Hiding Illness

It’s a bad one this time.  It comes and it goes… and in between sometimes there’s mania.  This is a “come.”

It’s not like it used to be, where there were no islands of sanity at all.  I suppose I’m grateful for that…at other times.

I was manic.  Now I’m depressed.  Vacations are good, but hard on the brain.  And then my sleep has been rough.  I’ve been doing everything right, mostly.  My diet isn’t perfect right now… but compared to normal people, my diet is ridiculously good.  It’s probably hilarious that I consider it a “bad day” on my diet when I eat tomatoes and put paprika on my chicken, because fuck it, sometimes I want paprika for fuck’s sake.

I posted something on Facebook that wasn’t totally cheerful, and I realized it made me uncomfortable.  I’m leaving it, because I’m angry that it makes me uncomfortable, and Sir says it’s not inappropriate I’m just feeling sensitive.  So I’m trusting his brain over mine and leaving it.

But it makes me angry because I posted a pic that said “I say I’m tired, but really I’m just sad.”

That’s all.  Just that, on a black background.

And it made me uncomfortable, because… I am profoundly uncomfortable with making other people uncomfortable… and my disease… hell, even having normal people emotions… makes other people uncomfortable.  They don’t know how to deal with it.  They don’t know how to act, or how to feel, or how to respond, or what to say… so I give them an out.  I say, “I’m just tired,” and I smile and I make a joke and I make everyone feel okay.

And I find somewhere to cry alone where no one will know.

And I don’t even think there’s a point in telling anyone, anyway.  Why make them uncomfortable?  What are they going to do?  It can’t be fixed…  It just is.  Right now there isn’t even a reason for my sadness, it’s just depression, just fucked brain chemistry trying to repaint reality for me.

So why talk about it?

I’ll probably be fine.

I’ve survived 40 years with this shit.  I’ve clearly not died from it, yet.  It seems unlikely I am going to die this time.  So why burden anyone with it?  Why make them feel awkward, uncomfortable, and ultimately resentful towards ME for making them feel that way… because it is my fault… my fault for being sick in their presence and making them confront their own inability to be present with illness.

We’re pretty shit about that as a society, really.  We aren’t comfortable being uncomfortable.  We aren’t comfortable being uncertain and feeling awkward and helpless.  And we get angry about it and resentful about it and want to blame our discomfort on something other than our own inability to rest in discomfort.  So we target the person who we see as causing the discomfort.  They aren’t playing by the rules, they aren’t making things smooth and easy, they are creating unpleasant feelings in us, so we get unhappy.  And we get resentful because we feel like we somehow have to listen or help or fix it in order to be a good person and then we resent that, too.  Because we don’t want to stand by someone who is suffering, but we don’t want to look like a bad person, either… So we get more resentful…

So I smile and say, “I’m just tired,” and avoid the whole mess, because, really, your discomfort is just one more burden that I don’t have the strength to bear right now.

I’m just tired.  🙂

You’re welcome, world.

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