Hello. Yes. I guess I can relate to a lot of this uber popular song by the songstress Adele. Hello. Those can be such heavy and weighty words for someone with a disability, a disease, an illness. You see, there are certain illness that see a rallying. A war cry and food trains and people wearing specific colors and bumper stickers and marching. Then there are other illnesses. There are those of us with less, well, less glamorous, less understood ones....we don't have giant marches, the NFL doesn't earn even more money charging special licensed jerseys in cute colors every fall for my cause. I get it. It's hard to understand. This monster - we don't have a famous face to it, so there isn't a big surge for funding, nor an ouporring of understanding and love much like Parkinson's saw after Michael J. Fox came out as being afflicted by the disease. Don't get me wrong. I think support for any and all illness/disease/whatever is huge and wonderful. I'm not slamming or putting down the ones that have the army behind them. Nor am I saying they shouldn't have the support, colorful ribbons and marches that they do. I'm simply saying...well, not all people struggling through an illness, disease or challenge has the support like that. I wish all people could experience such understanding and support.
I feel sometimes like I'm on another planet and I'm trying to phone back and say hello to people. This disease has made communicating with others so incredibly difficult. I really struggle to connect with others and I realize that. I struggle to relate and connect with those that aren't close because of obvious reasons. I'm entrenched in pain and struggles - it's hard to get to know strangers when I'm dealing with trying to make it through an hour much less a day. Then their are the people that I love the most. I have a hard time connecting to them. I can't let them know how I really feel. I see how it crushes them to know how badly I hurt. How tattered my life has become. How incredibly hard I struggle to make it through the day. When I start to let on how incredibly hard of a struggle it is, I see my very strong husband start to lose it, start to fall apart. He falls apart when I give the glimpse that I'm not invinsible. He seems to think that I'm so much stronger than I am. He seems to find comfort in thinking that this isn't as bad or hard on me as it is. I have realized that I need to try to let him keep believing this. At least for now. He needs to have this false hope. This placebo pill.
So you see, I'm left with no one really knowing who the hell I am anymore. Not even my best friend. My husband, who I am so close to. We are best friends. And yet, I have to hide the extent of the land mines, the wreckage, the bombs that have been detonated in my body; they all have to be prettied up, polished up and propped up. No one knows how badly I hurt. I take that back. My pain psychologist and my one doctor, I'm pretty frank with them. I tell them how awful I feel. I let my guard down, I let the tears fall. I just haven't figured out how to reconcile this girl that I am with the girl that they knew. I don't know how to put those two girls together. Sometimes I think it's just an impossible task. I just...I don't know.
So yeah. Hello....are you there? I guess I need to go try to introduce myself. I need to tell them about my life...But what to tell? How much do I share? When do I stop talking about my life as a professional figure skater? I feel like I betray myself when I don't mention that. Skating was my breath, my soul, my reason for being on this earth. I feel like I betray everything when I don't mention it. I still can't listen to a piece of music without listening for the cut points. Or to see where I would put my layback, the bielman, the double loop, the axel-half loop-double sal I just can't seem to break that wiring.
I just can't seem to break out of that mold totally. Time to get this old creeky, angry body into my medical bed. Wish me luck for a peaceful nights sleep. I don't think anyof this made sense....what's new? No one reads this but me, so whats the difference? This is for me and not for anyone else. If this helps anyone else, helps them either understand or help them to fight the monster themselves - great. But really, this is just for me. To help get the swirling thoughts out of my head and quiet my brain a little so that maybe I can be a little calmer...a least for a bit.
Hello, it's me
I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to
meet
To go over everything
They say that time's supposed to heal ya
But I ain't done much healing
Adele - Hello
I feel sometimes like I'm on another planet and I'm trying to phone back and say hello to people. This disease has made communicating with others so incredibly difficult. I really struggle to connect with others and I realize that. I struggle to relate and connect with those that aren't close because of obvious reasons. I'm entrenched in pain and struggles - it's hard to get to know strangers when I'm dealing with trying to make it through an hour much less a day. Then their are the people that I love the most. I have a hard time connecting to them. I can't let them know how I really feel. I see how it crushes them to know how badly I hurt. How tattered my life has become. How incredibly hard I struggle to make it through the day. When I start to let on how incredibly hard of a struggle it is, I see my very strong husband start to lose it, start to fall apart. He falls apart when I give the glimpse that I'm not invinsible. He seems to think that I'm so much stronger than I am. He seems to find comfort in thinking that this isn't as bad or hard on me as it is. I have realized that I need to try to let him keep believing this. At least for now. He needs to have this false hope. This placebo pill.
So you see, I'm left with no one really knowing who the hell I am anymore. Not even my best friend. My husband, who I am so close to. We are best friends. And yet, I have to hide the extent of the land mines, the wreckage, the bombs that have been detonated in my body; they all have to be prettied up, polished up and propped up. No one knows how badly I hurt. I take that back. My pain psychologist and my one doctor, I'm pretty frank with them. I tell them how awful I feel. I let my guard down, I let the tears fall. I just haven't figured out how to reconcile this girl that I am with the girl that they knew. I don't know how to put those two girls together. Sometimes I think it's just an impossible task. I just...I don't know.
So yeah. Hello....are you there? I guess I need to go try to introduce myself. I need to tell them about my life...But what to tell? How much do I share? When do I stop talking about my life as a professional figure skater? I feel like I betray myself when I don't mention that. Skating was my breath, my soul, my reason for being on this earth. I feel like I betray everything when I don't mention it. I still can't listen to a piece of music without listening for the cut points. Or to see where I would put my layback, the bielman, the double loop, the axel-half loop-double sal I just can't seem to break that wiring.
I just can't seem to break out of that mold totally. Time to get this old creeky, angry body into my medical bed. Wish me luck for a peaceful nights sleep. I don't think anyof this made sense....what's new? No one reads this but me, so whats the difference? This is for me and not for anyone else. If this helps anyone else, helps them either understand or help them to fight the monster themselves - great. But really, this is just for me. To help get the swirling thoughts out of my head and quiet my brain a little so that maybe I can be a little calmer...a least for a bit.
Hello, it's me
I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to
meet
To go over everything
They say that time's supposed to heal ya
But I ain't done much healing
Adele - Hello
