Positivity Challenges

Having illnesses that are not seen are tricky. Lately I've been struggling a lot, different parts of different days more than others, some less than others. I always try to enjoy good times when they come whether they be 30 minutes long or weeks long, whatever...but sometimes things are hard. One of the hardest things *I* find (and I believe this to be true of many people with invisible illnesses) is when *I* feel like I'm not doing very well but everyone around me is telling me how good I look and how much better I seem...the problem is, its isolating.

See its not acceptable to turn around and go, "Oh well actually I feel like my life is falling apart!" If anything when lots of people say how well you seem to be doing then you start to question yourself and especially question whether you have the right to feel miserable. I don't want to stay miserable, thats not it, its just the acknowledgement that I don't feel okay and that just because I might TALK doesn't mean I say anything meaningful, just because I'm standing upright, doesn't mean I'll be upright as soon as I hit the privacy of my room or my car... Looks are deceptive and they certainly don't tell the whole story.

For me, in some ways when I'm functioning "better" to the outside world, I'm worse off in general because I'm avoiding a stack of stuff to be in that headspace. Now sometimes thats a good thing because it means I can function to do things like study....but its a nightmare in therapy because I never go anywhere because I'm stuck in the same patterns and what is even more frustrating is that my default protective mechanism is to retreat into this mode without thought. I do what I have to do and I seem to be all in one piece yet I'm anything but.

The other issue is that people respond to positive people. They will reward you if you're being positive and happy....they will care if you feel like crap for a short amount of time, but they tire of it very very quickly except for a precious few that understand that invisible situations are rarely fixed in a week or two. So what do you do when you want to be friends with people and you want to be authentic but you don't want to drag them down into a depression spiral? Three is this trap that you MUST be upbeat and positive...gosh that's hard to maintain when you just are wishing the ground would swallow you whole, at least for a little while.

I think looking for positive things is good...but I think assuming that means a person is okay, is not. I think and have experienced that its entirely possible to experience extreme joy and happiness at the same time as extreme depression and devastation....especially when you dissociate into twenty plus different fragments of yourself.

I also think that acknowledging that just because someone is okay in that moment or second, doesn't mean they'll be that way in 5 minutes or a day later....maybe they will, maybe they wont. I think the balance comes in allowing a person to have a range of emotions over time and some that co-exist seemingly in an impossible paradox.