Why I’m So Glad to Be So Sick
Chronic illness has led me to a whole new world of health
I’ve always been anxious. Maybe it’s a side effect of having been, as they say, precocious as a child. I learned too young about injustice in the world and, no matter how loving my family was, I couldn’t shake the knowledge that the world was not a kind and loving place. As such, I could never feel quite at ease within it. A part of me always knew that if I let go and let the currents of society take me, I’d end up somewhere I did not want to be.
The generalized fear I felt in my youth meant I felt the need to be intentional about everything, think my steps through before I took them, have a plan and check the facts of what that plan entails. I couldn’t rest if I didn’t know exactly where I was trying to go next and how I meant to get there.
But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned about a deeper kind of fear. It’s the anxiety of living on a slow-burning mine field. The fear that comes with not being able to trust in the most basic foundations of your life… it just hits different. When you don’t know if taking one innocuous action will end in pain and punishment and you can’t figure out the rules of the game, it gets hard to move in any direction at all.
