Navigating Chronic Illness
After Emotional Abuse
I’ve been pushing through my pain for a long time. I put a smile on my face and tried to operate like normal because I didn’t have another choice.
“Neglect is abusive. Ignoring a person and not caring about what they want, what they need, is like telling them they are not important over and over again.” -Maria Consigilo
For most of my adult life, to outside eyes, I had the support that comes with being in a relationship… but beneath the surface, I was left alone to handle things most of the time. I spent years showing that I understood how hard he worked but that it didn’t mean I didn’t work hard, too. Asking for help with specific tasks often led to resentment or hours-long naps until I finally gave in and did the task I asked for help with. Feeling constantly alone, trying to manage an enormous pile of responsibilities, and simultaneously begging for help from the person who should have shared the burden took a huge toll on me.
Eventually, I stopped asking for help and shouldered the burdens alone. I used to mow the yard with a toddler strapped to my back because if I didn’t do it, it wouldn’t get done. I learned that it was easier to expect nothing because when I received nothing, it didn’t hurt as much. I pushed through because I had to. There just weren’t enough hours in the day to keep up.
That isn’t my life anymore, but I still feel the weight of those long years of living in constant survival mode.
When I was diagnosed with PTSD, I felt this huge sense of relief, followed by several days where I felt the impact of knowing that my diagnosis meant that the emotional turmoil I felt was real. It wasn’t me being over dramatic. It was the direct result of being exposed to extreme stress over and over again. If you put enough pressure on a bone, it breaks, and the same is true for mental health. My diagnosis was validating and heartbreaking at the same time. A juxtaposition of relief and a deep well of grief at being pushed to my breaking point.
In the aftermath of my diagnosis, it’s taken a very long time to notice how hard I push myself to keep operating at such an insane rate. I frequently burn myself out and then break down over how much is already on my plate. With burnout comes constant overwhelm because if my daily life is so hard to balance… how am I ever going to change my life situation? I know that to reach the changes I desire, I have to work for them. I feel the crushing burden of responsibility on my shoulders daily.
Learning to adjust my expectations is still a struggle. I have big dreams and goals, but they must be balanced in the body of someone who requires a lot of downtime and a slow pace. It’s excruciating because the part of me that wants to escape feels like I’ll never make it to the finish line. I often resent myself for failing to function like I used to, but here’s the thing.
Nobody ever should have had to function like I used to.
The way I operated wasn’t normal. How I trained myself to push through and pick up the slack from every corner wasn’t normal. It’s taken time to stop punishing myself when I fail to keep up. I constantly worry that I’m not doing enough for my kids or that taking the downtime I need means that I am, in turn, neglecting them.
Balancing my mental health and chronic fatigue is exhausting on its own, but recently, my physical health has also been slipping.
I had always downplayed when I was sick and was often praised for pushing through and going to school when I was sick. I thought it was a badge of honor that I could feel so awful and keep going.
While I have been making adjustments to my approach to my mental health and burnout, I have still been trying to push through physically. I’ve been downplaying the amount of pain I have been in. Spoiler alert: joint pain is severe enough to wake you up at night, and crippling stomach cramps are not normal.
I knew it wasn’t normal, but I didn’t fully believe my own pain. Part of me consistently wondered if I was over-emphasizing my symptoms after years of doctors and lab reports saying I was fine. Stomach pain can manifest from PTSD, so I figured that could be it. But the other factor is that within the confines of my past relationship, it was normal for me to be sick and push through. When we all had Covid at the same time, I was stumbling through the house with a raging fever, tending to everyone else while he slept it off.
When I broke my foot, he was so annoyed at staying home to help me that he huffed and brooded about working from home, making it clear that he absolutely did not want to be there until I told him to go to work. I ignored the pain and got the office chair to roll around the house and attend to business as usual because I knew that if I didn’t, nothing would get done. By the end of the day, I was sobbing from the pain, only to be told, “Why didn’t you tell me it hurt so bad? I would have stayed home.”
Being sick and pushing through isn’t new to me, but the combination of medical gaslighting and pushing through led to me being sicker than I should have been.
This week, a doctor finally heard me. I was terrified that they wouldn’t believe me before my appointment. It turns out that several of my symptoms are actually quite worrisome, and the doctor immediately ordered a series of tests.
I’m being tested for both celiac disease and Crohn’s disease, and the relief at being heard was euphoric. I floated high on the wave of finally possibly having an answer to my physical pain, but just as it did with my PTSD, in the wake of the high grief and overwhelm was lurking.
I have already maintained a gluten-free diet for quite some time, but if either of these diagnoses belongs to me, I will have to operate with an extra level of caution and care with what I eat. It would change the way I can eat out, and knowing how much extra care my body needs feels devastating because I already feel like I can’t keep up with my constant triggers and need for rest.
I have been making a lot of jokes about feeling like a very complicated house plant, but it’s also devastating to me. I want to be in a place where I can be fully independent, but my reality is that I need a lot of care, and I have to learn how not to do everything by myself.
“As is becoming increasingly more well known, stress has a very adverse impact on our physical health, as our mental and emotional health is intimately linked to our physical health and vice versa.
Trauma is essentially an extreme state of stress.
This heightened state of stress adversely impacts the nervous systems, gene expression, brain function (as the limbic system in the brain is triggered and goes into a heightened state of alarm which has a cascade effect on many systems of the body), immune system (ingniting a state of chronic systemic inflammation), hormone imbalance, and more.
As a result of these far-reaching physical effects, most forms of chronic illness have the potential to arise due to the influence that trauma has on the body.” credit: Healing Journey Essentials
I can’t say for sure whether or not I would have gotten this sick naturally or not, but I do know for sure that the years of nonstop stress had a toxic effect on both my mind and my body.
I learned how to verbalize and express my needs on bad mental health days. Now I realize that I’ll have to learn to express my physical needs and limitations and maybe finally learn how to put down some of my burdens without feeling so guilty that I failed to live up to insane expectations.
I am a very complicated house plant, and now it’s time to learn how to care for myself.
