#I've just been flaring badly for weeks now and it's really really starting to grind me down emotionally

[cookinguptales]

ooooh love that 4 am chronic illness venting

sometimes I think the worst part about having a chronic illness is accepting that, in many ways, it will never be as good as it is now. I can be in awful pain, I can be exhausted, I can be barely functional at work and I still know things are only going to get worse. like. god. if I'm this bad at 34 how the fuck am I going to be when I'm 50?

I couldn't even get through one film festival. my hormones have been acting up since I got back to Philly, probably brought on by all the travel and stress about work, and I spent a solid two weeks with my ribs and hips dislocating and the first three days at the festival were just me being in so much pain that I would go to the restroom and cry between movies.

that's what having a good time apparently looks like these days!

and then my ribs start calming down just in time for a heat wave. 85 degrees. god knows I can't go out in that anymore, because this body can't do fucking anything right. okay, fine, whatever. then my period finally comes a week early, seems about par for the course with whatever the fuck is going on this month, and the endometriosis is so bad that I could barely get out of bed yesterday, much less make it to center city.

so in the end, I have so far made it to 4 of the 10 days of the festival, and I don't have much hope about the last two. I have to come to terms with the fact, now, that maybe I can't even handle film festivals anymore. I can't handle going into the city and sitting in a dark room for a week now???

I feel like I've wasted all this money on something I was really excited about, because I used to really love going to the film festival. but have we devolved to the point where I can't even do this anymore?

like I know that this month is irregular, for several reasons, but I can never depend on a month to be regular anymore! I can't plan a trip three months in advance because I don't even know how I'm going to be three days in advance anymore! do I just give up on making plans in the future? do I give up on looking forward to fucking anything anymore?

and I know that the mood swings are part and parcel of having pmdd (I had ~three~ panic attacks yesterday) but also like. god. at a certain point how can you handle balancing work and trying to have fun while your rib is literally sticking out of your fucking back. you can feel it! when you touch! my back!

and at what point does a mental breakdown become inevitable, dealing with that kind of pain? when you're also dealing with about five different work deadlines and you still want to make art but you have no time for it and when you finally have time, nothing you write is any good.

all that and I'm supposed to have fun, too? I feel like every time I carve out the least little bit of fun for myself this october, the month I am supposed to enjoy the most, I spend the next three days paying for it.

I feel like I just. I'm at the point now where I physically cannot leave the house ten days in a row anymore. I can barely handle three days in a row. I'm not even doing anything. I'm just sitting there, but apparently the act of taking a bus to a building and sitting in that building is too much for me now.

I know I've been kind of irritating to be around for the past few weeks, but I am just exhausted. and today I'm finally clearing the joint pain, I'm finally clearing the nausea and inability to eat (which of course makes me sicker), and I'm just. I'm so fucking tired. I can't even enjoy not being in (as much) pain for a few days.

and of course trying to scrape all this together, I haven't been able to clean the house, so it looks like shit and I feel like shit about that, too.

I don't know. some days when you have an incurable illness that you know is just going to get worse over time it's just. I don't know. it's hard to have any hope at all. I feel like I'm going to die alone in a filthy house because I don't have the energy to be a real person anymore.

like I go visit my parents and I'm always so glad to get home because I love them but I also need my space but there's always that realization that like. oh right, living alone is really fucking hard. some days I can barely even feed myself. I feel so useless.

I know that withdrawing from my friends is probably the opposite of what I should be doing right now, but it's also. I don't know, sometimes I feel almost ashamed to let them see me when I can't even pretend that I have my life together. like usually I can at least pretend that my body isn't weighing me down too much. letting people see me when it's very, very clear that I am hanging on by a thread feels far too vulnerable.

I guess some piece of me feels like if I let people see the awful underbelly of what it's like to actually be disabled, they'll be disgusted with me. like. sometimes disability is just we have to walk a little more slowly at the museum or I can only eat certain foods when we go out or I get way too chatty because I'm exhausted and I lose my filter when I'm exhausted. but sometimes disability is not showering for a week and a living room that's covered in garbage and unpacked suitcases and sitting in your bed and crying for hours. like. there's nothing glamorous about it.

I feel like I have to work so hard and pretend so much to even reach "tolerable" to other people but I'm not even tolerable to myself right now. even on my best days, when I can go out and hang out with people and pretend that I'm okay, I know that I will be going home to a messy house that I will never invite people to because it's embarrassing to admit that I live like that, not because I want to, but because I have to.

but I can't even do that anymore, I can't even go out for a few hours and pretend that I'm normal and well-adjusted and not at all a burden to my friends and my family and my community.

I don't know. I don't know. I'll be okay. I always end up okay. but I feel like having a chronic illness means mourning a thousand different opportunities you had to give up because you were home puking or whatever, and right now I'm mourning a film festival.

or at least the me that could go to film festivals.

[robininthelabyrinth]

I've got a HC that could be a prompt if you're interested? Due to grinding his teeth & holding all his stress in his jaw JC's jaw just totally locks up for from a few hours to a day or so. Obvs he tries to hide it from everyone, but it always happens at inconvenient (ie stressful) times. (Cultivation conferences, every time he makes up his mind to go to Gusu and finally hash things out with WWX, when he really wants to shout at JL for something stupid & can suddenly only mumble, etc. Whatever)

Living with Lan Wangji had taught Wei Wuxian the many different flavors of silence.

After all, his husband was not an especially emotive man – it was all in the microexpressions, the curve of his eyes or the tilt of his brow – and yet he conveyed his meaning clearly, even without saying a word. Wei Wuxian learned to cherish the comfortable silences, to interrupt incipient brooding, to entice during the times when his husband was most definitely not thinking about his work…

Perhaps it was that experience that makes him realize – possibly for the first time in his new life – that there was something wrong with Jiang Cheng.

Wei Wuxian had been extremely self-absorbed as a young man, in his first life, but he’d still known to keep his eye on his too-quiet, too-intense shidi, who usually locked his feelings away deep inside but not deep enough that Wei Wuxian couldn’t see. Even after their estrangement, he had been able to read him as easily as any book – every flinch and every start, every swallow, every shift of weight, a hundred stories of discomfort and confusion that he hated himself for not being able to assuage. For not being willing to assuage, because he, in his arrogance, had thought that through his silence he could keep Jiang Cheng from suffering even more pain.

In his new life –

Well. Wei Wuxian had long ago lost the right to hold the key to unlock the secrets of Jiang Cheng’s heart.

And yet, he was certain something was wrong. Jiang Cheng was glaring and scowling as always – possibly worse than always, because he didn’t have a choice about coming to the discussion conference even if it was in Gusu, even if that meant Wei Wuxian would be there – and he looked as immaculately put together as he always did in this strange future where the kid Wei Wuxian remembered dunking into ponds just the other day had turned into a cold-faced man who was feared instead of loved, but still. Something was wrong.

Something was very wrong.

It was his silence, Wei Wuxian decided. Jiang Cheng was staying quiet even when there was something that Wei Wuxian knew he cared about, not even greeting Jin Ling with more than a huff – though Jin Ling didn’t seem to mind – and it wasn’t a calm quiet, a content quiet, the contained and controlled quiet that Lan Wangji was.

It was wrong.

So maybe Wei Wuxian just happened to meander by the guest quarters for the Jiang sect on his nightly walk. It was totally accidental, even if it had never before happened while Jiang Cheng was in residence as a visiting sect leader. After all, Wei Wuxian had only lived at the Cloud Recesses a few years – anyone could get turned around.

“– should have said that it was getting this bad!”

That was Jin Ling’s voice, Wei Wuxian observed, and he “meandered” closer while keeping his tread as light as possible. It was late for Jin Ling to be here instead of back in the rooms reserved for the Jin sect; he should be getting some sleep in preparation for a busy day the next day.

Jiang Cheng should be telling him to get some sleep.

He wasn’t.

He wasn’t saying anything.

Wei Wuxian peeked through the window.

Jiang Cheng was sitting on the bed, Jin Ling crouched beside him, chattering angrily like an angry monkey as he applied a cold compress to the side of Jiang Cheng’s face.

“Don’t know what you were thinking,” he said mutinously, even though Jiang Cheng glared at him. “No, stop that – no glaring, no yelling, you heard what the doctor said. Did you take your medicine?”

Jiang Cheng nodded.

“And it’s still this bad? That’s not good, jiujiu.”

Jiang Cheng turned his head, a sudden jerk. He looked frustrated. He looked like he wanted to say something – but like he couldn’t.

Wei Wuxian felt something drop in his stomach.

“I know you already know that,” Jin Ling said, interpreting the silence as easily as Wei Wuxian used to, and then hesitated. “And I know you said you didn’t want to consider…you know the doctor says that the surgery would help a lot.”

Jiang Cheng shook his head furiously.

(Wei Wuxian’s gut churned. Surgery? Some necessary type of surgery, something was wrong, and Jiang Cheng refusing to fix it - was it because of him, what he’d done, back in that past life? Would Jiang Cheng recoil from all surgeries because of that one time when he didn’t have a choice about it, and in so doing cost himself his life - no, that Wei Wuxian’s actions would cost him his life, that Wei Wuxian would at long belated last drag him into the grave the way he had everyone else?)

“Listen, you might not have a choice. This is getting really, really close to another serious flare up, okay? And we don’t want one of those,” Jin Ling argued. “Do you remember when you couldn’t eat anything? For weeks? Because I do. It was awful. Everyone thought you were dying –”

“He’s not, is he?” Wei Wuxian asked, finding himself inside the door before he even realized he was moving. “He’s not dying?”

“Senior Wei!” Jin Ling exclaimed, surprised, and – yeah, maybe it hurt a bit that Jiang Cheng was jiujiu and he was Senior Wei instead of shishu even after all the night-hunts they’d gone on together, but Jiang Cheng wasn’t the one who’d played a part in robbing Jin Ling of his parents so he was going to just shut up and not complain about it – but that wasn’t important right now.

“He’s not dying,” Wei Wuxian insisted, his voice a little shrill. “Whatever’s wrong with him that’s bad enough that he needs surgery – why can’t he talk? What’s keeping him from talking?”

Jiang Cheng had half-risen to his feet, but Jin Ling pulled him down again with a glare of his own. “Don’t you dare move yet,” he hissed, pressing the compress into his uncle’s face even harder. He glanced back at Wei Wuxian. “Maybe you can talk some sense into him – it’s his jaw.”

“His jaw?”

“It locks up,” Jin Ling explained, and – yes. That was the missing piece, the thing he hadn’t known; that was the problem. “Really badly, to the point where he can’t move it at all. He can’t talk except through mumbling, and in the really bad times he can’t even open it enough to eat – he can only drink soup.”

That sounded awful.

“What causes it?” Wei Wuxian asked, deciding to be as bold and careless as everyone always claimed he was and to come over and help hold the compress in place.

Jiang Cheng didn’t strike him dead for it, as he’d almost expected him to.

“The muscle at the top of jaw, right under the ear, gets all swollen and fixed in place. Teeth grinding and stress aggravate it, and it aggravates them, and it’s all a horrible cycle…I’m applying cold right now, but next it’ll be heat. In really bad times, like now, we might even use acupuncture and Zidian to try to shock the muscle loose –”

That sounded painful. Wei Wuxian didn’t like to think about Jiang Cheng being in pain.

Especially not from stress.

Stress that Wei Wuxian had always aggravated, rather than eased; the stress of being a sect leader all alone, the stress of being abandoned, left behind, the stress of chasing after Wei Wuxian who held himself far away –

“Can I help?” he asked.

“Yes,” Jin Ling said, even though Jiang Cheng tried to shake his head no. “Anything you can think of we’d welcome.”

“I’ll look through all the libraries,” Wei Wuxian promised. The focus of his research – even in his new life – had tended to focus on demonic cultivation, simply because it was new and interesting, but he was a genius; if he put his mind to it, he was sure he could come up with something better to help fix Jiang Cheng’s jaw before it needed to be cut open with a knife just to let him eat something. “I’ll help.”

Jiang Cheng caught his hand and tugged, unable to speak – but his silence said Why so plaintively that Wei Wuxian’s heart lurched in his chest.

“Because you’re Jiang Cheng,” he told him, unable to explain it other than that. He couldn’t say that he wouldn’t leave him to suffer – he had – couldn’t say he wouldn’t do anything to hurt him – he had – could barely even say he put Jiang Cheng’s well-being as one of his highest priorities, even though it was. There was no reason for Jiang Cheng to believe him about any of that. “Let me help. Please.”

Jiang Cheng stared at him for a long moment.

After a while, he put down his hand and looked away, pretending the moment had never happened, and that was as good as agreement when it came to Jiang Cheng.

Wei Wuxian smiled in relief, and started planning out his first attack on the healing arts section of the Lan sect’s library.