Trouble with diagnosis? I do my research, I listen to professionals and data, I gradually unlearn incorrect thoughts around being disabled
Trouble with mobility aids? I do my research, I adapt to using them, I gradually unlearn incorrect thoughts around using aids
Gaining weight? I’m bad and terrible and gross, and the fact that I think this despite having so many bigger fish to fry means I can add shallow and weak to the list
C’mon brain, you don’t have the spare bandwidth for this nonsense!
I stumbled here from all and I want to be clear that I’m not wheelchair-bound. But your concern about your weight doesn’t make you weak or shallow; it only means you’re human.
I had a professor drill into my brain: “You can’t have personal growth without struggle, without hardship.”
What makes us a strong person in a human sense isn’t physical strength; it is tenacity and preservence.
It sounds to me like you’ve had an immense struggle you’re going thru, but you’re preserving. I don’t want to come in here and sound like I’m telling you how to feel. But I don’t read your post as written by a weak individual.
I read it as someone who is strong-willed and fighting to cope with life’s bullshit. Someone who will be stronger as you face this struggle.
I hope you give yourself credit for what you’ve gone thru and already adapted to/learned to cope with.
Very kind and thoughtful words.
When you’re chronically/long term ill there is a pressure or expectation, internal and/or external, to be very stoic and sensible because now you have to deal with The Serious Side of Life. So to do all that, to adapt in body and mind, but still not unlearn the deeply silly programming we all deal with in terms of body image is frankly hilarious. We all know it’s nonsense. And yet. That stuff is ingrained.
I have a long list of reasons to not like my body, and I would never dream of it. I’m proud of what it has coped with. And yet.