So here we are, in the middle of National Invisible Chronic
Illness Awareness Week. I first became aware of this two years ago,
and kept putting off posting. I'm not, after all, disabled -- you wouldn't know to look at me that I have multiple
chronic illnesses. That I'm limited. Most of my limits aren't physical,
but that doesn't mean they aren't there.
"Out of sight, out of mind"? Not so much.
So let's get the obvious physical problems out of the way first. The
biggest one is sleep
apnea. Hence the "facehugger" userpic -- I sleep with a CPAP. With it, I can get a halfway-decent night's sleep. Without
it, I snore loudly, wake up tired, and have a greatly increased risk of
heart attack or stroke. I like my facehugger, even though it's annoying
and takes up a lot of space in my carry-on luggage. I worry about the
power going out, though. (Yes, I have a UPS for it. Thanks for asking.)
The other one is Celiac disease. Also known as "gluten sensitivity". "People with
milder coeliac disease may have symptoms that are much more subtle and
occur in other organs rather than the bowel itself. It is also possible to
have coeliac disease without any symptoms whatsoever. Many adults with
subtle disease only have fatigue or anaemia." Yeah. That.
If I eat wheat, rye, or barley I only get a little bit of intestinal
pain. What I get is mostly more depression.
One of the two mental illnesses I have is called dysthymia. It's not the
same as major depression -- you can think of it as chronic, minor depression.
With emphasis on the chronic part. I literally can't
remember when it started. Can't remember when feeling "ok" didn't
mean feeling noticably better than usual. I do remember reading a post
where someone talked about "reaching out for joy" and not having any idea
what she was talking about. I still don't, really.
I'm taking an antidepressant now, and it's worth the side effects, but
it's not a "cure" -- all it does is move my baseline up a little, so that
"ok" is normal and "good" isn't too unusual.
The other thing the antidepressant does for me is give me a little more
"cope". I can usually deal with setbacks and stress without falling apart
or becoming paralyzed and unable to function. Usually.
The other one is alexithymia. That's the one that's really hard for me to describe,
because what it means is that I find my emotions hard for me to describe.
Usually, they're hard for me even to notice. I can sometimes notice that
I'm happy if I can catch myself smiling. If I'm shaking, it may take me
hours -- or days -- to figure out where I was because I was afraid, angry,
relieved, happy, or just hungry.
Maybe it ties in with the disthymia -- it's probably hard to learn to
recognize emotions when your range mostly goes between "blah" to "ok".
Maybe it ties in with being easily overloaded, so that I learned to block
emotions rather than being overwhelmed by them. I'm still working on it.
So... there you have it. Nothing that rates me a good parking spot, or a
reserved seat on the bus. I could walk for five miles any time I wanted
to. But I don't usually want to -- that's how disthymia limits me.
Walking feels "good" for some definition of the word, but I don't
know that definition, so I don't have a good way to remember how
it makes me feel. That's how alexithymia limits me. I could go on.
But I won't. I think I'll stop here. I'd go have a beer, but it's made
from barley.
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