August's Perfect Post

In honor of Chronic Illness Awareness Month (which is September, in case you didn't guess), and because this post is sooo right in sooo many ways, I'm awarding my Perfect Post Award for August to the glorious Goldfish for her post on Chronic Illness: Experience is Cheap.


I can't explain how many absolutely fabulous things she says in this post, things I struggle with every single day, and things I wish that other people knew. I'm just going to give you some of the things that rang most true for me -

• The thing to realise is that the medical side of things is about a condition you happen to have, not about you. This may sound obvious to anyone who hasn't been ill for any great length of time, but it isn't.

Damn right it isn't. It SEEMS obvious, it seems right, it seems like something that you wouldn't have to tell yourself over and over and over again, but... that's just the way it works out.

• You mustn't stay angry with an illness or indeed the body which you may feel has let you down so badly. It's never going to say sorry, buy you a bunch of flowers and attempt to make it up to you

Well, why the hell not? Her I've been waiting all this time for an apology??? No, seriously. I'm still angry, but I'm not always angry, and I think that's an important distinction.

and finally -

• Sometimes you can think you are fighting the good fight when really you are running away from the problem. You might prefer to push yourself instead of resting or pacing, thinking this the brave thing to do when in fact it is slightly idiotic and nobody is going to admire you for running yourself into the ground. Eventually, you may get to a place where you don't think about your illness very much at all, but you don't get there by pretending it doesn't exist.

Oh sweet little baby Jesus, why didn't I read this 13 years ago? And why do I still need to read it today?

Please go over and check out the rest of the pretty Fish's wisdom, and head on over to Lindsay and MommaK for some other spectacular posts.