Living with chronic illness, it is difficult not to bow to the pressure of "eat yourself well" or "exercise yourself well" or "think yourself well." The heart of the messaging around you is often this idea that if you just DO SOMETHING different, such as eat, drink, or think, and you will get better. "Have you tried ________?" are some of the most soul-crushing words you can hear from folk in your life.
It might seem such a small thing, but I cannot sleep without ice packs. I put two of them together and wrap them in a cloth napkin to make them last longer. I sleep. They thaw. I wake. I stumble downstairs to get new ones. Sleep. Thaw. Wake. All "night" long, as I generally do not sleep much more than two hours at a time.
I will find myself thinking that the need for ice packs is all in my head. That if I wanted to sleep without them, I would. Doubt creeps in and sows its pernicious weeds in your mind and life.
Early this morning, I fell asleep without the ice pack and subsequently woke incredibly ill. Nauseous. Trembling. Dizzy. Confused. Weak. It took every bit of my fortitude to move my body enough so that I could fall out of bed and prop myself up against the wall. The illness wasn't going to pass until I got the pressure off of my head, but doing so was terribly ... nearly impossibly ... difficult because I was so very, very, very ill. It was a very sobering reminder of the failings of my body for me.
I cannot eat my autonomic nervous system better.
I cannot exercise my autonomic nervous system better.
I cannot think my autonomic nervous system better.
I know this and yet find myself doubting ... taking up that egregious chorus, "You could be better if you really wanted to."
What an unwelcome, powerful reminder that the truth is that I cannot sleep without ice packs. At all.
SIGH.
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