What I make myself do

As many of you know, I am a very busy person. I am a full-time college student, I work and I run and am a part of organizations on campus. There are many times when I have had to make myself do things, just to keep up appearances or to not get behind. I have a friend on campus who I have grown very close with this year, who also has POTS. Meeting her has helped the both of us. We talk about symptoms, we make POTS jokes that only us understand, we text each other when we are having a flare-up, we give each other advice, and help one another through the bad days. We also hang out on our good days, when we can. When I got back from my LA trip, I told her all about my ER visit. Then we joked about how there are things that we just make yourself do. The best part and worst part of our illness is that people can't see it. It is invisible. This means we can get away with making yourself do things when we don't feel good because we don't look sick. We can fake it, until we make it. So we just listed a long list of things that we have to physical and mentally make ourselves do, and most of them are everyday tasks. Unless, I can't like physically get myself out of bed or have a really bad pre-syncope episode.

Here is what we came up with, we make ourselves...

-go to class

-do laundry or it never gets done

-do dishes or it never gets done

-go to work

-go to meetings

-pretty much, go and do anything

-sometimes homework, if I don't want to deal with explaining to a prof. that I was unwell or in the ER

-take the stairs, to strengthen legs

-walking in general...everyday...my legs are so weak and cramped, I trip a lot

-going to appointments, I hate going to any form of appointment (feeling good or not)

-hanging out with friends, sometimes I do it to change my mood and the great ones make me feel better

-smiling, everyone with an invisible illness has had to force a smile more than once

-acting like I care, I don't know if that is just a part of my personality or if I don't actually care

All-in-all we make ourselves, I make myself do my "normal routine" my everyday routine. Why? It prevents me not from only going crazy but it gives me hope that I may get better and have a happy future. Especially, if I keep working hard and try not to let this illness get me down. It is hard, it is a crazy roller coaster ride and I am glad I have people that are there for me in my life. If I didn't then I probably wouldn't be here.

Apparently, I am a better actor then I think...? Who really knows? I just know that when I need to act a certain way or need to do something, I do it. That is just the way I am. Only if it is truly important to me. Otherwise, I am just honest and tell people I don't feel good. But the reason I do "act" is because I have more bad days than good. I try to stay and act positive and luckily, most times I am.