I’ve wanted to be a lot of things in my life, and chief among them was always “independent.” I had achieved that, and had really proved it to myself when I got divorced 10 years ago — I was able to move into my own place, quickly pay my way out from under a mountain of debt, and put my life back together largely on my own. After I re-married, I was proud of knowing that I was a capable person and would be able to fend for myself if need be. Fibromyalgia changed that for me, and that’s been hard to accept.
First, I lost my ability to take care of myself, my children and my home. I simply couldn’t do all of it, even on the best of days, and on some days I could hardly get myself in and out of the bathtub. Then I lost my financial independence, when I had to leave my job as a TV news producer. I’ve been fortunate enough to work from home and keep us from losing everything we’ve worked for, but if I were on my own tomorrow, I’d be in big trouble.
I’m also lucky to be confident in my marriage, so I don’t fear losing my husbands support — emotional or financial. But that doesn’t mean I’m OK with being utterly dependent on him.
Chronic illness is a big blow to everything about your life and who you are, and it hits your pride especially hard. You have to face the fact that you can’t do what you used to do, you can’t be who you used to be, you can’t overcome everything by just pushing harder. I’ve been coming to terms with this for 3.5 years now, and while I’ve made some strides it’s still a struggle.
The first thing I had to do was to accept that this is now my reality: I’m sick, I might be sick forever, and I have limitations. Then, I had to start measuring things by my own yardstick, not someone else’s. My house doesn’t need to be clean enough for my mother — it needs to be clean enough for me. Then, I had to shorten my yardstick (is there such as thing as a half-yardstick?) My former standards were destroying my life, so I had to lower them.
Does any of this get me closer to independence? Not really. What it has done, though, is to give me a new perspective on my accomplishments. When I get my house clean, by my revised standards, I feel more capable. When I can actually host a successful party, I feel really proud — even though it takes me 3 weeks to prepare and 3 days of near-continuous sleep to recover. I still have goals, and I can still reach them. It feels good. Now I can say, “Look what I did, even though I’m sick!”
How has your loss of independence impacted you? What has helped you deal with that? Where are you in the process? Leave your comments below!
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Becoming Dependent With Fibromyalgia & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome originally appeared on About.com Fibromyalgia & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 20:33:33.
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