We chronically ill women try so hard to do "normal" things. Like look well. Be cheerful. Be patient. Kind. Hospitable.
Our family and marriage are our first priority after God. We try so hard to spin our wheel not fast- but at a "normal" pace. By "normal", we compare ourselves to those who do not suffer from chronic illness and pain. Or are disabled.
We are very careful to keep serving our family but sometimes with the illness that afflicts us: we fail. This often gets to us and causes us to sink into depression.
Being unable to process that we simply can't act as "normals", we often berate ourselves and sink into the Pit of Despair.
We are often judged by "normal" standards, as we simply cannot attend certain social functions like before. If we do, the pain and effort can make us tense and we can make us appear moody unsociable grumps aka the death head at the feast.
If only "normals" would realise that we are pushing ourselves every day to live a life that not even closely is "normal" like in the days before our health failed. We get so adept at doing this, that we have become quite good at wearing masks to cover the Mask Of Pain. Hence the appearance of being in a mood.
My fibromyalgia and other health issues have now made it impossible for me to disguise, and I have learned to acknowledge this to people and tell them in advance that my attendance or action or whatever is totally subject to how I am on any given day.
Basically, I have had to pander to angina, spinal problems, fibromyalgia, polymyalgia rheumatica, and submit to tyrannical spoons by being totally flexible about my appointments and so on.
People may still misjudge me but that is not my problem. I just pray that the LORD will allow them to see that I am not lazy or unsociable, but am just a chronically ill woman who finds just breathing some days enough effort.
The LORD knows I am not well, but people take a lot more convincing. I am not "normal".
© Glenys Robyn Hicks
Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Colossians 3:12