I WANTED TO DISAPPEAR.

For months now, I have wanted to just disappear. Everything gets too much and I want to run away and hide but then I remember what I want to run away from is the one thing I can’t escape. Pain.

The thing about living with chronic pain and a condition that causes far too many symptoms to comprehend is that it is exhausting in ways that you thought you would never reach. You crave having a break, stepping away from the exhaustion, then you realise it will follow you anywhere you go and never really know when it will hit you. Anything for a distraction (my nails have suffered in result for finding a distraction). Some days are better than others but it’s still dealing with pain and discomfort and a daily basis until you get the horrific days where holding yourself up feels impossible and you’re holding on to the walls for support just to get to the bathroom. Then you are back in this dark place of just trying to cope and get through a day when there’s that much pain.

There’s no running away from it. There’s no planning for it either. I constantly keep telling myself that I have to plan around the pain. You an’t do that when it comes on all of a sudden or the fact that you’ve been in pain for that long to the point of the build up of the pain is very different because you’re that used to being in pain. I’m too scared at making any sort of plans or commitments with anyone because I just don’t know how I will be. I can’t plan around crippling flare-ups, endo nausea, endo belly (everything becomes too tight on me, even joggers), cystitis whenever the endo flares up and you’re crying in pain going to the toilet (every 20 minutes) and then the exhaustion that’s so bad all I can manage is laying down in the quiet and stare into space.

“What’s wrong?”

Everything is wrong. No one should be in this much pain and discomfort. There aren’t enough words. Ever.

I’ve cried so much because of being fed up. I wanted to disappear because I am fed up of it all. Why am I trying to manage something so unpredictable that even healthcare will just shrug their shoulders at you on any sort of management. I’ve been stuck in a daze, picturing myself running away from it all, like it’s even possible. I keep losing myself in this fantasy of being a person who isn’t stuck in pain and exhausted from fighting with pain on a daily basis.

Maybe I have disappeared, maybe I’ve just disappeared into the idea of running away from it all.

Lauren KateFebruary 24, 2024