I hate whining and complaining, but I’m frustrated and confused and need to vent before I try to tackle today’s workload. I’ve been feeling fatigued for the past three weeks. It’s comes with the territory of having an autoimmune disease that hasn’t gone into remission yet. Honestly, I would prefer having the intense joint pain over feeling run down like this. At least I could do something to manage the pain. Not even coffee helps fatigue. I can sleep 10 hours a day if I wanted to and not even that would help. You know how it feels when you have to sneeze but the sneeze just won’t happen? That’s what it feels like waiting for a flare to hit. As much as a flare hurts, you want it to get here and happen already so you can get back to business with a bit more relief. 

I’m falling behind in everything. My lifestyle is starting to catch up to me. It used to be so easy to be a full time student working 4 jobs and volunteering almost all of my free time to charities. Now I’m barely passing some of my classes by the skin of my teeth. I fall asleep at work. Writing? Ha, fat chance of that. I can’t even get my brain to defog itself long enough to get this damn essay done. I feel like I’ve gotten lazy. I really haven’t, but it’s laziness according to my standards. I’m used to always being on the go, and now I can’t get enough time to rest. 

It’s frustrating. I feel like less of a person. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful for the fact that I got diagnosed early, but I want my life back. I don’t know what the next step should be. Should I take a semester off from school and try to rest and hope that I’ll be refreshed enough to pull my grades up the following semester? Should I quit a job and lose the desperately needed cash so I have more time to sit on my ass? If I don’t want to lose the money, I could quit the volunteer job. But then I’d feel selfish for taking the time for myself when there are so many other people that are less fortunate than me and need help.

And then I pose the greatest question-what if I do all of the above and still don’t feel better physically? Would that mean I wasted time for nothing? I know my health is important and that now more than ever I need to take care of myself. But what if I can’t get better for a few years?

I just want the emails to stop coming in and the homework assignments and exams to disappear. I want my office to burn down so I don’t have to work today. I want a warm bed to curl up in and I want people to disappear. I don’t like to complain and I especially don’t want people to think I’m looking for sympathy, but this whole thing sucks.

It’s 3am, I’m wide awake, and sleep won’t be visiting any time soon. I love it…I endure two straight weeks of extreme exhaustion and fatigue at a time. Of course, as soon as I know what a few days of relief feels like, my body decides sleep is no longer important. And here I am now, on my fourth day battling insomnia. I hate complaining and don’t like coming off as a whiny brat, but I’m gonna snap if I don’t write this out somewhere. I don’t expect anyone to really read this. 

For the longest time, I felt like no one was taking me seriously. Whenever I said I wasn’t feeling well, everyone just brushed me off. Thankfully, my boyfriend believed me, but I don’t think he realized how shitty I was feeling until he saw that I couldn’t go hiking with him anymore. The last time we attempted to hike, I made it about a mile from the car to the base of the mountain before I almost collapsed. We didn’t even make it on to the mountain. I had slept 11 hours the previous night…and I slept 4 more in the car on the way home. I’ve been battling infection after infection for the past 3 months. I’ve been dealing with horrible joint pain. I’ve never been one to let sickness slow me down, but this is getting the best of me. I had to quit a job because of it. I can’t do anything the requires physical effort. If I do, I’m in bed all day the next day. I feel like a slug. I can barely keep up with my hectic schedule anymore, and it used to be so easy.

I’ve been in the E.R. I’ve seen 2 different doctors already. They’ve taken about 8 vials of blood. The blood tests keep coming back with the same results…my white blood cell count is high, but there’s currently no sign of infection. They have no clue what’s causing it. Now they’re sending me to a bunch of specialists and making me go for a bunch of different tests. Now everyone who brushed me off before is starting to take me seriously. Quite frankly, I’m terrified. I never get sick, and I barely went to doctors. Now I’m seeing one every couple of weeks. Is it too much to ask for my life back? I want to enjoy this stage of my life, not spend it in bed unable to pull myself up. 

The other emotions I’m feeling at this point? Frustration, sadness, and hopelessness, to name a few. You know what? I don’t even feel sorry for myself…I’m angry at myself for being so weak. Angry at my lack of willpower. Angry for allowing myself to be at the mercy of something I can’t even see. And most of all, angry that I’m allowing who I am to be lost under all of this nonsense. I haven’t done any real writing since May. I can’t even tell you what the last chapter I wrote for my novel was about. How can I call myself a “Writer” if I lack the motivation to keep writing? Hence why I’m having an identity crisis.

This weekend is going to suck. The bf is camping with a friend until Sunday (one more thing I’m missing out on because of how disgusting I feel) which means I’m alone all weekend without having any contact with him. As crazy as this may sound, I’m having a serious bout of separation anxiety. We’ve never been apart for more than a day, let alone a weekend. He’s my backbone; the one who usually comforts me when I’m feeling like this. Call me blind, dependent, and foolish if you want…yes, I rely on my boyfriend for probably much more than a sane woman should. But when a guy is willing to wake up at 6am to take you to the hospital, is able to give the nurse your medical history, talks to the doctors with you, and then proceeds to take a sick day from work just to sit next to you and watch you sleep…that’s love. If he’s not willing to give up on me, even with all this craziness, even when I don’t want to go out and do the things we always did, then I’m not giving up either. I just hope that soon, we’ll be able to start going hiking again.

And so, I’ve been rambling  about more than what you probably wanted to hear, and it’s 4am now and I’m still nowhere near tired. Maybe I’ll try reading a book. I feel a little better at least now that I’ve typed this. I just hope I can keep myself together until Sunday afternoon. Anxiety disorder keeps rearing its ugly head…