I'm a pretty strong person. I have had a life where I have been beaten down, trampled over, injured, deathly ill, and mentally scrambled. Through illness and injury, I have persevered. I have pushed through and come out the other side of my experiences stronger and wiser. I am confident that I can make it through just about anything. But even the strongest people feel weak at times.
Today, I am weak emotionally. For more than 6 weeks now, I have been fighting a massive sinus infection that just will not go away. I have dealt with migraine after migraine, several rounds of antibiotics and steroids, CT scans, blood work, exhaustion, and still trying to work and get my business off the ground. The longer it continues, the more likely surgery will be needed to clear the infection out. Quite honestly though, I would welcome it.
Over the weekend, the infection made its way into my chest and bronchitis is setting in: the figurative straw that broke the camel's back. I don't look sick, only tired. I don't sound sick (aside from the cough), just sad. But I am sick and I am tired and sad. Weeks of fighting this illness has left me short on spoons with nothing left in reserves and I still have another 2 weeks before I can see the specialist. The frustration and annoyance has compounded into an overall feeling of disappointment and feeling of hopelessness, that I will never be healthy again.
Before you freak out, yes, I know this is not true, but our emotions do not always follow our knowledge. I know health will come again and I will ignore the lies that my bipolar can tell me, but the feelings are still there and need to be acknowledged. Denying those feelings only make things worse. So today, I acknowledge my feeling of weakness. I acknowledge my desire of having someone just hold me and take care of me for a few days so I don't have to think about all the things I want to be accomplishing and can't.
I accept that I must take care of myself first, but that doesn't mean that I won't feel the frustration and disappointment of wanting to take care of those around me. So this is me asking for help from my family and friends, if you have a few minutes, drop me a message, give me a ring, or stop by my house to visit. Distract me from the disappointment of being ill. Tell me about your day or a funny joke. Run your big ideas by me so I have something else to ruminate on instead of feeling crappy. If you can spare it, run an errand for me or drop off a side dish for dinner so I don't feel quite so guilty for not being able to care for my family as I would like. Forgive me if I sound down in the dumps and understand that I am doing the best I can. Sometimes, we just need a little helping hand.
Bipolar Musings of my life, humor, health, family, friends, and beliefs.
