New Year, New Fight

Happy New Year.

I am seeing this new measure of time as a good thing, but it will come with an enormous amount of work. My usual, bring-it-on attitude has faltered in the recent months. While I'm still excited about starting 2013 in healthy, happy ways, it's that work I mentioned that I'm having trouble keeping my mind from.

Crohn's remission is something that I've patiently waited three long years for.

I thought that if my body was better, my life would be better.

I've had difficulty going to friends and family with the darkness that's been in my head, my heart. It's documented that after surviving traumatic experiences, people suffering from chronic illness are susceptible to major depression. I continued to stay as positive as I could, given the trying situations that were thrown my way, because I thought that I could be strong enough to avoid it. But with that attempt at such prolonged patience came very much anger. I knew that there was a chance that I could become seriously depressed. You start to mourn the life you lost after being so sick.

You start to hate things you spent years loving. And forget about what made you so happy, you could shit.

For weeks, my routine has steadily dwindled to lying in one place, just as I had when my body gave out on me. I look back at pictures, like the one below, and wonder why anyone would choose to revert back to such a sad place as that. After all of the fighting that I did to get myself back. The truth is, I must have just gotten comfortable there. It was easier to stay inside and sleep than to engage in interaction with the people that I know. It's nothing personal, but being around anyone makes me uncomfortable and question my every move and word.

Stockholm Syndrom.

I've lost interest in conversation with good friends, my family, and the growing responsibilities that I've been so looking forward to- in ways that I hope most of you will never understand. 

I've lost faith.

Despite his desperate pleading for me to get help before I finally did, I just about pushed the love of my life right out of it. 

I've stopped caring about hurting myself. I've stopped caring about everyone, and everything. And I'm so, so sorry.

I've stopped caring about being alive.

Writing this is the last possible thing that I want to be doing right now.

As hard as it is to put this out for everyone to see, I feel somewhat responsible to do so after sharing so much of my journey with Crohn's Disease with other sick people. 

Stale Cabbage took me away from my Crohn's and into a place where I made the rules. I was the boss. My posts were funny to me, they made me giggle at my secret wit. Writing these entries gave me the opportunity to show myself that I wasn't just some sick person. There is a wealth of knowledge at our fingertips to use in healing. I used it to my advantage and stayed the course in getting to that place once. 

I'm making the decision to do it again.

Dear friends, please know that there is nothing worth keeping to yourself that may hurt you. In the sunshine of this new, January morning, I am creating a relationship with myself. If you are thinking of hurting yourself because you lost hope for who you are, could be, are having trouble regaining your life, or are still unable to pinpoint exact reason, please contact someone who loves you. There ARE people that love you.

I am proof that you can find your voice and attempt to save yourself.

For my friends and loved ones:

Some of you may have noticed drastic changes in my attitude, and my withdrawal from social interaction. Please understand that I am seeking help, and am in the hands of wonderful doctors and close friends who know me well and are aware of these sad changes. My healthcare team does not take healing from something I've gone through lightly, and we were more than prepared for such an event. I am heartbroken to have been affected by something so nightmarish, but will continue to heal as I can. 

I know full well that here is very much love in healing.

Rabbit Rabbit.

Here's to Round 2.

Mood Poisoning

Cold, crummy weather makes me absolutely miserable. During the recent storms that blasted through New England, I think I cried more times within their few-day span than I had collectively in the last few months. Hurricanes don't scare native Floridians, but I was alone for the duration of Sandy- and that hurricane brought snow. Cosmo started freaking out before the wind started blowing, and his strange behavior (panting, whining, relentlessly licking his paws) made me nervous that if we really needed help, we might not be able to find it if people in Cambridge and Somerville were seriously hurt by the storm. 

Aside from the weather, I'm discovering that seasonal depression is a serious pain in the wobbly parts. I've read about large numbers of people with Crohn's that struggle with anxiety and depression without living in darkness in winter months. I've dealt with my share of mood swings during my recent flare, and just when I think there couldn't be anything else to knock me on my ass into a snowy, slush trap, it seems there is always more. Unfortunately, the list of tragic roles of a Crohn's patient doesn't stop at sick person. 

I was pretty damn pleased with my Halloween costume this year, but I do have a trunk full of other faces. Some are fun to wear, they make me feel good. But the others, they're the ugly kind that make you pee a little when you glimpse one on a haunted hay ride.

We've got a serious responsibility to keep whatever ails us in check, right? Research and  experimentation in pain and symptom management, too. There's also sticking up for one's self in trying social situations. Relationship maintenance is a big job, and you can go ahead and dump regular, 'normal' activity in there -if you can swing it. Sacrifice is a word that the sick know too well.  I've lost many people in my life because watching someone suffer so much isn't something that many people can stomach. It's almost as if the Universe had given me a buzzer that went off when the people I let in just shouldn't have been around. They left, and I moved on- without resentment or anger, because I realize that these situations aren't easy for everyone. 

Being tested in huge ways makes for an incredible spirit. I don't hold grudges or carry frustration about being misunderstood around with me too much these days. I'll admit, for a while I thought that keeping the hurt close would feel better eventually, somehow. I was so, so wrong. That mask was uncomfy, super hot, and smelled like my mouth.

When you don't put yourself out there, you can't complain when you hear things about people's uninformed shit talking, or that you've been totally mocked in public about not having been able to work for the last couple of years. How will anyone know how much you've planned for yourself in the time you were on your ass? Or that standing for too long could result in two down days, or a serious (and even more embarrassing) accident. Though since I got my poop card in the mail, I worry a little less about that last one.

So right off the bat, sick people are care givers and students, plan-breakers and fact checkers, objects of ridicule, and sufferers of lack of stimulation. We are strength when others need it, and even more when we really need it ourselves. We know how to let go, and mourn accordingly. We can make moments what we need them to be, and adapt in emergency situations. There used to be times when I wished for a normal life. When I hoped to just go back to the way things were before I got sick.

The truth is, having Crohn's Disease has made me a better person. I guess in some ways, it even saved my soul. I learned things that most people will never understand. I found strength within myself, and chose to rise above what I'd never have thought to in the past. I know what it feels like to love myself, and the body I've been given. 

For the first time in a long time, I'm seeing what I look like without any masks. 

And I could really get used to it.