Living Life Well?

For as long as I can remember I have been sick. Since age 12 I have suffered from one mental illness or another. Since 14 until recently I have had serious addiction problems. The repurcussions of those addictions have led to other bodily illnesses that I struggle with. All in all, I spend a lot of my life either very tired or very sick.

My family don't really get it. They have seen the amazing changes that God has done in my life and want the past to be the past; me being ill now either seems hyperchondriachial or too hard to deal with. So I don't tell them most times I am sick, especially when I end up in hospital. My ex-husband found it all too frustrating and hard and left emotionally and mentally long before I walked out the door. My future husband is supportive and loving but does find my constant anxiety and lethargy hard to understand and confusing as to how to deal with.

I get scared. I worry that he will leave as the first one did. I worry that it is actually all psychosymatic and I am just lazy. I worry that people think I am giving excuses. But most of all I worry that I will be this way for the rest of my life. That thought petrifies me.

It worries me because I don't know how to accept that I may never be able to live as a well person. I dont want to never be in full time work again, or to be taking medication for the rest of my life. I don't want to let these issues run my life and tell me what I can and cannot do. I don't want to get tired quickly and not handle big crowds. I don't want to have to avoid parties if there is alcohol (which is every one!). I don't want my husband-to-be to have to cope with me being in bed a lot or support me more that I him. I don't want any of this! It makes me angry to have to live my life having to make room for something that is so unwelcome and so painful! And I want people to understand. I want them to see how hard it is and not be afraid of it, or give me pat little christian answers, but to see it and love me for it and in spite of it.

How do you live life well when you are unwell? How do stand strong when you have no strength? How do you accept what is, and not despair? How do you embrace life when the world is telling you you arent strong enough, or fast enough, or able to cope enough? And how can I expect anyone else to be able to cope with all of this when I am unable to do so myself?

It is nights like these when I join with Christ as he cried out "why God, why?"