Thoughts on my ill-aversary

Today’s my ill-aversary. The last day I remember being well was October 19, 1994.  I was 15 years old, and spent the day with my friends, painting @ a hospice with a volunteer group, then running around Boston via the T with the kind of joy that only those who’ve just recently been allowed to go places unsupervised can muster for subway rides.
The next day I woke up unable to swallow and I felt like I was wearing a dozen coats made of lead.  I was exhausted in a way I’d never felt before, I had a super high fever, tears leaked out of my eyes when I tried to move, and (what turned out to be the first of so many unhelpful) emergency room visits told me that I would just have to wait out my “unidentifiable virus”. Except it just never went away. 
From there, to mono, to ‘infectious process undetermined’ to ‘autoimmune disease as yet undiagnosed’; through CFIDS and Fibro and POTS and asthma and walking pneumonia and shingles and ‘genetic issues’ and migraines and whatever the hell else is wrong with my immune system and disaster area of a body at this specific moment in time. Most days, I figure I have a pretty good handle on how to live the chronic life.
But today, when I remember the girl I was 19 years ago (and knowing full well that who you are when you are 15 is awfully different from who you are when you are 34, chronic illness or not) I’m sad for her.  The girl who thought she was going to be a dance teacher, and woke up one day unable to stand long enough to turn the music on for her class. Who tried to keep dancing but, eventually, between the passing out and the feeling like she was having a hard attack every time she moved, had to stop. The girl who was shy but worked so hard to make new friends, who saw a lot of those friends disappear when her symptoms kept her home, again, always.  The girl who just didn’t understand why she couldn’t MAKE HERSELF GET BETTER, no matter how hard she tried, no matter how closely she followed the doctors’ directions, no matter what witchdoctor-y potion she willingly swallowed.
I want to go back and give her a hug and tell her I believe her: which was the thing she needed to hear the most back then, when even the people that ‘believed’ her had their doubts. When even she had her doubts.
I want to tell her that - even though she won’t get better (and will, in a lot of physical ways, get worse) - that it’s still worth sticking around. That the chronic/spoonie life is definitely living life at the hardest level, and I’m sorry we have to do that, but we are going to do that. Even when it feels like we absolutely can. not. for. one. more. day.
There was internet when I was 15 - bare bones internet: DIAL UP internet , but there was no Tumblr (There weren’t dinosaurs either, though, you whippersnappers): at first, I was so alone with my illnesses that I might as well have been in Siberia compared to everyone around me. My friends didn’t get it, my family often felt I was exaggerating, my doctors kept saying to push myself harder, not understanding that - the type of kid I was - I would push myself so hard that I wound up in the hospital (a lot). I remember that girl, and how alone she was.
And then I found the corner of internet that I needed to find: There were listservs (which, again: dinosaurs), filled with other kids/teenagers who were just sick as I was. Who got it. Who didn’t have the words ‘complainer’ or ‘lazy’ superimposed over their mental pictures of me. Who helped me understand that I was more than just the sick girl.  The CFS-Y (and later CFS-20s) groups were my link to people like me: and once I knew they were out there, I had to keep finding them.
From the listservs to forums, to my own blog and the blogs of zillions of other spoonies, to Tumblr - I honestly don’t know what would have become of that girl if she didn’t have people who understood, somewhere out there in space, to talk to. And not just other spoonies, but just people who listened and got it, and let me talk, and heard me. Even now, when I’ve got a family who (mostly) gets it, and friends who try: to have this space out here to say what I need to say, and to see that there are other people who are dealing with the same crap as me? It’s invaluable.
IDK where this is going: I started out feeling really sorry for myself because, 19 years ago, I was a different girl… Who isn’t that true for? And I’m still sad for me/her - for that life I wanted that wasn’t to be.  I’m sad today for the things I want (work and family and adventures) that just aren’t possible for me right now, because of how sick I am. And that sucks, big time. And it sneaks up on you, even when you think you’ve got a handle on it.
But also? I want to say thanks; Because the only reason I’ve even partially got a handle on it is because other people get it. Because there’s people out there listening. And sharing their stuff too, to make me feel less like I’m stuck in Azkaban all on my own, Dementors roaming & waiting for me to try to escape.










(cross posted on my tumblr)