The following was written in response to a post by a person who has been accused by family members and so-called friends of lying about her illnesses, including cancer, because she "just doesn't look sick" and "doesn't act like she's in pain" and her attitude is "just TOO positive."
I find your approach enviable, and I don't find you pitiable at all. Yes, I'm sorry you've had to deal with cancer because I know cancer can take a lot out of a person, but I do not offer pity because pity is something no-one wants.
The best I can muster a lot of the time for the crap I deal with is an IDGAF attitude. I can't say I celebrate the hand I've been given. Then again, I do better with it when people aren't pitying me. I once said that I don't think I'd know how to navigate life without the lens of bipolar disorder, because I've never not had bipolar disorder. So, if I were given a cure for bipolar disorder, I wouldn't take it. People freak out when they hear things like that. Why wouldn't I want to be "normal?"
I can't say I think bipolar disorder is a "gift." Before it was correctly diagnosed, it wreaked a lot of havoc. It just happens to be something that twists the control knobs in my brain in different directions than most people's brains. It can't be "cured," and I wouldn't take the "cure" if it could be.
If there were a cure for all my endocrine problems, I'd take it, because I hate having no energy. I've been tired my entire life, and it's gotten worse in middle age. People have no sympathy for that sort of thing because the illness is invisible. "Well, if you'd just get up and get going..." Yeah, if I had a penny for every time I heard that I'd have enough money to hire someone to get up and get going for me! Not that I'd actually want to do that.
I truly believe in accepting people as they are, and I don't believe in pathologizing people. Nobody lives forever. I wish my attitude could be more like yours, but I tend to be a bit of a gloomy cuss by nature, and no, it isn't a "choice."
~Cie~
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