I always have hope and though I know every day my health is improving I am still chronically disappointed, firstly, in myself for letting these illnesses take so much of my life and joy. Secondly, in our woefully inadequate medical system that consistently puts profits and efficiencies above real patient healing. Mostly and finally in the people that I invested so much love an attention. I never realized that I was putting others ahead of my needs because I was totally naïve to the fact that I even had needs.
I knew I had the basic physical ones like eating and sleeping but not for deep human connection and care. I grew up in a house where I was told that my feelings didn't matter and that my needs are second to the family and everyone around me. This seems like a normal story for women. From a young age, our intuition and agreeableness are used against us.
What's even more strange is that when you grow up in a household like that you attract other people with the same experience and thus your world view is more strongly developed. The first time I realized that there was another way of connecting was on a car ride with a friend and her mom. Her mom wanted to know, in detail, how her day was, how she was feeling, and what she could do to help. I was blown away.
I remember in 6th grade my parents smoked in the garage and they were regularly out there chatting. If I really wanted to talk to them I had to go out there and bare the smoke. I ended up getting a terrible case of bronchitis, then pneumonia. I was almost hospitalized and ended up having asthma. I kind of wish I was hospitalized but I don't think even that would have stopped my parents, I still had to brave the smoke to get any attention. Stupidly, I started smoking in college and, obviously, ended with a severe case of pneumonia right before a big event.
These disappointments still plague my relationships today. I don't want to disappoint people the way I was but then I just disappoint myself. Are these illnesses the alarm bells asking me to tune into myself? To ground myself in my life and not others? I think so.
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