Healing while still being triggered: Part 2
RA Diagnosis
Learning how to cope with a health condition, whether it’s relatively new to you or you’ve been diagnosed for some time. It doesn’t make it any easier, for example. Someone may ask you a question about your condition, that even you might not have the answer to. It does become frustrating at times because you now feel like you have to know everything, when in reality that’s so far from the truth.
Personally, I was diagnosed with a long term condition called Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), just over 2 years ago now. Let me tell everyone for a start, I have not “gotten used to” my condition and to be honest I don’t think I’ll ever will fully! Okay, well I guess I can try my best to live my life to the fullest, which everyone should try by the way. Yeah, I don’t need to mention, but it has been so incredibly difficult to understand my body now that it’s different due to RA. I’m still trying to make my life a little bit easier, by adjusting how I do certain things in my everyday life, this has not been easy to navigate.
It’s the “getting used to” the daily comments and hurdles that I hear and go through and still sometimes baffles me a few years later. Like, Am I meant to be okay with every question that’s asked? Or, Am I meant to keep a smile on my face, even though I’m in pain? Which makes me feel like I’m hiding my silent battle. It’s very true when we go back to the old saying, “you can never judge a book by its cover”. Literally, as a person with a non-visible condition, this saying is so true! Just because I’m walking okay at the moment, doesn’t take away the next 10 minutes after I could be in a lot of pain. But that’s the thing no one can see that, but me. I can definitely feel the pain!
Quick question for everyone - Have you ever been judged for a struggle that others couldn’t see?
So, in the meantime, while I’m trying my best to heal after quite a bit of trauma these past few years. I do tend to stumble across being triggered by certain questions, “jokes” about my condition, which I get really annoyed and upset about sometimes. ( and that’s okay! )
Quote - “No one is going to show up for you until you show up for yourself.”