There’s a threshold for awful beyond which the human mind cannot sustain itself. I have found in the last year, when things have pushed beyond the ordinary limits of unpleasant, I have suddenly boomeranged into a more sustainable state of self-aware denial. I have mastered a whole arsenal of self-defense mechanisms and by all appearances become what others call “strong”.
A Good Housekeeping magazine on my living room floor has a picture of Michael J. Fox grinning and saying, “Happiness is a choice.” The article is all about how he’s found the silver lining on his the pile of crap god personally assigned to him. Though there’s a certain sickly saccharine quality to the advice that he doles out, the underlying message remains potent. Generally if there’s any way for me to be not-miserable, I take it. If it is at all possible to ignore the nasty, disturbing shadows that lurk around every corner of my life path, then I do. I’m totally conscious of my efforts, and so therefore I am more comfortable than I imagine I would be if my denial were less intentional. If there’s something I can do to actually improve my situation, I do it. But generally most of my problems require little more than time, and therefore a great deal of patience and, that insidious word see on motivational posters the world over, perseverance. And indulging in the few pleasures still allowed to me (television, chocolate, gossip) is one of the few ways I’ve found to pass the long hours between now and the better days that I can only assume will one day arrive.
Still, my sarcastic optimism seems to be a terrible way of communicating my situation to others. My off-color blog entries that attempt to squeeze some silver lining out of my own pile of crap come off more like a Hunter S. Thompson imitation than a genuine attempt to look at the brighter side of what is in fact pretty damn sucky. My periods of secrecy created rumors more dramatic than the truth, and my bouts of compulsive honesty have numbed my audience to my dramatic flair for telling the truth. The funny thing is, whenever I have been brave, and been flippant about the dark times, I may put others at ease but I may have done myself a disservice. Maybe people have no idea what's really going on.
Still, I have no interest in wearing a serious face and giving out personal details about my health problems (unless they are about poop or drugs, and therefore at least somewhat funny or compelling). I’d rather sell my story to my friends like a dirty joke or an Oprah reccomended novel. I'd like to wander sleepy eyed through the gray area between OK and the kind of awful you never admit to, and let my life just happen to me.
Unlike other blog entries, this has no theme, no inspiration. I got into a weird, thoughtful, blah mood and decided to write some of my thoughts down. I don’t know that it actually ends up being as revealing as it is cathartic. I wanted to show how I maintain the balancing act between optimism and sarcasm, fool’s paradise and reality. I always say to others, if you’re self aware, then I think that it’s OK. And I couldn’t write this blog entry if I wasn’t self aware. So I guess it’s OK. Even if it is a little self indulgent.
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3 comments:
When sick is normal, your whole world view shifts, and you find yourself accepting and living with shit you never could have imagined before. It's unthinkable, to healthy people, and it's unpleasant to try. So, except for the closest loved ones who know the day to day of it, most people simply say some vaguely supportive thing and then, well, it's all awkwardness from there. Someone change the subject quick.
Even if they do try to understand your immediate suffering, they cannot understand how inexorable it all is, wavering in intensity... but never ending. It's all day, every day, for days and months and years and decades. You get better days, worse days, but you never get to be well.
No one wants to imagine that. Even if you explained in every gruesome detail just how sick you really are... very few people want to know. Very few people would try to get it.
There is that, and then... there is the drug thing. If you have "fun" drugs, you are having fun getting high on them. If you are taking potentially addictive drugs... you are probably addicted. You could write a blog about how you are not at all addicted and you are definitely not getting high on your meds and people would be entirely certain you were high as a kite and one step away from robbing pharmacies.
Some would envy you for it, some would look down on you, and plenty would do both.
You admitted to enjoying some side effects. The really sad thing is... even if people DID know all the details of your health problems... it wouldn't really matter. They still would completely miss the context.
Chronic illness sucks and a bit of a buzz in the middle of the night is no real consolation. Yes, people get high on prescription meds. Yes, people get addicted too. People get high on cough syrup too, doesn't make it fun to have the flu.
Damn, they don't let you edit these things after you post.
Yes, people get addicted, but it's not as common as people seem to think, at least not when taken as prescribed, for the condition it was prescribed for.
Taking prescription meds for fun, well, that's a different thing.
I'm really glad you wrote this today. I'm visiting my father, who, unlike me, has money. He took me shopping, something I've rarely done since being diagnosed with the more sinister part of my illness. A bright young saleslady, Brittany, asked me what I was looking for and such. I told her I wanted jeans, but doubted any in the store would be good. She asked why, so in usual point-blank honesty I said, "I have abdominal tumors, and am awaiting surgery. Either I'll have pain from the incisions or pain from the tumors over the next few years, so the jeans have to fit really loosely but not be giant baggy on my legs." I saw her swallow, a typical physical manifestation/reaction to fear. After all, I'm not much different than her, not much more than 2 years or so older, same height, build. That's what disconcerts people, our youth. I'm not sure on the particulars of your diagnosis, as I have a terrible (cough, Percocet, cough) memory, but I recall that you have the "digestive symptoms" aspect. Hence our own brand of misery, if I may lump us together in that regard. People look, see a young female, and suddenly illness is personal. It COULD happen to them. This was very meandering, but eh, I can't sleep because of my own brand of Hell.
This was my favorite blog post of yours, by the way. Not that the others lack in quality whatsoever, but I really liked this one.
--Jillian
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