Invisible Illness Ness

The blog below was written while I was in the hospital. I was admitted to a psychiatric ward following a severe relapse, where I had convinced myself  that the best thing for everyone was for me to take my own life. I entertained the fantasy of ending the pain and not surprisingly it ended in a hospital stay. Thankfully, I am now in a much better place and I hope that this is a distant memory. Before hospital, I felt exactly as my little Ava did ... trapped!  I never thought I would have to spend time in a psychiatric institution. That's actually a lie. I knew that the likelihood of me ending up in a psych ward was fairly high, given my diagnosis. So here I am and I have to say, that my time here has proven to me that we should never judge a book by its cover.  When you think of psychiatric wards you think of women wailing, people running down the halls naked, and men who talk to themselves. So far, I can tick two out of three things off that list. Thankfully...

An actual photo of me in hospital These past two weeks I haven't been coping. In fact, I write this post from a hospital bed. I've been pumped full of drugs and have only just woken up after a 12 hour sleep. Thankfully I'm not seeing purple elephants or recieving directions from the devil (I promise this has never happened before), but I feel like I'm back to square one and it's a horrible feeling. The unpredictable nature of mental illness makes it so difficult to live with. For me, it's always under the surface, but I can cope, with meditation, mindfullness, yoga, and healthy eating. I'm sure many of you know the self-care drill. These things help immensely, until they don't anymore, and the fake face you had painted on peels off for the world to see. Putting on a face for the world has become all too familiar for me When my old foe comes to haunt me again, things go south fairly quickly. Life continues at its usual crazy pace, b...

So, in my last post I spoke about my recent diagnosis and the difficulties having an invisible illness can cause in someone's life. Today, I want to talk about another type of invisible suffering. That is anxiety and mental illness.   To me, anxiety has been the basis for much suffering in my life. Like chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia, I don't remember a time when I wasn't anxious. Sometimes, I feel as if I was born hyperventilating ... The most ridiculous thing about this? I'm one of the most bubbly, outgoing and sociable people you'll meet. In my 29 years, I've tried and achieved many things that I don't think most people would even consider.  Some of these things are experiences I couldn't put on my resume but are still as equally important in my life. Working as an exotic dancer at a gentleman's bar was one of these experiences. While not my proudest moment, it was during my time there that I learned so much about myself and human natu...

I'm sure there are many people who can relate to my story. Invisible illness is not uncommon, but it is unnoticed by much of the world. Because many of us look 'well' and act 'normally', our illnesses are not considered serious enough to warrant attention or empathy. I hope that by sharing my story, others will share theirs and awareness will continue to rise.  Me, in one of those annoying selfie images               I have always been sick. From food intolerances to rare infections, I don't actually remember a time in my life where I was well for more than a week.   Now at 29, after all the years of high anxiety and physical illness, my body has succumbed to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia.  Whether these are symptoms of the years of illness or causes of it, who knows? I suspect the latter though.  The thing with these illnesses is, they can go undiscovered for years. In primary school, my mum took...