I need to have someone to complain to. I have a bad cold. Seldom get one of those but today - on the third day - I'm not good at all. Fever and a cough that scares the cat off my lap and - actually - would scare anyone. It sounds like I'm dying. I don't feel like doing a thing, yet I'm bored too.
What bothers me most is the loneliness that comes with being sick. Wish I could talk to someone - complain to someone. I just don't know what to do with myself.
Yesterday my husband and I managed to do most of the dishes that had been piling up for a couple of weeks. I couldn't do them earlier because of some burnt fingers and my husband was sick. But yesterday, after doing most, I left a few to soak and there they are today, still soaking. I'm also way behind on my laundry and no energy to gather up the bedding and everything else and throw them into the washer. My husband has offered to help me a bit. He doesn't know what he's doing, but just to have him at my side will help.
Lonely - especially with my two best friends out of town. One of them - the very best for me to talk to - has been gone for almost five weeks and will be gone for six or seven more. That's real hardship. A person I share almost everything with and with whom I talk almost daily when she's in town - now far away.
I've done quite well though - kept busy - so I haven't suffered too much. Yet today it would be so neat to talk to her a bit.
Full of complaints, aren't I? Good to have this blog though. Good to have someone to talk to.
Showing posts with label illness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label illness. Show all posts
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
"Do you want to get well?"
I've almost finished reading a great book by Mark Buchanan called The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath. Something he said hit me very hard and made me look at something I've never considered before. He said, "It's the most natural thing to befriend your sickness, even, after long association, to depend upon it." Buchanan carries on by talking about some of the people Jesus healed, "Their entire lives...have taken shape around their injuries or diseases."
In John 5:6 Jesus asks a crippled man, "Do you want to get well?" That seems to be an odd thing to ask a person and, to think that a person doesn't really want to get well, might make us think ill of him. We might think of him as feeling sorry for himself or wanting pity. But, when you think of it, this man had been crippled all of his life - 38 years. No one had ever expected anything from him. He had never had responsibilities. To suddenly be well would mean a drastic new way of living, a way of living that would be hard to adjust to.
And this made me think that perhaps I'm a bit like that. To be perfectly honest, having lived with bipolar disorder for my entire 40 years of adult life, my illness does - in large part - define me, even though I do a wide variety of things. The major part of my current life involves raising awareness about mental health issues and supporting others who live with mood disorders. My BP is responsible for the kind of person I've become. When I become hypomanic, which often happens, I become super creative. I value that in myself. My moods are what makes me who I am. ...though I would love to get rid of those depressions.
If Jesus asked me, "Do you want to get well?" would I say yes?
I'm sure that if he had offered to make me well when I was twenty or thirty, or forty, I would have gladly said yes. I would then have been able to go back to school perhaps and start a career. My illness has kept me from that, the stress being too great. I've tried. I might have been able to make photography a full-time career. But now, at sixty-one, I have learned to turn the bipolar - the bad - into something good. I've learned how to help others cope with their illness. I've learned to build awareness. That has become my life. I could not do these things the way I do, without experiencing the disorder myself.
But you know, although I still have bipolar disorder, I think Jesus has made me well. In helping others, I am helping myself. The work I do gives me great joy. I love the life I live.
In John 5:6 Jesus asks a crippled man, "Do you want to get well?" That seems to be an odd thing to ask a person and, to think that a person doesn't really want to get well, might make us think ill of him. We might think of him as feeling sorry for himself or wanting pity. But, when you think of it, this man had been crippled all of his life - 38 years. No one had ever expected anything from him. He had never had responsibilities. To suddenly be well would mean a drastic new way of living, a way of living that would be hard to adjust to.
And this made me think that perhaps I'm a bit like that. To be perfectly honest, having lived with bipolar disorder for my entire 40 years of adult life, my illness does - in large part - define me, even though I do a wide variety of things. The major part of my current life involves raising awareness about mental health issues and supporting others who live with mood disorders. My BP is responsible for the kind of person I've become. When I become hypomanic, which often happens, I become super creative. I value that in myself. My moods are what makes me who I am. ...though I would love to get rid of those depressions.
If Jesus asked me, "Do you want to get well?" would I say yes?
I'm sure that if he had offered to make me well when I was twenty or thirty, or forty, I would have gladly said yes. I would then have been able to go back to school perhaps and start a career. My illness has kept me from that, the stress being too great. I've tried. I might have been able to make photography a full-time career. But now, at sixty-one, I have learned to turn the bipolar - the bad - into something good. I've learned how to help others cope with their illness. I've learned to build awareness. That has become my life. I could not do these things the way I do, without experiencing the disorder myself.
But you know, although I still have bipolar disorder, I think Jesus has made me well. In helping others, I am helping myself. The work I do gives me great joy. I love the life I live.
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