{"id":1031,"date":"2019-11-29T22:31:11","date_gmt":"2019-11-29T22:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theophanesavery.com\/the-boneless-chicken-blog\/?p=1031"},"modified":"2019-11-29T22:31:11","modified_gmt":"2019-11-29T22:31:11","slug":"another-reminder-to-stop-gaslighting-myself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theophanesavery.com\/the-boneless-chicken-blog\/2019\/11\/29\/another-reminder-to-stop-gaslighting-myself\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Reminder to Stop Gaslighting Myself"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today I come to you with an important message to listen to yourself and your\nbody and no one else because if there\u2019s one thing in this world you are an\nexpert on it\u2019s your own body. I know that sounds trite, maybe even vaguely like\nthe beginning of some sort of self-help manual, but for us spoonies (those with\nlimited health and energy) we can be the most stubborn bunch out there to\nreally internalize this. And it\u2019s for good reason \u2013 most of us don\u2019t look <\/em>sick\nso we get constant messages from society that we shouldn\u2019t act it either. You\u2019re\nnot really <\/em>sick. As if we need to show up some day with a missing limb\nor some other proof. It\u2019s to society\u2019s benefit to do this. We make healthy and\nable individuals uncomfortable. They don\u2019t want to ever be like us so they\nfrequently deny our existence all together and it\u2019s not just the society at\nlarge. My big ugly mental scars come from the medical establishment itself \u2013\nbecause those of us who don\u2019t have something wrong that can be easily diagnosed\nare often left in the surf. Instead of just saying, \u201cWell, I don\u2019t know what\u2019s\nup but maybe someone else can figure you out\u201d it seems like the knee-jerk reaction\nof most doctors is to insinuate that it\u2019s in our head. This goes especially for\nwomen. Worse for teenage girls which is what I was when I first started having\nissues. Teenage girls after all are completely irrational creatures, 100% unpredictable.\nThey\u2019re swimming in hormones and feelings <\/em>and ack! Who wants to deal\nwith that? In the old days we were called hysterical. These days no one says\nthat word because it\u2019s sexist as shit. So instead they\u2019re replaced it with\nsomething shiny and sciencey sounding. Psychosomatic. \u201cShe suffers from a psychosomatic\ndisorder,\u201d they say with one raised eyebrow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And no matter how much I wanted to punch each and every one of them I\ninstead winced and took it all onto myself. Maybe they were right. I mean how\nmany people does it take to tell you something before you believe them? One? Two?\nThirty? It becomes a slippery slope. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was doing well I told myself all was good and always will be and when\nI was doing poorly I repeatedly wondered if I didn\u2019t previously feel like shit\nbecause I was depressed or mental. Maybe I like to be shacked up in a house I\nhate? Maybe there was some innate failure in me that prevented me from living a\nnormal adult life? I mean that happens sometimes, doesn\u2019t it? People just get\nstuck\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So let me tell you how my November went. I woke up at the beginning of it like\nI was waking from a year long torpor. It\u2019d been a HARD year. Things had gotten\nwildly out of control. Little things like a pile of dirty dishes had become big\nthings like \u201cwhere are all these flies coming from?!\u201d And everything was\nsqualid. This was not <\/em>how I wanted to be living and yet there it was\nthat little voice in my head\u2026 well you do hate cleaning<\/em>\u2026 Why yes, I do\nbut not to that <\/em>degree. Being irritated with clutter and not wanted to\nshuffle through this week\u2019s mail is a lot different then letting your place get\nso disgusting that it becomes paralyzing just to look at it. But still. Maybe I\nam depressed and just let it go\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But for some reason a bit of the brain fog had lifted. I was able to sleep a\nlittle better. And somehow this kicked off a little burst of energy. So I got\nup. I refused to look at the big picture, instead I just gave myself little\nchallenges. And I would get up for ten or twenty minutes and do one small task.\nThen I would take a break, sometimes a break that lasted for hours, and I would\nget up and do another small task. By the time I got into the routine of this I felt\nlike I could accomplish anything and that I always could. I must have been choosing\nnot to before. Right? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And so with Thanksgiving coming up I was in a final scurry to get everyone done.\nI was so filled with anxiety about it all I stopped sleeping. With four hours\nunder my belt I got up on Thanksgiving day at 6AM and started cooking and one\nlast push of cleaning. This place looked and smelled great! My floors were\nshiny! And I could see them! And the aroma from the oven was just gorgeous. I\nwas proud of all I\u2019d accomplished but I was so tired that I had to keep\nstanding just to stay awake which in turn just left me more tired. By the time\ncompany came around I was unable to stand straight or keep my eyes open. I had\na good time but my body had pretty much shut down. I was unable to eat anything\nI cooked. My stomach was on strike \u2013 which is not an unusual response to me not\ngetting enough sleep. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When my company left I more or less blacked out \u2013 fell into a sleep so deep\nthere were no dreams, no nothing, just pure unconsciousness. I woke two hours\nlater with my bladder so full it was practically bursting and my body on fire.\nI could feel EVERY muscle and they were all screaming. I had JUST enough energy\nto get to the bathroom and flop back into bed where I couldn\u2019t really move. Most\npeople do not work themselves to the point of absolute exhaustion when your\nmuscles go from normal, to weak, to absolutely refusing to function, so it\u2019s\nhard to imagine. But there I was in a sorry state and you know the most fucked\nup part of it all? My overriding anxiety kept me awake for hours like this\nbefore I fell asleep again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It\u2019s been a wake-up call \u2013 this whole experience has shown me that no <\/em>I am not <\/em>living in a normal functional body and just being lazy, dysfunctional, or depressed. If I am depressed at all it\u2019s because <\/em>of my body not working in the first place! And so here I am with my mind more alert than it\u2019s been in a long long time \u2013 I am racing to get everything I can done creatively. I\u2019m writing, I\u2019m drawing comics, I\u2019m creating art \u2013 all because I don\u2019t know how long it\u2019s going to last this time. And I keep my eye on the future as I am hopeful. I am trying to use what little energy I have shedding the pounds I put on just sitting around for a year. I am hoping to work myself up to a point I can start leaving the house again for little excursions beyond just the grocery shopping and appointments I have been attending. I ache to travel again \u2013 to go see little glimpses of this beautiful world. I want to go to museums and galleries to surround myself with art, I want to continue learning weird little historical narratives, I want to pick up my photography again\u2026 and I still hope some of this, any of it, may someday open the door to a brighter and more secure future for me because part of this intense desire to experience everything is the profound fear of missing out \u2013 because I know in my life security is just an illusion. Whatever I have today could easily be gone tomorrow. And as life gets harder <\/em>and not easier I want to grasp at the straws of happiness while I still can. Still includes accepting myself for who I am \u2013 a bright mind in a shattered body. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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**All photos in this post have been taken by myself Theophanes Avery of various scenes in my life. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Invisible illness can often lead those suffering from it to question whether or not they’re sick at all. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[268,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-living-with-chronic-fatigue-syndrome","category-uncategorized","wpcat-268-id","wpcat-1-id"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theophanesavery.com\/the-boneless-chicken-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/11\/makeawish-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paOpxN-gD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theophanesavery.com\/the-boneless-chicken-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theophanesavery.com\/the-boneless-chicken-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theophanesavery.com\/the-boneless-chicken-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theophanesavery.com\/the-boneless-chicken-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theophanesavery.com\/the-boneless-chicken-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1031"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theophanesavery.com\/the-boneless-chicken-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1046,"href":"https:\/\/theophanesavery.com\/the-boneless-chicken-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031\/revisions\/1046"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theophanesavery.com\/the-boneless-chicken-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theophanesavery.com\/the-boneless-chicken-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theophanesavery.com\/the-boneless-chicken-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theophanesavery.com\/the-boneless-chicken-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}