Thursday 18 November 2010

Gifts of Illness

For this post I want to focus on the unexpected gifts I have received as a result of becoming ill and having everything turned upside down. To clarify, I think it's important to continue to find things we can be grateful for in life but this is something quite different. What I refer to here are positive things that have happened purely as a result of dealing with being unwell.

I had a very traumatic childhood and lived amongst some quite horrific day-to-day events. I had to witness things that no child should be subjected to and I was forced to give up the normal care-free childhood and grow up too quickly. And yet, although I wouldn't in a million years want to repeat those experiences, I have always been aware that they brought their own unexpected gifts. I gained a level of maturity and sensitivity much earlier than my peers, I came to appreciate the immense importance of a home environment that is secure and full of love. I realised the damage alcohol abuse can cause and therefore greatly reduced my likelihood of ever having a drinking problem. And I developed a hatred of violence that made me someone who didn't see my fists as ways of resolving anything.

In the same way, getting sick recently has allowed me to receive positive insights that will also hopefully stay with me throughout my life. I have gained an appreciation of the simple pleasures that can lift my spirits. None of those things are related to how much money I have, what type of car I own or whether I have the latest gadgets or designer clothes. My cat wrapping her big bushy tail around me when I'm in pain or feeling down. The sound of raindrops on the window. Being able to walk across the room without being breathless. There are countless other examples but what links them all is that they are essentially free and often taken for granted.

This also extends to my body. The old truism "at least you have your health" really cannot be argued with. I know that now, although I never did before. Now that all those 'automatic' functions we all take for granted have gone haywire in my body I can finally appreciate what a wonderful instrument the human body truly is. For years it served me well, even if I taxed it with various toxins or unhealthy additions. Just think about it for a minute - our temperature, heart beat, breathing, energy supply, brain function, blood flow ... they all just 'work' ... until they don't. Never again will I be so dismissive of good health.

And then there are others in my life. I have always been very comfortable being in my own company, sometimes too much so, and I've been very cautious about allowing people into my world or offering my friendship. I've also always been a little too aware of how I might portray myself to others. Now, my dignity is hanging by a thread. Thankfully, I can still carry out all my 'personal care' needs but it's touch and go sometimes. And so, I am starting to discover the joy of surrounding myself with people who accept me for me. People who don't need me to impress or entertain them. This is also allowing me to develop more compassion for humanity. I have been quite hard and cynical over the years, probably as a result of what I learnt about how unreliable and selfish people could be when I was a child. Now I am beginning to appreciate the beauty in certain individuals much more and to give them, and myself, more of a break. The standards I've set for myself and those around me have always been far too high and now I can be much more forgiving.

The other side of that though is that I have an acceptance that there are people who have been in my life who will naturally drift out of it now I'm not able to partake in socialising etc. I was sad about that at first but now I'm accepting and calm about it. There will also be people who I come to realise are not helpful to my wellbeing now that I have so little energy to spare. Another gift of getting ill is that I no longer feel the need to try to work out and solve everyone's problems for them. I used to do that even if they never asked or wanted me to!

Finally, I have been given the gift of just being who I am. It's ironic that I worked on trying to uncover the real me for years without success and now that I've been struck down the real me has come to the fore naturally. I realise this may all sound rather 'new age' but I don't care. I'll end with a gift that all of us have but don't take advantage of ... the joy of doing and thinking nothing. Sometimes I have no choice but to just disconnect from any type of activity and remove all thoughts. Those periods of staring into space with a glazed expression and a slack jaw are wonderful - try it ;)

22 comments:

  1. Well said, chronic illness certain does level you in positive as well as negative ways. It kinda sucks that it takes something so dreadful to make you a greater person though, hahaha!

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  2. i'm a bit choked up! i had no idea we have so much in common. alcoholic abusive childhoods...realization that drinking is antecedent to screwing up your life...a quest for meaning and finding grace in the turmoil.
    i am amazed by the velocity with which you have come to accept your life being interrupted and again finding the gifts it bears. you embody my favorite quote, "In spite of illness...in spite of the archenemy of sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways."-Edith Wharton
    i am filled with sentiment.xo

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  3. Lee Lee - I find i'm a much nicer person when my ego is deflated ... easier said than done, lol.

    Sparkplug - Love the quote, thanks :) We are dealt random cards in life. Some got better ones than I did and some got worse. I'm not religious and I don't embrace suffering and rejoice in it as a sign I will get my rewards 'in the next life' but the parts of my self I value most are usually the parts that were formed as a result of unhappy experiences x

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  4. Wow....maybe my idea for my next blog is redundant....it's like reading what I would write....well said and so evocative. Thanks!

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  5. Rebecca - No, write it!! :) I find a lot of comfort in realising that others are grappling with the same sort of introspection as I am, so the more the merrier as far as I'm concerned.

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  6. i was a bit teary (again!) at the bit about how it is teaching you to accept yourself as you are...think that's the most beautiful bit. there are so many different gifts and blessings to be found amongst this - not that anyone would ever choose to find them this way. i just wish that having discovered them we could then go on our merry little healthy ways!

    bex - write it!!!

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  7. Beautifully written. I am still occasionally struggling with wanting to help people (even when they don't ask for it, as you say!) and also having the confidence to just be with people and not feel pressure to entertain them! I too believe that I have been given sensitivity via childhood issues that actually is a gift. I don't know if i would have had it anyway, but it as been honed by difficult times for sure!

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  8. Thanks for the comments guys - I really appreciate reading them and it gives me more confidence in writing so introspectively :)

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  9. good to hear...it's this kind of writing i enjoy reading the most. keep at it!

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  10. Hang in there Barry. Hope to see you at some time this weekend Love from Judy & Rob.

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  11. Looking forward to seeing you both :)

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  12. Brave and honest post. Strange how many really good people I've 'met' since I was diag. and since blogging and FB. Have to say that its the latter that has made a real difference. Even 10 years ago when this really started for me there was hardly any such support or advice and it was very very difficult.

    Really admire the way you seem to be ripping through the journey and coming to terms with things in a brave and forthright way. Maybe it has partky to do with your childhood and that early maturity and learning how to survuve intact.

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  13. Thanks Cusp :)

    I acknowledge that it'll be a case of 'a few steps forward - a few steps back' as I will undoubtedly have some dark times and times where I regress in terms of all those good qualities I want to hang on to. Also, some of those survival skills I learnt early in life hold me back as they are no longer relevant to my adult life. It takes time to remove the more stubborn defence mechanisms. So far so good though.

    You're absolutely right about the support networks now available. I can't even imagine how lonely and invalidating it must have been before internet use became so widespread. I'd encourage anyone of any age to get clued up on getting themselves online as it opens a whole new world.

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  14. another comment - i love to read posts like this, so please do feel confident to write more! It sounds like you are doing so well on an emotional awareness level, it will help a lot along the way... I agree the internet is amazing - i really did not expect it to have opened up a whole world of such amazing and genuine friends when I first ventured online. It has enriched my life so much in a social and support way, and also of course in information and learning about our condition(s) in a way that we would never have access to via our doctors. Life would be very very different without it - I think it is literally a lifeline and I feel for anyone who is chronically ill who does not have internet access.

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  15. Thanks ashy :) It's great to know that being so open and discussing more than just the practicalities and medical elements of being ill is so well received and of use to others.

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  16. certainly seem to have touched a lot of people with this one barry. ashy, have been thinking a lot about how important the www is lately...since corina duyn did a little survey and blog post on it really. and just can't believe how different my life is since i embraced this technology. wonder how different things would have been if it had been around when i first became ill...

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  17. kp, yes. It is revolutionary (though we are still waiting for the ME revolution to gather some force!). My sister got ill when she was 11 (1990?) and my mum had no info at all about what was going on for year, eventually they managed to find out about ME and she got a diagnosis, but still the only info/support was what the doctor said (not much) an ME charity newsletter! Times have certainly changed.I will go and read corina!

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  18. ashy, here's the link in case you have trouble tracking it down:

    http://www.corinaduyn.com/site/2010/%E2%80%9Cstepping-naked-in-front-of-the-whole-world%E2%80%A6%E2%80%9D/

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  19. thanks, interesting read! See some of my friends there too, which is nice.

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  20. Brilliant post Barry! I love how you talk about these "unexpected gifts"! When everything else is stripped away, jobs, material things, false friends and you are forced to look at what's important in your life only then do we find out who we are. People hide behind masks, engross themselves in tv, whatever, when illness hits & you are left with just you and your thoughts, you adapt & realise what is important. The bushy tail of your cat, the rain, the friends who stick by you. There is gratitude for the smallest things that previously you wouldn't have even noticed. I too am now far more forgiving of people, have lowered my standards, and am much more grateful of these "unexpected gifts". Of course we all have moments of despair & loss but a post like this is brilliant to remind us of what we have gained. Love your honesty! X

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  21. Thanks so much Vicki :)

    It's been an interesting evolution, this blogging lark. I've got into subjects I never thought I'd write about and aspects of myself I never thought I'd share. So glad some of this also resonates with others x

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  22. And you're doing it so well! Your reaching out to others, helping them & you discover & appreciate the life we all now have. Your posts are refreshing, honest & thoughtful. Keep them coming! X

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