Driftwood

I sit here staring at the egg-white walls of my bedroom.  My cell phone, propped on the coffee table in my living room, is supplying me with unlimited Ray Charles Pandora.  It is interrupted as a familiar ringtone echoes through my apartment.  It was my Mom's.  One ring.  Two. Three. Four.  Hound Dog by Elvis Presley fades back in as guilt swallows my body.  I haven't felt like this since my rebellious days in high school.  Where every emotion I had was negative and hurtful and swallowed me whole.  It makes me realize I don't know my place in life right now.  It makes me feel like I am no use to anyone.  It makes me feel alone.  I drag my computer across my fuzzy minion blanket, open up Word and start typing.

Dear Family,

I no longer can be a part of you.  I cannot feel my place in this once close clan.  I am not understood.  I am not accepted.  I feel belittled.  I feel worthless.

I see your stares as you watch me slow at work.  I wince in pain as I bend down to grab papers my clumsy hand every so lovingly dropped.  You do not help.  You do not question.  You only stare.  You do not even feel sorry for me; you just look at me like I am nothing. 

You are angered easily when I forget something, go to dinner with friends during the night and can't go to work the next day and when I say I don't feel well enough to perform a task.  You are annoyed when I talk about my condition to someone in front of you.  You avoid the subject when I try to give an update from a doctor's appointment.

You don't question my progress.  You have no knowledge of my medication withdrawals, which gives me sweeping mood swings, alarming brain zaps, and nausea majority of the day.  You don't know that my chest gets tight when you argue with me or when you look at me with a blank stare as I tell you I'm not feeling well.  You don't feel the panic that flows through my body.  

You don't realize I have an every day battle with getting out of bed.  My body works against me as does gravity.  It pulls me down until my bed swallows me whole.  Depression is the same way.  I stare around my apartment, feeling a foreign sense of where I am and an unknown sense of where I should be.  I become angry knowing I'm late for work and you will instantly judge me; then I decide if I can face it or let my guilt and sadness eat away at my soul while rotting under the covers.  

I'm down to my last resort of treatment options for pain, fatigue and my overwhelming feeling of being alone.  Waiting for a phone call is like waiting for a police officer to write you a ticket.  Going to doctor appointments is exhausting and emotional.  Repeatedly telling my story and my symptoms is debilitating.  Most of the time I am driven there; but I know that I am alone.    

There are some things you should know about me.  I have chronic pain and fatigue.  I have TMJ, all three types of Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, Cervical Dystonia with a side of frozen muscles in my shoulder, above my collarbone and in my chest, Winged Scapula, Joint Hypermobility and possible Nerve Entrapment.  It beats the living crap out of me every day. It throws me around like a ragdoll.  It tries to take all my hope and optimism and faith.  And I'm ok with it because I've been dealt my cards.  What I'm not ok with is you treating me like I am nothing.  Like there is nothing wrong with me.  Like I'm lazy, unmotivated and weak.  Pretending you can turn your head and it's all going to disappear with the drop of a hat.  Because that is what's killing me faster than my medical history.  

To me, acceptance and understanding is the most important part of living with a chronic condition.  I don't have that.  I've never once heard from you, "I'm sorry you are feeling like crap, is there anything I can do," or "Do you need help with anything," or even "I wish you didn't feel like this."  I am going through it alone.  You ignore my condition rather than talking it out and voicing your understanding; if you even have any.  

You are selfish.  You are introverted with what's going on between my body and I.  You don't know how to talk about your feelings, and maybe it's just the way our family is.  But someone with my condition needs help more than you realize.  Acceptance.  Empathy.  Understanding.  Even just a hug.  Just knowing that you're there would make this a lot easier and tolerable.

I'm starting to think maybe it were easier if I weren't in the picture, or didn't live in the same city, or work at the same job as you.  I wouldn't be such an inconvenience then.  Tears well up and anger boils my blood when I wonder what would happen if I never developed TOS.  What would our lives be like?  Would it be different?  Would you love me unconditionally and be there for other difficulties in my life?

My Thoracic Outlet Syndrome Warriors have been more of a family than you.  My friends that aren't going through what I am show more empathy than you.  My cats, my two lovely boys, show more compassion and understanding unspoken than you show in your words.  

"I'm sorry for having this.  I'm sorry for annoying you with my complaints.  I'm sorry I can't be the perfect family member you envisioned."  These are things I want to say to you, but it's all wrong.  It sickens me with the thought of having to say that to you and lie through my teeth.

I sincerely hope that you come around and realize what you're doing to me.  Because I will die faster from a broken heart than a broken body.  I love you.  I want to be apart of this family.  I want ever so much to make this all go away; but I can't, and you can no longer ignore it.  

I doubt I will hand this to you, because I know what the outcome will be.  You will get mad that I wrote it in the first place, argue reading it and after making me sob you will finally take it from my hands until it makes its way crushed under piles of paper on your desk or in the garbage, pathetic and abandoned. 

Love, 

Daughter, 
Sister, 
Driftwood.





Equanimity.

-Kelsey