chronicallychronicdmf

[chronicallychronicdmf]

[chronicallychronicdmf]

No one ever teaches you how to mourn your health. You just realize one day that it’s gone, and you are not the same as you were before. Most days, it’s all right, but then something happens: you can’t go to dinner with your family because you’re nauseous, you can’t go hiking because fatigue and pain. You can’t you can’t you can’t, and then it hits you: you are irreversibly changed.

[chronicallychronicdmf]

[chronicallychronicdmf]

[chronicallychronicdmf]

SHOCKING NEWS:

My disability is... *drumroll please* disabling.

[chronicallychronicdmf]

[chronicallychronicdmf]

[chronicallychronicdmf]

That chronic illness feeling where you don't want to die soon, but the idea of spending another 60 or so years in this body makes you want to scream.

[chronicallychronicdmf]

one thing about me, i’m going to have severe tummy problems

[chronicallychronicdmf]

thoughts when you have a chronic illness and symptoms start to improve:

what if it gets that bad again?

I'm so scared to be in that much pain again.

*panic sets in during any flare that it could take a scary turn*

I don't know how I made it through.

What would I do?

Is this feeling ever going to go away?

*being scared of every little thing triggering the pain*

[chronicallychronicdmf]

[chronicallychronicdmf]

And doesn’t it suck lol

[chronicallychronicdmf]

[chronicallychronicdmf]

I may not be dying, but I am suffering✨

#bob ross on a unicycle

[chronicallychronicdmf]

Sometimes I get scared that I'll never come out of a flare & will remain that way for the foreseeable. It's a reoccurring problem, not permanent. Ever present in my mind.

That's why I say no. It's why I don't push myself. It's the unspoken reason. The bottom (and what you think is rock bottom), can get much deeper, very quickly.

[chronicallychronicdmf]

Today I was explaining my condition to my English teacher, because I was feeling dizzy and didn’t want to scare her if I passed out.

She told me, “why don’t you just go back to your dorm if you’re not feeling well?”

And I said, “Professor, if I stayed home every time I felt sick, I’d never go to class.”

And I feel like that perfectly represents the divide between disabled folks and non-disabled folks.

Non-disabled folks are allowed to rest and recuperate if they don’t feel well, and they’re back on their feet in no time.

It doesn’t work that way for us. We always feel sick. Sometimes it’s better, sometimes it’s worse, but no matter what, we have to power through it. Breaks don’t fix anything the way they do for able-bodied people.

Your nausea or fatigue or headache goes away with a few days of rest. Mine will never go away. They’re always there. I have no choice but to keep going, because if I stop trying, that’ll be admitting defeat, and I refuse to let the chronic illness win.

[chronicallychronicdmf]

silly little comic about chronic pain

[image id: an 8 panel comic

the first panel has a conversation between two people. the one on the right is a light gray, and facing away from the viewer. they are meant to represent a generic person. they are saying, "wow, chronic pain sounds like it sucks." sucks is written in a dark pink. the person on the right has tan skin, a pink shirt, and pink hair. he responds "haha yeah."

the second panel shows the same two people, with the first person saying "how do you tolerate it? i'd go crazy!" tolerate is written in a dark pink. the second person responsed "um..." and trails off

the third panel shifts to a drawing of the second person sitting curled into himself. it is entirely grayscale, except for his pink hair, which is a little more muted. the text around him reads "i tolerate it because not doing so isn't an option". 'isn't an option' is written in dark pink.

the fourth panel shows him sitting and leaning against the left edge of the frame, with his legs stretched out. it reads "because what else am i supposed to do?" supposed is in all caps and written in dark pink.

the fifth panel shows a torso up drawing of him in the bottom right corner. the text reads "i can't hope for a day i'll wake up and be better." better is written in dark pink and all caps on the left half of the panel.

the sixth panel shows him sleeping, with a brown dog near his head. the text above him reads "all i can do is make sure i wake up." wake up is written in dark pink.

the seventh panel is all text, reading "i tolerate it because it needs to be tolerable". tolerable is written in dark pink.

the eighth panel shifts back to the conversation between the two people. the man finishes his response to the other person's question with "i don't know".

end image id]