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My Chronic Illnesses

In the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about having chronic diseases. What it does to the body and to the mind. I went to see my psychiatrist on account of some symptoms that were resurfacing and it caught me off-guard thinking about it. The culmination of this is a dream I had tonight. I was in a camp like situation and lots of people I knew from different areas of my life were there. On the last day, a friend of mine was not doing well mentally and they asked me to be a sort of counselor for her. I refused because I knew it would be triggering for me, but the person kept insisting. When trying to explain why it was not good for me, how being there for the second time knowing how bad things had gotten since then was triggering enough. And I broke down.

Whenever I tell people how I will be on medication until I die, they try to dismiss it. “God will cure you” is the popular one. However, I no longer feel connected to said God and actively distance myself from anything relating to it. To me living with bipolar disorder is like having a gun on you, that could go off at any time. It emphasizes the inevitability of death but also makes it very unpredictable. Knowing that there is a big possibility that it will be with my own hand doesn’t help much.

When I got diagnosed, almost three years ago, I was in such a bad shape I didn’t know how to think long term. I still don’t do well with thinking long term. But that means, I was okay with my diagnosis. However, I don’t know anymore. I will never feel free to experience life. I know there are lots of grueling chronic illnesses that can be more taxing than the ones I have. What bothers me the most is the permanence of it, knowing I’ll deal with it until I die. Given that they are not visible all the time, knowing that my loved ones will forget about it and I’ll suffer alone.



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