Who am I?
Sometimes I wonder who I am, especially in times of recovery, I feel the person I am or was drifts away as it’s trapped in a body that in so many ways, has failed me.
Who I feel I am is someone very independent yet right now I am so dependent on those around me.
I feel I’m an adventurer yet I stay in my bed so often.
I feel I’m a worker but I’ve been off work now for a month.
I feel I’m a doer yet I can’t do so many of the things I want to do.
I love cooking and dancing and walking my dogs and having dinner parties and gardening and traveling and visiting people and helping others but right now I struggle to do any of these things.
I know this is temporary but I feel I’ve been in this temporary state since the beginning of the year at least, my hernia was bad from last year and I’ve had two surgeries this year so far so it’s been a while and I suppose it just starts to make you question a lot of things.
Its hard to be unwell for so long but always in the recovery stage, if I knew I’d always be a wheelchair user then I could start to rebuild my life around that, to figure out how to bring the things I love into an accessible way. But when you’re in a place where you should be improving over time it can feel like you’re in limbo.
I don’t want to complain as I know how lucky I am but it’s hard sometimes, I do start to question who I am and how I’ll ever get back to feeling like me.
Whatever happens I know I’ll get there, and I can always answer the question ‘who am I?’ with ‘I’m so bad ass!’
✌? & ❤
Sam x
Damn right you can, woman! Understand about being in ‘limbo’ is frustrating as you just want to get on and do stuff. Then when people see that you are literally on your feet ‘standing’ you hear them say ‘oh you look fabulous’ all recovered now?! and when you say ‘I’m better but not quite recovered’…. is ‘that look’ of disbelief! So the probe is deeper and you feel like you are answerable to them. Having to justify your illness in terms they understand. Always ‘explaining’ I’m still poorly and things are still very much up in the air! But that part you can see is irrelevant to them; as they see you just standing there ‘fit and able-bodied’. They don’t see the ‘stress’ that ‘waiting to recover does’ and because they don’t see it as a tangible thing then it doesn’t exist, didn’t happen, is not there.
You are a wonderful person and you are SO BAD ASS! As you have broken the silence and raised awareness for thousands of people who suffer like yourself. You will get back to feeling like you; as you said ‘it’s temporary’ you’ll look back on this one day and say ‘I GOT THROUGH THAT SHIT TIME’ and here I am still standing – still fighting. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
This is exactly how I feel ?. I want to go out dancing, play with my kids, bake cakes and go on great holidays but at the moment my body is stopping me from doing these things. Let’s hope we can get back to being our true selves soon x