invisible disability day, huh

[maevele]

I'm finally acknowledging that yes, my mental illness is disabling. I have depression and anxiety to the point where even well medicated, it prevents me from what most would consider 'normal functioning.' Most days, getting up and interacting with the kids is my absolute maximum I can do, leaving me spoonless for anything else. That's why my house looks like this.

on my really bad days, I can still get up and pretend to function for them, but the whole day is a fight, and I consider it a win if I don't have thoughts of suicide.



In the world, my depression has fucked up responsibilities, but because it's invisible, it's not like I get sympathy or help, it's just assumed I am lazy and irresponsible.

I have lost so many friends over my illness, not because I do anything horrible to them, but because I distance myself from people when it gets bad so they don't see how it is, or as self defense so people can't reject me when they see how broken I am. or just because when it's bad, I can't bring myself to initiate contact, and then i feel like an asshole for not calling for 4 mnths, which becomes a year, which becomes.....

and the anxiety, makes it so fun things like street festivals and parties lose most of their fun. I still try to go to such things for the kdis benefit, and because in between crawling out of my skin I sometimes get a little positive socialization.


but I have spent 20 years pretending this is just slightly off from normal, I'm not disabled, just a little sick. tghat's a goddamn lie.


Also, I am coming to terms with my physical pain problems, which may not be a disability, but certainly make me less able. my carpal tunnel keeps getting worse, so some days I can not lift the coffeepot one handed. My nerve thing in my back puts me at about 60% functioning at best for several days a month. If something happened and i had to go back to work, I am no longer able to do any of the jobs I have done in the past. I can't even think of any jobs I haven't tried that I could handle now, between the mental and the pain.


But I look pretty healthy, when my back works so I can stand, and have a hard time even getting my doctors to believe it's as bad as it is, because I have been covering so hard for so fucking long.

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

You're so brave!

*gag*

I mean putting it out there about your depression takes guts, and you've got 'em.

The Americans with Disabilities Act defines "disability" much more broadly than many people's notions: an impairment of a major life activity. Like .... walking (that's your back) or cooking for yourself (your hands).

Damn, guess I'll have to do this meme as well.

[al_zorra]

I have enormous sympathy with your situation, and even empathy for parts of it.

I too have disability that isn't visible to the naked eye (though x-rays reveal it with leaping out clarity that even I can see it).

I've just been swotting Kate Chopin's The Awakening for a presentation - discussion in a college course next week. It had been a while since my last re-reading, but yet again this time I still think Edna Pontellier's condition isn't that of oppressed WOMAN as much as it is about her tendency toward depression, and what looks suspiciously very like what we now diagnose as mani-depressive. But as this novel was published in 1899, this vocabulary for such conditions was in the most nascent of stages. All the medical establishment was certain of is that "women's nervous systems are fragile and unpredictable," so lets medicate or put into asylum or send on a journey overseas (I like that last one ...).

Oddly, in my evidently rash declaration that I don't see Edna's story as a particularly 'feminist' one, and the reasons I give, has provoked a firestorm over on LJ. One of my oldest friends has declared I'm no feminist, ignorant of second wave feminism and what sorts of social and legal conditions women were up against then, and stabbing her in the back. Essentially she personally slapped me. Lively times.

Love, C.

[randomposting.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

[shweta-narayan.livejournal.com]

This is such a brave post. Thank you for sharing. I'm glad to better understand how it is for you and how your experience differs from that of other people I know.

It seems so many of us have all of our problems made worse by healthy people feeling entitled to decide "how healthy we are" and stand in judgment instead of listening :(

[maevele.livejournal.com]

it doesn't feel brave. it feels kinda selfish? or self indulgent?

[shweta-narayan.livejournal.com]

I understand that feeling, 'cause I feel that way about posting myself, but it doesn't come across as selfish or self-indulgent at all. You're being up-front about things that you've been pressured into hiding for years.

I think it's that social pressure that makes honesty feel like "whining", because, I guess, we've all been told to quit fussing far too often, explicitly and implicitly.

[bifemmefatale.livejournal.com]

The other commenters said the exact thing I was coming to say. Guess it bears repeating: This is a brave post. Big squishy hugs if you want 'em.

[maevele.livejournal.com]

it doesn't feel brave. it feels kinda selfish? or self indulgent?

[bifemmefatale.livejournal.com]

Absolutely not. It's not self-indulgent at all to say, "I have something that makes my life more difficult and less than optimal." It's always brave of us monkeys to bare the things that make us vulnerable, especially in the case of mental illnesses, which still bear some stigma. But just like every other coming out, it lets others know they're not alone and raises social awareness.

[raanve]

I agree that this is a brave post. I also know what you mean by it feeling self-indulgent or selfish.

I've struggled with this same kind of thing -- at present, I'm not, I don't think, disabled by my mental illness(es) but there have been times in my life when that may have been the case. I never thought about calling it what it was. Right now, I am lucky to be managing well, with okay coping skills and a good support system. I can go to work, I go out and have fun, etc. But I am all to aware that this might not always be the case.

Thank you for talking honestly about this. *hugs*

[rhipowered.livejournal.com]

Same feelings on my part, for that matter.

[were-duck.livejournal.com]

*hugs* thank you for this strong, honest post. It's the kind of introspection that can be really hard to figure out at all, much less articulate.