to stress out less. I’m still Type A. I’m still controlling, But I managed it. I get stressed out in more reasonable ways. It doesn’t feel as extreme as it used to, or last very long. I almost never lose sleep.

Until this month.

The last few weeks have been really rough. I have been struggling a lot. And finally yesterday, I just felt so frustrated by it all. I wasn’t sure what to do. I called a friend who also has chronic illness, because I felt stuck. I wanted to stay home and rest and be alone. But I had already done that several times in the last week and it didn’t help. So was it fair to cancel plans with a new friend?

She helped me realize that I did need to stay home and take care of myself. And that while spending a day watching tv and crocheting will help me when I’m physically exhausted, it’s not enough for my current anxiety and stress. Emotional issues require a different approach.

She suggested a journaling exercise: write for 10 minutes without stopping. Make it a stream-of-consciousness writing exercise, and do it for 4 days. The key is not to write about *what* is causing me stress but to write about *how* it makes me feel. That’s harder. I’m not good at that.

But the minute we hung up the phone, I set my timing and got started.

Within a few minutes I was crying. It was wonderful! You see, my problem is that I have gotten so good at compartmentalizing my feelings when I need to, that I’m doing it even when I shouldn’t. Like right now. For the past week I have felt like I needed to cry, but I couldn’t. I knew it would help me feel better, but I couldn’t do it. I tried cutting onions. I shed some tears, but it wasn’t a real cry. I watched a sad movie. Again, I shed tears, but it wasn’t the sobfest that I really needed. It wasn’t enough.

But the journaling exercise got me to cry. Then I got in the shower and cried more. Seriously cried. It didn’t last long, but I had tears streaming down my face and snot running out of my nose and it felt good. Cleansing.

I need to cry more. Maybe today’s journaling will help. Maybe not. But it’s worth a try.

We’re taught not to cry. Crying is bad. Not crying shows strength. I am proud of the fact that I almost never cry. I feel embarrassed when I do cry. But why? It’s a natural expression of emotions. What’s wrong with that?

My health issues also bring up a lot of negative feelings. I usually deal with them by setting them aside while they’re raw, then dealing with them a bit later when they aren’t quite as strong. That works for me.

The problem is that it stopped working. At least in this case. A few weeks ago my girlfriend and I broke up. We weren’t together long, which was part of the problem: it made me feel like I didn’t have the right to be upset. But I was. This relationship was different. I thought it would last a long time. So did she. The breakup itself isn’t the point of the story, though; the point is that I didn’t mourn. We broke up at night, and I called my mom and cried. The next day I had a medical appointment in the morning. On the drive there I wanted to cry but I stopped myself, because I didn’t want to be an emotional wreck during the appointment. I didn’t want to be distracted. By the time I got home, I was too tired to deal with my emotions. The next day I had another appointment. Again, in the car I almost cried, but I stopped myself.

And then that was it. I never really cried. I just went on with my life. I didn’t talk about it much with friends. What was the point? The breakup was no one’s fault. I wasn’t mad at her. I missed her, but talking wouldn’t help, right? The thing is, pushing aside my feelings just meant that I felt fine at the time, and now it’s caught up with me. Now I’m stressed out and anxious.

But it took yesterday for me to figure that out. I thought I was stressed about other things. I knew my response to them was way out of proportion, though. I wasn’t sleeping well. I was anxious a lot. I was overwhelmed. I was yelling at people. What was wrong with me?

What was wrong was that I wasn’t dealing with things. I was pushing them aside.

And as if that wasn’t enough, I have autoimmune disease. Thankfully, I didn’t get sick! But it was definitely a strain on my adrenals, and I had to increase the dose of adrenal supplement that I was trying to decrease. There has definitely been a physical toll.

I have a pretty good handle, all things considered, on managing my physical symptoms. I have had decades to figure that out. But when it comes to emotions, I have to unlearn years of bad habits. I have to learn how to stop hiding from my feelings and to let myself feel them. I have to ignore the daily messaging from society that says crying is bad, being sad is bad. It’s ok to not be the happy, cheerful poster-lady of chronic illness. It’s ok to be sad, stressed, anxious, or whatever else. I just have to stop hiding from it.

So that’s my lesson for this week. It’s taken me far too long to learn it. Before long I’m sure I’ll be learning some other lesson. But for now I am focusing on this one. Because I’m still sad, and I’m still learning.

Now it’s time to go do my stream-of-consciousness journaling again. Hopefully I’ll cry.