Frustration and Acceptance (with added gorillas)

So recently I've been getting more and more frustrated with myself, with my illness and with my situation. I've gotten cross that it's not fair, that I've lost my health and my youth, that I might never be able to do the activities I once loved again. I frequently get angry with myself for being unable to do things and I feel useless so much of the time when I can’t complete even simple tasks, tasks that most people don’t even think about. I find myself becoming exasperated and overwhelmed when I get too tired to finish something, and I hate asking for help with anything. I am a very stubborn person, and I don’t like to appear weak to anyone, not even my closest friends and family. I like to give the impression of having it all together, when really inside I’m usually falling apart. Obviously sometimes this mask falls off and people get an insight into the broken, bitter character I’ve become, and I hate that. I hate people saying things like ‘oh you poor thing,’ and I hate feeling pitied. I am not to be pitied. I am a strong, independent fighter who will always keep going, I may need your empathy at times, and sometimes even a bit of help, but don’t you ever pity me. For I have more joy in my life than so many, and so much of my joy comes from the smallest things- a butterfly’s wing pattern, a cuddle with my cat, a good chat with a close friend, a decent cup of tea. I may not always be a happy person, but I endeavour to always be joyful, through every circumstance.

Yet there are times when I am not joyful, when anguish and anger consumes me, where I shut out those I love, and lash out at those who try to help me. There are times when I feel so small and helpless and purposeless that I struggle to keep on going. And that’s okay, because I’m a human being, and a far from perfect one at that. I don’t intend to be a role model to anyone, more of a realistic representation of what life is like, because it’s not always fun and it’s not always fair and sometimes we just have to accept that.

We can exhaust ourselves by fighting your gorillas, (see ‘Disability is like having a Gorilla in your House’) each and every day of your life, by trying to win their cooperation through force and stubbornness, but if you’re anything like me, it just doesn’t work. You end up exhausted and your gorilla ends up angry and you invariably cause a relapse or a decline in your health. I was talking with a friend of mine the other night about acceptance of long term conditions and illnesses, and we came to the conclusion that the best strategy we’ve found for dealing with our gorillas is to invite them in, give them a spot on the sofa, offer them a cup of tea and embrace them. Not literally of course, because these aren’t literal primates that will waltz into your living room, but to continue the metaphor, the trick, we’ve found, it to accept your gorilla and try to continue with your life as you did before, but making provisions for your gorilla as well.

We could easily sit around waiting for our gorillas to leave, but they might never leave, and what’s a life wasted on waiting for things to get better if anything but a tragedy? It’s time to quit whining that it’s not fair, that we want to be better, that we don’t want our gorillas any more, and start accepting that this is the life we’ve been given. And we’ve got to work with what we’ve got, whether that’s a little or a lot, because at the end of the day, we are alive, and that calls for us to at least try to make something of ourselves, to make a difference in the world. For me, my biggest motivation is that my efforts will hopefully prevent others from having to go through what I’ve been through, that my determination will pay off in improving the lives of others. The fact that I could help someone, gives me the strength to wake up in the morning. I’m not trying to be preachy here, and I want you to know that sometimes it fails, sometimes I hurt people instead of helping them, or I help them for my own selfish agenda, or I cannot be bothered to even give someone a little time for a chat because I’m too caught up in my own misery to care. But on the days I do make a difference, when I do contribute to someone else’s happiness, when someone thanks me for something I’ve done, I feel like I can fly. Because I’m not useless, even with my gorilla in tow, and neither are you.

You might have a mental health problem, that impacts on every single thought and action of your day. You might think because of your poor people skills or your anxiety, that you’ll never be able to help someone. But I am telling you that you can. It might not be now, but maybe in a couple of years’ time, someone might ask you how you overcame your anxiety, and you can share your experiences with them. Or maybe you smiled in the street one day at someone, and that person’s remembered that for the rest of their lives. You don’t know how every little action of yours impacts the world, and even if you feel helpless and powerless to affect a change, I can assure you that you do. And you are so strong, because you fight against an invisible gorilla, which nobody can see, and yet you are still here, reading this post, and you’re still fighting every day. Don’t stop fighting, friends, because you are so much stronger than you think. I’m not going to sugar coat it, or lie to you, tell you ‘it gets better’ because it might not. This might be your life forever, and you may never feel any better, but unless you stick around, how are you going to find out? Come on, join me for the ride, and when you fall to the ground for the thousandth time, I’ll still be there beside you, with a hand to help you up again.

You might have a long term health problem, or a chronic illness such as M.E. and feel that each task you have to do in the day is nearly impossible, that you can’t go on like this anymore, and that you’re never going to achieve the things you wanted to. And maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll never go to that country or climb that mountain or become that athlete that you wanted to be, and it is okay to grieve that dream. We think of grief as being exclusively related to death, that you grieve the loss of a life. But in a way, chronic illness is the loss of a life- the life we’d planned, the life we wanted, the life where all our hopes and dreams and ambitions are fulfilled, where we are able to make choices dependant on our wishes, rather than our health. And I am giving you permission to mourn your lost life. I am giving you permission to get mad, to get sad, and to not understand. You don’t have to understand the pain you’re going though, you don’t have to like the pain you’re going through, but once you’ve screamed and shouted and cursed the world, the hardest part is accepting that this may be your life; this may be all you get. There might not be any pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, it might not get better, but you have to keep on trying, because what else can you do? And I am so proud of you for getting this far, and I believe in you, I believe you are more than capable of keeping going, and I am going to be here for you no matter what.

You see, acceptance isn’t about giving up hope of a better life, it’s about understanding that you can’t just wait around for it to all get better, for someone or something to come along and fix you, because the world is not a wish granting factory. As a Christian, I might urge you to pray for healing, but whether you are healed or not is out of my hands, and you cannot put your life on hold whilst waiting around to be healed, because that is such a waste of life. As a Christian I might also say that because Earth is only a waiting room for eternity, and in comparison to the time you’ll spend in your healthy body eternally, the pain you suffer on earth is negligible. But as comforting as it is to know that one day, if you do believe that Jesus died to save your life, so that you could enjoy the gift of eternal life, you’ll enjoy a new body, forever, it doesn’t actually change your earthly experiences. You might feel differently about them, and if the knowledge of a suffering free eternity makes you view your time on earth more favourably, then credit to you, I am unable to see this in my own life, as much as I would like to.

There is a well-known saying, that life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain, and really, that’s the sentiment I’m trying to get across. Life isn’t about waiting for your gorilla to go away, it’s about teaching him to respect you, and adjusting your life to accommodate him. And you will have good days and bad days, like we all will, days when the gorilla will entertain himself and not bother you too much. But there will be the days when he beats you up repeatedly and you will get through them. Sometimes all you will be able to do is survive, and that’s okay. But maybe, just maybe, as you learn to accept the limits of you and your gorilla, you’ll start to live once more, you’ll dream new dreams, make new plans, and have a life once again.

Don’t lose hope, chronic kitties,
Alley-Cat

© Alice Daley 2014