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Invisible nature of this illness

Posted by Dinah on August 15, 2003, at 18:56:17

Does it make it harder or easier that people can't *see* what's wrong with us? I guess I lean both ways, but at the moment I'm leaning towards harder.

My therapist told me that I just need to go ahead and do my work, no matter how I feel. Oooohhhhh, (smacks head), of course!!! My problems are solved. Just go ahead and do my work anyway. Geez, why didn't I think of that?

Seems so simple. G*d knows, I wonder all the time if I'm just lazy. And I cover so well for everyone that I *know* they think I'm just lazy. I try so hard to appear normal. Everyone thinks I just need to try harder. I feel like I'm letting everyone down and I am. And even my therapist tells me I just need to try harder.

Then a day like today happens, and I remember that I'm not just lazy. I experience the paralysis of thought that accompanies my little upsets. Or not total paralysis, some thoughts come through, but they're incoherent. Half of them don't make any sense at all, are just words strung together in what aren't even complete sentences. The other half dark and irrational. Jumbled inchoate images of rage.

Today I wanted to make the invisible visible. Mark myself in such a way that makes it clear that I can't just do it anyway. That asking me to just do it anyway is no different than asking any other handicapped person to do what is beyond their capacity. I wanted to quit acting so high functioning. I wanted to stop the exhausting fight to appear normal. Why do I try anyway? Who is it helping? Only those people who want yet more of me. I wanted to act as crazy as I feel.

And then the doubts creep in again. Maybe I am just a malingerer. Maybe I'm not ill enough to have the right to consider myself ill. Maybe I am high functioning and just lazy.

 

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poster:Dinah thread:251172
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