iammighty

I think the scariest thought is not that I have to live with chronic illness now, but that I can trace my symptoms back years and never noticed it. Perhaps I never wanted to notice it.

My life’s purpose was the hustle - to get good grades, be the best, get a good job, and work hard to pay my parents back for the tremendous sacrifices they have made for us. Everyone struggles from time to time. I’d get over it.

Noble? Perhaps. But it’s true that you can’t help others when you are running on empty. And I got to the point where I had not only run out of gas but I’d jumped out of the car and started pushing it up the hill only to keep going.

A passing statement uttered by my doctor has made me pause and kept me up at nights. I was lamenting how suddenly all of this occurred to me, what I had possibly done wrong, and was there anything I could do to fix it. If it began suddenly, it meant that there was a beginning, a reason; and reasons have answers and all beginnings have an end — don’t they?

“If you think back, you might see that you’ve had issues all along.”

I did. He was right. But I forgot them for a reason. I avoided them purposefully, ignored them faithfully. Because I didn’t want to live a life focused on the struggle. Not then, and not now.

As I lie awake again tonight, completely exhausted and unable to sleep, I’m brought back again to those words. And the memories I had eagerly attempted to erase mock me. I should’ve seen this coming. If I had just taken better care of myself, maybe I could have defied my genetics, my fate.

But then, I realize that I have the last laugh. Because I am here; in spite of the pain, in spite of my past, and in spite of my problems.

I am here and I am stronger than ever.

I am mighty.

#iammighty #AutoimmuneImmunodeficiency #AutoimmunePancreatitis #ExocrinePancreaticInsufficiency #ChronicPancreatitis #PrimaryImmunodeficiency #sjogrens #ChronicIllness #ChronicPain #CheerMeOn #Vitiligo #CrohnsDisease #CeliacDisease

Each day is a new day. Each day comes with it's own triggers. Some are big, some are small. Sometimes I can get through a crazy schedule with ease and still have a bit of lipstick left from the day, and sometimes, my hair is all over the place, and I can't find my phone. Have you seen it? But each day, I will try. I will use the most gracious of compliments, to speak kindly to me, just as I would speak to a friend. Because my body hears what my brain is thinking, and it responds in kindness or with daggers. Today, I will be kind to me.

I often feel as though I’m a waste of space a thing that take up time and energy that you don’t want to deal with. Someone and somebody who isn’t worth being around. I can’t explain symptoms I can’t explain pains. I don’t know what causes them and I don’t know why I do something that I know I shouldn’t do. I can be rude and don’t mean to I can really move often than not be forgetful, confused and frustrating to deal with as though I were a child even though I am 45. Yet you don’t know what it’s like in my mind. You say you are tired of me using these as excuses but they are not. You don’t know how it feels to be me. They aren’t a crutch they are real. They are what I deal with everyday and you don’t know what they do to me inside. I didn’t ask for this but I go on living the best I can with it and do not complain. To have you stand over me and yell, complain, put me down, act as though I am less of a person because of it only makes it worse. I am a warrior because I make it through a day. Because I fight through the pain. Because I managed to do anything. You are not me. You don’t have the right to say the things you do because you don’t live in my body. If I waste your time and space then get out of mine. I won’t be your emotional punching bag anymore. My body beats on me enough. I am a warrior. #iammighty #iamawarrior