Part of what it's like to live with chronic pain and exhaustion:

[shiraphant]

I do intend to make a happy post soon (about My First Holiday omg omg), but for now, some Thoughts I Thought.

Here's part of a conversation I'm having with puzzled_anwen:

me: I did washing up this morning. I did ten minutes of washing up and in that time I developed a lot of pain in my mid-back, my shoulders hated me, I felt sick, my womb began to cramp and I felt as though someone had punched me in the stomach repeatedly
all those pains gradually went away when I sat down
soooooooooo
after about twelve years, I finally started to believe - really believe - that I am not lazy, I could not do more around the house "if I just wanted to do it enough", I genuinely do have something wrong with me
I am not faking just in order to get out of doing housework.
anwen: arr, I know what you mean
it'd be nice if you were *sigh*
me: I can't believe it's taken me this long to believe it and I am sure I will be doubting myself again soon
anwen: yup
I do all the time
anwen: esp when I was mostly quite well last year I was all 'oh god, maybe I wasn't really that bad' even though, you know, I WAS BEING POISONED BY MY TABLETS

Having fibro/other invisible or otherwise unverifiable illnesses (including mental illness, with which I also have daily fun in several forms) means, for many of us, daily self-doubt and guilt on top of the judging and unhelpful assumptions made about us by other people - friends, family, doctors, random strangers. (We won't even get into the frustration and depression which come from being unable to have normal bloody lives with jobs and socialising and hobbies). Our brains, like so many clueless people, tell us we're not really that ill. We're faking to get attention/avoid having to do any work. We've "embraced the sick role", whatever the shit that means. We hear it so much from others that we believe it ourselves, and we hurt ourselves, we make ourselves more ill, trying to behave as if all that were true, as if our illnesses were the convenient fictions that so many people seem to think they are, and as if we could just choose to behave like healthy, able-bodied people and we'd magically be better. Unfortunately it does not work. No amount of wanting it to be that way will make it that way, and I did not - we did not - choose to have our bodies fail in this way.

If you're one of the people who didn't need to be told this - thank you for not making our lives harder and more painful. Thank you for believing us, because it's fucking rare when anyone does.

Comments

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

what's sad is you could substitute various mental illness for chronic illnesses here and the argument would be the same.

Anyway, I'm glad you sat down. You don't need to keep pushing yourself into additional agony in order to adhere to impossible standards set by people who aren't there. Rest when you're tired.

[redshira.livejournal.com]

Yes, indeed. I did intend for "invisible illnesses" to include mental illness but I didn't make it clear enough. I shall amend the post now.

I sat down because I couldn't tell if I wanted to throw up or pass out and even I will concede that if washing up makes me feel like that then I should probably sit the fuck down.

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

"I couldn't tell if I wanted to throw up or pass out and even I will concede that if washing up makes me feel like that then I should probably sit the fuck down."

I think someone should cross-stitch this for you to hang over the sink.

[redshira.livejournal.com]

I am going to make a sign that says "if washing up is making you feel in any way unwell or in pain, WHOEVER YOU ARE, sit DOWN NOW." Because James gets back pain and hand/wrist pain and I will tell myself it only applies to him if I don't include WHOEVER YOU ARE.