The Effort to Be

Endless Daily Management sucks

On October 10, 2019, I planned to speak on a mental health awareness panel at work for World Mental Health Day.
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Instead, I was at the hospital, not work, and would be spending most of the month there trying to get my chronic illness under control (again.)
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I’ve been using the chronic illness metaphor a lot lately. Why?
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I’ve spent a lot of my life thinking that since this disorder is in my brain, I can outsmart it if I just try hard enough. But I can’t, and then I feel guilty for my failure.
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I’m trying to stop though, because that’s not really how chronic illness works. I’m still sick, even when the meds are right and my functioning is great.
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Which sucks. And I’m tired of it.
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So there’s my bit of mental health awareness for the day, I suppose. It’s not just about being too sad or too anxious or too out of control.
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It is also endless daily management. A battle I cannot stop fighting or I lose. But also one where there’s never really winning either.
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Sometimes, it is an extraordinary amount of effort to just /be/.