After two weeks of being in denial, I admit that my annual fall misery is upon me. Allergies inevitably trigger a sinus infection – cue pounding headaches, terrible crud, and feeling like I’ve been hit in the face with a 2 x 4. Sometimes it stops there, but usually I also get to have a killer ab workout after it travels down into my chest and sparks coughing, hacking, and gasping for air. (Silver linings, people.)
Every three or four years, my usual remedies like my trusty Neti Pot, and Vicks are not enough, so I give in, go to the doctor, and end up with inhalers, antibiotics, steroids, you name it, to treat bronchitis or pneumonia. I think I will get to dodge that bullet this time. We’ll see how it goes when “Amy Suffers: Spring Edition” comes around.
I’m sick, and I’m tired of sleeping with four pillows propping me up. Having to freeze and cross my legs every time I have to sneeze or cough, is getting pretty old (honesty, people, is not always pretty.) I’m tired of policing used tissues like brass at a shooting range. But this sickness is manageable. I know it eventually has an end. This type of sickness, though dismal and gross, is something everyone has to deal with from time to time. You get it when the kids bring germs home from school, or the pollen count is through the roof, or that person in front of you in line at the post office should really have just stayed in bed.
Everyone wishes that they had bought stock in Kleenex or Halls. Everyone swears that they will stop taking the very act of breathing for granted.
But what about that other sickness I’m living with, the one that’s in my head but not in my sinuses? Calling depression, anxiety, what-have-you, an “illness” sounds so much better, don’t you think? I know that to a medical professional a “disease” and an “illness” are quite different. To a wordsmith, the connotations are what matter. “Sickness” evokes more coarse feelings – the raw physical sensations like bodily fluids or excruciating aches and pains.
Having an “illness” sounds somehow more genteel, like Victorian ladies being indisposed to see callers. But mental illness is unrefined. Crude. Malignant. Nauseating. Exhausting. It chafes and constricts, like a corset. Not everyone has to deal with this reality.
Is depression a sickness? I’m tired of sometimes feeling so drained that a smile is a conscious effort that literally falls off of my face when you turn away. I’m tired of dropping down rabbit holes and spiraling out of control. All it takes is one failure to tip the balance, so I hold myself to impossible standards, setting myself up for the fall. I’m tired of jumping bravely into something new, then spewing my emotional dregs all over the poor person who catches me in a moment of weakness.
Is anxiety a sickness? I’m tired of my stomach churning when I worry about that seemingly inevitable big crash. Making small decisions, like what kind of toothpaste to buy, sometimes exhausts me. I’m tired of hyper-focusing on -*something, anything, just to get away from what is weighing my mind down. (Remind me to tell you about how I accidentally went to Disney World because of this.) The chronic unease rises up and ruins enjoyable moments; I never know when it will flare up into an attack.
Am I sick? I sure am tired of wondering when I’ll recover.
I suppose the best I can do is to not take the periods of remission for granted.
