Sometimes it's hard not to compare myself to my friends who are my age. People from my years in school who are now working full time and getting to have these incredible impacts on the world. People who are buying houses and at least seem to have attained some sense of financial security and stability. Friends who have or are expecting to have cute little babies. Friends who are traveling and seeing the world. I am very proud of each of them and honestly happy for their accomplishments. I sometimes feel extremely alone in where I am in life.
It's not where I expected to be at this age. My teenage self is wondering where that rich Australian is. My newly accepted to grad school self is wondering when my health will allow me to really dig into the work and explore my passions. The me who graduated is wondering at what point I get to be independent and feel secure. My current day self looks at my health and all the changes and wonders what the future holds. I am really hoping it gets better, but the reality is in my doctor's words I have a "progressive fatal chronic illness."
Does comparing seem to be helpful or like it leads me to a good place? Probably not. I'm sure those same friends look around and feel the same sense of loneliness when they compare to others. For me comparison is one of my protective mechanisms. If I believe others can't or don't understand then I don't have to be vulnerable and tell them where I am at. I can be in my own "safe" isolated bubble. The thing about connection is it requires at least part of my genuine self. The optimist (the part of me that portrays this never ending supply of happiness and positivity) can't be the only part of me I let be seen if I really want the true connection. I can reassure you that part of me is still here, but there are also so many other parts too.
The morning of my birthday was really rough for me this year. It's the second year in a row that I haven't been able to eat on my birthday. Not only that it's the second year in a row I couldn't eat on Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years and my birthday. My blood work has repeatedly shown severe malnutrition and while the feeding tube is helping it will take me months to get my body back to a normal level in most of those areas. My birthday also represented getting older and still not feeling like I've achieved everything I should have by this age. This fall my plan was to be roommates with my sister in the same apartment building as one of my best friends. My sister would be doing law school for the next 3 years and I would be able to focus on work and paying off my student loans. I was going to finally have the stability I had been craving. My little sister found out the week before her classes were supposed to start that she was being deployed for a year. My best friend who lived in the same apartment building moved to a different state recently. I tried to still cling on to that apartment, but after passing out while alone there my doctor told me it was not safe for me and I made the difficult decision to move back home. There's been multiple times over the past few months where home health has come daily to care for me. I have lost some of that highly valued independence. I haven't slept through the night since October 9th. Many nights I wake up with intense pain, nausea or because my feeding tube is beeping for attention and it can feel impossible to get the pain to calm down enough to even try to fall back asleep. That is all to say that on the morning of my birthday there were so many vulnerability factors that were struggling.
There were many people who reached out to me that day. I ignored almost all of them until I was in a better place mentally. I feel like I have to portray the optimist. I am afraid if I replied to the question of how I am doing with some of these other parts it would be more than people wanted and that I myself would have to face emotions I've been running from. I have spent years and so much money on therapy. One of the biggest and hardest things for me to learn is that my wants and needs matter. I struggle to allow that to be true and to ask for them. I worry about how it will impact others. I was at a training this past weekend though and one of the screens he showed felt like it was meant for me. It was about helping clients and their families ask for help from those they know. I'll share a picture of it below. It talks about how asking for help drives connection and frequently helps others to feel valued and cared for too. I am going to continue the work of honoring and asking for my wants and needs. Part of that means some of these blogs are going to be more raw and may not be as optimistic as I typically am. My hope is that it drives connection and helps me combat some of the isolation caused by comparison.
