Thursday, September 3, 2009

Anger, Guilt, and Why having to ask for help SUCKS

I'm so mad right now. It's comforting, in a way, because my heart has been beating too fast for a couple of hours now, and getting worse, but at least if I'm angry it feels like it's supposed to be beating fast and it isn't as worrisome.

One of the things I hate about being sick, is that no one seems to understand. Even the people closest to you.

I've had a really rough couple of months. Right as I was feeling better, exercising regularly, able to push myself more, get more done, I crashed. Orthostatic Hypotension up the ying yang (low/dropping blood pressure when upright)and POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia). My heart was hammering away. Scarier still, I started getting these muscle tremors. They wouldn't settle down unless I lay down, flat, for an hour or so. Shaking & weakness, all over. Having to will my hands to do things like reach and stay closed...scary. About a week into that, I got a killer stomach flu (or flare-up of the chronic one I have hiding in my body according to a certain doc) that lasted almost two weeks. I lost 8 pounds. Once that was done with, I ended up with a UTI turned Kidney infection, which is soo not fun when you have CFS and all the other problems...Fever, pain in the lower back, front...

I got depressed as hell. I'm VERY bad at lying around doing nothing. The fact that I'd become so much more active right before made it almost unbearable to have to sit at home alone for weeks. I got so bored when I was even slightly better I took to cleaning. Then my doctor yelled at me and told me I just needed to REST.

Rest? I thought? Ha! I was so sick of looking around and seeing everything a mess. If I had money, I'd hire someone to come clean, but I don't. At that point, I could barely manage to cook. I had to sit down, my heart was pounding so hard I was getting out of breath, and I was getting dizzy just walking around, and I'd sit at the stove, stir, go lie down for a few minutes, and repeat. I managed to serve my Dad, but then was too wiped out to serve myself or eat. All I could do was lie down, close my eyes and focus on breathing. And how did that make me feel? Embarassed, and apprehensive, because my Dad was acting like nothing, which made me feel...well, how could you ignore someone obviously feeling so unwell unless you think they're faking it or something?!? I suddenly felt like a kid again, waiting to get yelled at. That's how I've been feeling a lot lately, when I need help with something. I'm afraid to ask. I told myself it was silly, but...

And tonight that's how I ended up feeling.

I'm sick. I need help with the cleaning. When I had my own apartment, it was a disaster. I hated it, but I was too busy trying to keep a roof over my head to waste time beating myself up over it. Life was beating me up enough. Towards the end, I was too tired, or in too much pain, or just too plain overwhelmed trying to study and keep up with the odd jobs I did to make ends meet, and dealing with getting through each day. My Dad lived with me for a short while until I got evicted, and I thought he understood how much help I needed. But apparently not. I've been begging him to get someone to come clean, and he keeps insisting we can do it, and if the pain was keeping me from doing it before, well, now, with all the blood pressure problems and the heart issues, I REALLY can't. I probably shouldn't. I was still going to try today though, because I'm stubborn like that. Earlier today I felt the best I've felt in weeks and I was dying to clean, but I ended up realizing I needed to go to followup with the doctor today.

Okay, I'm not going to rant and rave anymore. My point is, it just SUCKS. It was so hard for me to sit around RESTING, it almost drove me nuts. But I ended up so weak, and miserable, I realized I had no choice, but I still had to make a conscious effort at it. At relaxing. And now my Dad is yelling at me about lying around watching TV instead of cleaning just because I asked him if he could please help clean up the kitchen because there were ants. (I took care of the ones that were overrunning the living room area over the weekend, as well as the ones in my bathroom). He blew $40 taking us out to eat, and if he had that money to blow (which he probably doesn't, now that I think of it, but he did) maybe it would have been better spent using it to hire someone to clean? I've been asking him to vaccuum for 3 weeks now...we have a really old one, and it's hard for me to push around, and I have allergies, so it really shouldn't be more than a week between vacuumings, and he keeps putting it off. Sometimes I feel like I'm living with my little brother instead of my father...trying to coax him into doing something as if it was a big favor to me, and not his own house!

So, why is it SO hard for people to get that I'm sick? I guess he's in his own little world and doesn't realize that I have to lie down about a zillion times a day...I don't do it cuz I want to, you'd think he'd know how stir crazy I am and that I'm always doing something when I feel well enough...But lately I literally feel sick if I'm upright too long, and it progresses from sick, to tense and painful, vaguely anxious feeling, to muscle tremors, dizziness and a heartbeat of up to 134 (earlier this week)and breathlessness if I don't. Week before last, w/that and the kidney infection, I could barely manage to get myself something to eat, but not once was I even asked if I needed something even...

Times like those, I have to keep myself from asking what would become of me if I stayed as sick as I've been these last weeks, because I seem to be all on my own, as much as I was when I lived alone. It's just as hard to ask for help, and even if I dare, as tonight showed, it's even worse trying to get it. I just don't understand it. I never imagined this would be my life. In my worst fantasies, even if I were to get ill, there would have been people to help me. In reality, people are scarce, and indifferent. Maybe that's why I have so much guilt, and have such a hard time accepting the full gravity of my health issues and sticking to that acceptance. The objective thinker that I am figures, if no one else believes I'm that sick, it must be in my head...I have to try harder, there must be something I'm not doing something right, I'm not organized enough, I'm not determined enough...I'm just not enough...And I start to wonder if the reason I feel myself so abandoned is just that I'm somehow not worthy of anyone's love or attention or care...

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