How I Am

When you collect doctors and diseases like other people collect stamps and autographs, simple questions can feel daunting. Even a simple How are you? becomes a struggle to answer. In my mind, I'm constantly debating what and how much to say.

It's not that I don't want to be honest, or that I don't care enough about you to open up. It's just that sometimes a simple question has no simple answers. I spend all day, and many nights, dwelling on all the ways I'm not fine, and I don't want you to feel worn down like I do. I don't want to be that friend; you know, the one who gets you in the corner at a party and tells you all about her incontinence problems, the sinus infection miraculously healed by multiple Neti Pot applications,  and those plantar warts that will just not die! Not that I won't talk to you about that stuff. I absolutely will, but I'll do it in a way that feels more like a punch line than a punch in the gut. 

The problem though, is that I want to tell you how I am. I want to share that I'm in pain, and that I feel angry/achy/tired/hot/cold/hopeless/helpless/guilty/ashamed/depressed/worn down/etc. Talking about the stuff that runs constantly in the background of my mind is exhausting, though. And, if I'm not careful, talking can turn into its own chronic disease.

Sharing the honest truth can be helpful, though. It can bring its own sort of healing. It can make those of us with chronic illnesses feel a little less alone when you reach out and ask those simple questions. When you lean in, look us in the eye, and ask us how we're doing, that pain or dread or sadness or whatever fades into the background a bit. We feel connected, and just like air and light and love, we need that connection in order to survive.

It's a fine line to balance. 

So when you ask me how I am, I'll tell you about that time I accidentally licked pee off my thumb, or about how my kid greeted me from my latest ER visit with a "hey! Glad you aren't dead or bedridden!", or about how one time, the drugs I was taking made me hallucinate an entire Kindergarten class on the ceiling.

And sometimes, if you ask how I am, I'll tell you.

So thank you for asking. It means a lot.