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

[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.