Invisible Illness Diary #1 - Who Would Love Me - Kate Marie Robbins

I thought for my first post I would share what I wrote for our anthology, Invisible Not Imagined to give you an overview of what my life is like and then every week write about where I'm at both physically and mentally. This piece is called "Who Would Love Me" and describes a lot of what I deal with on a daily basis.

I sit here, tears streaming down my face, the weight of everything that is wrong with me is crashing down around me. I was never really an unhealthy person. Maybe a bit overweight, but that’s another topic for another day. I don’t even know when it happened, but everything changed. Slowly my life became one giant clusterfuck of problem after problem. I don’t even know where it started. The insomnia, maybe? But it wasn’t so bad in the beginning. I could sleep most of the time. But somewhere along the line, everything spiraled out of control, leaving me a walking disaster with no way out.

Insomnia, migraines, anxiety, depression, and chronic pain due to nerve damage. This is my life. A shell of a life. Constant pain. Exhaustion. Fatigue. Brain fog. The list goes on and on.

But when people look at me, do they see any of my struggles? No, of course not. Why would they? I hide it well. I have to, just to cope day to day. Maybe if people looked closely, they might. But they don’t. What do they see? A healthy girl that’s too lazy to work full-time or take care of herself. Some days it’s a struggle to get out of bed in the morning. That is, if I’ve even slept at all. Work nights are the worst. I know I need to sleep, but I lay there, tossing and turning for hours, no relief in sight. By the time I do get comfortable and fall asleep, it’s already time to get up for work again. I push through though, because I have no other choice but to do it. It doesn’t change the fact that there is anything wrong with me, I just hide it because I also have no other choice.

It’s hard, because I feel like I’m burdening people when I tell them about my problems. Or that they won’t believe me in the first place. I look healthy, so I must be making it up. And forget getting close to someone, because I’ll come off as clingy and needy because of the anxiety and depression. I have friends, but I don’t let people in as much as I should. If they ask me how I am, I say that I’m fine, not letting on every little thing that’s wrong that day.

And love? Who could love me with everything that’s wrong with me? People keep telling me that if it’s the right person, none of it will even matter, but how could I burden someone with all the shit that I have to go through on a daily basis. It wouldn’t be fair to them, but it doesn’t stop the loneliness from setting in. I don’t think anything can squelch that feeling.