posted
I am SO frustrated right now! I'm a 15 year old who was diagnosed with late stage lyme almost a year ago. Last school year I was so sick I had to drop out of being in 9th grade at my school to do online school. AND NOW I THINK IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN! With the treatment I started feeling so much better... almost normal... if I even remember what normal really feels like. Then my dad lost his job and I had to stop treatment due to lack of funds and insurance. BUT I was still doing great! Really, truthfully great! Me and my family thought hey, Maybe i'm going into remission like the doctor said I possibly could! Now after a few months of not being treated I feel like i'm slipping again! I havent gone to school since last thursday. I REALLY don't want to go to school! I feel like all my time is slipping away and it's really unfair. All this time i've had off from school I feel like I didnt get to relax, constant anxiety. And get this, my anxiety is about missing school because i'm a weird teenager who actually LIKES school! But I don't WANT to go. I don't feel like being around other people. When I get my way and get to stay home for 'rest' I just feel guilty though. Like what if this is all in my head? What if I had attention for so long that now that I 'feel better' my brain is making up symptoms to get more attention? I really hate all those doctors who used to call me crazy. Sometimes I really believe them. And now I'm sitting here, typing out all of my feeling, at thirty minutes past midnight and the only reason I can think of for it is that maybe I'm savatoging myself so that I physically WONT be able to go to school. I need to go. But I CANT. And I don't know why?
-------------------- A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings, and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses. --Hippocrates (460 BC - 377 BC)
Lyme Disease diagnosed June 28th 2009. Posts: 6 | From Texas | Registered: May 2009
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METALLlC BLUE
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 6628
posted
I went through all of this. It finally got to the point where my body literally broke. It went from "Well, My body really really hurts and I feel fatigued and exhausted, but if I can just push thru one more day, I'll have done my school work, sports, responsibilities -- or whatever." Everyone, including the 40 doctors I've seen say I'm ok, so I must be. Just one more day of pushing, I can do it. I am strong, I am passionate, I have a lot to live for and a lot to give. Yeah, ok...........................except everyone was wrong. Hard to imagine really that everything you'd been told, and everything you thought you knew to be true, was wrong. It "wasn't You" You weren't lazy, stupid, crazy, making it up, or just depressed. You were infected -- probably while doing an activity that most people don't even think about -- like taking big long hikes, or cross country running, or some other "RESPONSIBLE" activity that keeps a human being healthy.....well, until they're bitten by an infected tick.
Turns out that Lyme Disease doesn't like it when you act like a stupid **** and try to keep living a normal life -- eventually it caused my body to snap and it broke. I then spent 10 years rehabilitating. Lot's of steroids, immuno suppressants, psychiatric commitments, misunderstandings, no compassion or support from friends or family -- and finally, by my own research, the discovery that Lyme disease -- a simple common tick infection -- could have taken away my entire life. My rock hard athletic body, my face, my guts, my intelligence? It took it all.
It's not in your head. You're at the stage I was at. You're trying to keep living a normal life when that simply isn't possible. No one else is going to understand until you give them some incentive. Share Under Our Skin (Film Documentary) with family and friends -- watch it together, and read books like Cure Unknown.
If you're fortunate, you won't waste precious time and energy railing against the disease. You'll just pull back and refocus your energy on killing Lyme instead of Home Ec and Algebra class. When it gets really really bad, people need to press the pause button on their life, no matter how painful it is. Expectations make things hard -- when Lyme comes, the expectations should exit stage right.
-------------------- I am not a physician, so do your own research to confirm any ideas given and then speak with a health care provider you trust.
METALLlC BLUE
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 6628
posted
P.S. I was a perfectionist, so being the best and doing the best also meant not missing school, and performing the best at sports and all other areas. Let me tell you something. Lyme takes it all away. There is no room for a perfectionist in the world of Lyme. There is only room for pacing oneself for the marathon of morality, physical, emotional, and spiritual endurance one will have to persist through as the disease gradually wittles away at your entire being.
The battle can be won, but it takes some people (like me), years, decades.
-------------------- I am not a physician, so do your own research to confirm any ideas given and then speak with a health care provider you trust.
posted
I guess I'm just frustrated for thinking I was going to make it through the school year and make everyone proud. What sucks even more is that next year for 11th grade I interviewed into a Clinical Rotations program which is an amazing oppurtunity because I get my CNA and EMT certification. And if i'm getting sick again... if I can't finish this year... I cant even do that. Which was basically going to help me set up my whole life seeing as how I want to work somewhere in the medical field. I feel if I fail at this, at making it through school, I just wont be able to do much that will ever make me happy. I'm also quite the perfectionist and have straight A's right now which I've worked soooooo hard for. And getting sick again means I did it all for nothing. I thought I was doing something awesome for my life where really it'll just be another failure to mop around about. I feel like I am physically capiable to go to school and I should and I want to go but I can't make myself. If this makes anysense? Like I want to go but I REALLY CANT. I can but my anxiety right now is saying "No you can't go to school!" Even when my brain is screaming at it that it wants to go, that I'm good enough to go. I don't know how to explain it...
-------------------- A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings, and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses. --Hippocrates (460 BC - 377 BC)
Lyme Disease diagnosed June 28th 2009. Posts: 6 | From Texas | Registered: May 2009
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posted
Sounds like the illness to me - you wouldn't be going through any of this if you weren't sick.
You also sound very capable to me! Maybe it would really help to know that, that you are a very capable, sounds like straight-A motivated student.
I don't think anything we do is wasted - you've obviously worked hard and learned stuff.
It's not your failure if you're not responsible for this predicament.
Sounds like you're saying you slid back without treatment, right? Well then, the answer is going to be getting treatment again. Can you do that?
Things will still be there for you in life, and in the medical field. It's not a now-or-nothing deal. It'll be all be there. Just not at the regular pace that people expect to access everything.
Is there any way that the things you want to qualify for to do could be handled through a home-schooling program?
Maybe get creative with everyone. Tell them how very much you want to participate and see if you all can find another way for you to access the various fields and trainings you're interested in.
But still I think your health needs to come first.
Posts: 13171 | From San Francisco | Registered: May 2006
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METALLlC BLUE
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 6628
posted
Everyone above went through the same thing to some extent, whether they were a rocket scientist or just worked at Walmart. We all got the **** end of the stick and it's not fair.
However, nothing is a failure until you've stopped trying -- it's always a process, or a "result." Additionally, life is what happens while we're making plans. You'll need to consider changing some expectations and being flexible. Flexibility doesn't mean failure, it means focusing on the present moment and dealing with priorities. Other issues will be waiting when you're ready.
The illness is causing you to feel and think this way -- it's also a very clear sign that you "aren't" capable of going on the days where those feelings appear.
Many of us have that same feeling about picking up the telephone, or going to a family dinner, or even just going to class.
You're going to get thru this, but don't add any more stress than is necessary -- change your thought process and your goals temporarily to allow youself to focus on what is absolutely essential. What is essential is your health and your health is damaged by anxiety or expectations about pushing to prove a point or to make other people proud.
All of us are very proud dignified people -- Lyme seems to hit those types of people. We're the most active. We're the ones running outside, staying in shape, walking our kids at the park, fishing with family, gardening and cleaning our yards. We're the strongest usually, and Lyme is a disease of the dignified.
Eventually it strips dignity, sanity, and our ego. We begin to see that it's not "we" who are failing, it's not we who aren't making others proud -- it's others faulty expectations, lack of understanding or other ignorance that denies them the ability to see that we're the same people inside who we were when we got sick -- it's just being consumed and hidden by illness.
So, this isn't about "you" as a person. You aren't defined by what you do. A dignified person simply does what they are! And you're suffering in agony because you're restricted from demonstrating who you are. So, find another way to demonstrate who you are! Fight! Learn about your situation. Talk to your school, gather evidence -- put your strength into getting this solved to the best of your ability.
-------------------- I am not a physician, so do your own research to confirm any ideas given and then speak with a health care provider you trust.
Keebler
Honored Contributor (25K+ posts)
Member # 12673
posted
- What you describe is not at all about your personality, character or motivation. You're still ill &/or there is damage to heal. That not being able to face STIMULI is all about lyme + co (and adrenal dysfunction) - believe me. You still have some healing to do.
This should get better but don't push it beyond what you feel your brain and body can do - they are sending you a message.
Do interact where you can but listen to your body if it says anything is too much. Otherwise, it can be taxing and further stress your adrenal system.
Adrenal support, too, is vital. -
[ 04-08-2010, 05:26 PM: Message edited by: Keebler ]
Posts: 48021 | From Tree House | Registered: Jul 2007
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He has a line in here where he says that many lyme patients can barely stand to be in a room with another person due to severe sensory problems. So true. So True.
Also to consider is the effect of lyme on the nerve fibers and brain functioning. It is a huge task to bounce back and it may take time. This explains so much:
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