The Part of My Illness That I Struggle to Accept

I’ve had many nights where I cry myself to sleep because I realize I will not wake up being “cured.” I’ll most likely wake up again in physical pain wishing, hoping and praying that it would just go away. I will wake up knowing that I might have another day where I can’t commit to doing certain activities. Or will be experiencing another day of fear of my future that comes with struggling with both chronic and mental health symptoms.

Acceptance has never been an easy skill for me to use. It often has represented to me a negative concept because in my mind I think it means, “It’s OK that I’ll live in pain the rest of my life because such is life, right?” Logically I know that’s not quite what radical acceptance means, however, that’s what it feels like sometimes and the emotional pain that comes with that thought never goes away.

I grieve for my childhood moving, playful, and active self I once knew. I miss not thinking of how this movement will hurt me physically or thinking ahead of how to prepare myself for feeling uncomfortable in different places.

I grieve knowing that about 95 percent of doctors, family, and friends don’t understand my disease as sometimes I barely fully do.

I want more then anything for myself to wake up one morning and miraculously be healed. I also know life doesn’t work that way. I guess that’s where the heartbreak of acceptance comes in. I do take life day by day, even minute by minute now, not because I always want to – but because I have to. Now, since I never know how’ll feel minute to minute or day by day. I’m grateful on days where my pain isn’t as high and I don’t take those days for granted. As those days are the ones that remind me that everything will be OK in the end.

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