Saying no

So today was a 'i need to be down' day.  I've had lots of those - but if I have something really important scheduled I can power through them and pay later.  This has always been my philosophy.  'I'll sleep when I'm dead.'  yeah - so that one really doesn't work.  It's taken me 30 years to learn that, too.

There have been so many times where it's just easier if I just do it.  At least that is what I thought.  Easier for whom?  Anyone but me, really. Absolutely anyone but me!  Let me just give more than 50% to make other's lives easier.  Let me drive out to them. Yeah, I'm sick but they have kids are tired, too.  Let me fly out to visit this person this weekend.  yeah, i've got finals next week and have pulled two all-nighters this one but hey, maybe I can make them smile.  Let me not tell them how sick I am or that I had a 104 fever the night before because I don't need them worrying about me, they have enough on their mind as it is.

Now this really isn't selflessness - please don't confuse that. It is just kind of the way mind is wired - I worry about people. Too much. I'm loyal to a FAULT.  Too loyal!  And so I got in this pattern of giving and giving and giving (whether they really needed it or not), to the point where there was nothing left of me.  And I crashed. Hard.  To the point where I couldn't get up. Literally.  To the point where I would end up sitting in the ER parking lot crying because I knew I needed to go in but didn't want to give the docs one more person to worry about.  Madness, I tell you!  The only cure?  that no word.  I had never said it and clearly didn't know what balls it took to say it.  'You mean, choose myself, put me first?'  'YES!,' my counselor would say, confused as to why this wasn't obvious.  'It is time, now wonder you are sick!"

I'll give you an example.  Take the time my best friend wanted to take me out for my birthday and arranged for a babysitter and went through all of this trouble?  Yeah - that day I could barely walk.  I had been really sick that summer (heat is my kryptonite).  I remember laying in bed that day, room spinning, and wondering how on Earth I was gonna be able to get up, get dressed and drive there.  Guess what happened?  I got up, tried my best to look as non-sick as I could.  Put the fakest smile I could on.  Oh how good I am at that by now.   I didn't want to disappoint her (she needed a night out too, ya know), and yet I could barely stand. I remember sitting in the car outside the house she was in thinking, 'I can't do it, I can't do it... but it's your birthday! suck it up and go in there.'   Did I seem uber happy and grateful she did that for me?  nope.  Did we have a little tiff the next day because she thought I was sulking and begging for sympathy and I was just really sick and too stubborn to ask to lay down in her back seat?  yup. I am super non-confrontational (shocking, i know) and I was not in a good enough headspace to handle the life advice she was trying to give me that night?  uh-huh. she was trying to help; my eyes were begging for the help me (although a different kind) in another way but I just couldn't speak up for myself.

 What would have been the consequence had I called her 3 hours before dinner and told her I couldn't make it? At the time, guilt.  Granted that the guilt is unfounded and irationable, but If I'm being honest, it's there.  If you're not dying or getting better, well then, something is wrong in your head and you just need to, 'snap out of it.'

People don't realize how much guilt there is with chronic illness. Yeah, it's not our fault.  We didn't do anything to be sick, we don't choose to stay sick (scary how that would even matter), and yet, we feel like failures.  Failures for not working, failures for not getting better, failures for it all.  And society sometimes doesn't help with that.  'What do ya mean, you don't work?'  'And you don't have kids?'  "So, you just don't do, anything?" "Oh man, you are so lucky - you get to stay around in your pjs all day."  Yeah. Sure.  Last time you had food poisoning you did the same thing.  Was it fun?  'So relaxing!'  Honey, I would love to be out and about all day, making it on my own, but this one is out of my control. 

They've noticed that a lot of people with chronic fatigue syndrome (again, terrible name), were anything but lazy in their previous lives, as I call it.  These were the triathletes, the med students, the crazy ones that went to school full time and worked full time simultaneously (why not? then i'd be 23 and done with grad school! I'd truly be wonder woman!)  We overdid it so much that something crashed.  What crashed, you ask?  The body! The immune system!  It can only handle so much - so much weight (of all kinds), so much pressure, so much stress, so much abuse.  I've never nursed the bottle or worked the crack-pipe but for the 6 years leading up to getting sick, I abused my body more than most addicts.

My addiction?  Obsessively trying to have it all!  I thought you really could.  All you really had to do was work harder, sleep less, run more, double-major, travel the world and say yes to every opportunity that comes your way!  And I played that game so well.  I rode that bull 8 seconds and then some.  I figured well, if it sounds good, and it will make me look good, I'd be a fool not to do it.

Here's the prob.  I didn't want to do any of it.  Not even a little.  My heart wasn't in it.  I was entirely  un-fulfilled. I wasn't inspired.  I was miserable. I chose the wrong path to take with my career.  I took the one that looked real nice on paper - never even questioning whether or not I would like it.  'Choose me?  What?'  'But no one really likes their job, right?'  Um, well they really shouldn't loathe every minute of every day at it.  'But everyone has to put in their dues, right?'  Um, yeah - for the right club and still sleeping at least 3 hours a night doing it.  Moderation.  Balance.  I must have been home sick they day they taught that.

So today.

I was suppose to go see a friend.  He is on hospice and no one ever comes to visit him.  I get so much out of our visits and really look forward to seeing him.  He even called last night to tell me how excited he was to see me.  I wake up today in a lot of pain.  Really shouldn't drive.  What would I have done last year?  Last month even?  Shown up.  Sucked it up and showed up.  And two weeks ago I did and blacked out in the middle of this old man's apartment.  Scared the hell out of him.  Bless his heart, he kept giving me sips of Ensure so I could get up.  What should I have done that day?  kind of obvious to everyone but me.  What did I do today?  I called and said I just couldn't make it.  Did I feel guilty?  Yup.  I know I shouldn't have but I did.  Was it the right thing to do? I think so, although I'm having trouble admitting that at the moment.

After that, I had an appt with my counselor. It had been a few weeks and I knew it was important to check in with all my crazy self-awakening nonsense.  Uh, yeah.  Just wasn't gonna be able to make it, and I hate that.  Here it is, just a few hours before my appointment and I would have to cancel on her.  Her time is precious, too! She is married, works two jobs, and seriously doesn't need me ditching her last minute.  Maybe, just maybe I called a few weeks earlier and offered to come in early so she wouldn't have to drive home in the rain.  See? guilt.  And yet I called today.  Profusely apologized to her secretary and asked to reschedule.  "It's a good thing you didn't come in today,' she said, 'some wires must have gotten crossed here and we don't have you down for an appointment on the system.'  wow.  it worked!