Chronically Writing: The Initial Lessons

My chronic illness journey began long before I was born.

The lesson started the year before I came into this world. On June 25, 1988, my father was working a construction job. His boss told him to go up a ladder without someone spotting him, despite his protests. My father had a job to do and a family at home, so he listened to his boss. He was two stories high when he fell and hit his head on hard concrete.

He always said he didn't really remember the hospital trip. He had driven himself there. His only memory of the trip was being stuck in traffic. A kid in the next car was looking at him. My father stuck his head out and the kid freaked out. After that, he was on his stomach on the living room couch, on a steady diet of liquid morphine and eventually, alcohol.

The circumstances of how I was born are for another day. The lesson from this was not that a twenty-four year old experienced a tragic work accident, and he just started a family. It was also the way he accepted his abilities and how life became afterward. My father had escaped one bad situation and was mending his relationships with his family. He felt like he jumped from the frying pan into the fire, but he loved my mother dearly and always wanted to make her happy. He had friends around him that treated him like family. Life was pretty good at that point.

This accident changed everything. Within two years after this happened, me and my brother had been born and my father had a bad drinking problem. He also could not handle the pain, and the young man was resentful of the noise children made. He had his suspicions. He had crying fits. Migraines. Days without sleep. A lot of smoking and talking to his friends and family. He listened to his favorite records over and over again, hoping to find solace. Nobody could find anything wrong with him, so he relied on the truth: he had a family he had to provide for and he had to work.

Over the years, nothing much changed. The household was always on eggshells. Anything could set my father off, from waking him up early to not washing your face correctly. We were quiet at certain hours. The house was cleaned a certain way because he could step on something and it hurt him. We could not climb or crawl on him.

I honestly cannot imagine what he felt, with three young children and a whole family that didn't believe him until he got an MRI in the late 90s. I cannot begin to imagine his struggles trying to go back to school, not being able to spend money to update certifications, or being rejected at jobs for certain reasons, or facing unemployment because a company moved, or a million other things.

But that does not excuse the abuse he inflicted on others.

I want to make that perfectly clear.

I luckily did not endure the same pathways my father did. I steered away from addiction mostly because I witnessed what it did to people and how many I had lost. Add my husband, who was there when I was set free (no joke). I also didn't want my son to experience the same loneliness and people pleasing that I did. And with school and work and a family of my own, I was much too busy.

The initial lessons in chronic illness meant looking at my own actions and reflecting on my role in them.

It made me look over my upbringing and my education. It was not the only the trauma of previous generations and the current, but where and what I had been taught. How others were treated in my life. How trauma made me downsize myself and downplay my abilities. How it told me how I was never enough, or that I did good enough. How my pain was never as bad as the others' because I was fat.

Unlike my father, I had to accept my abilities. Research my body type and the diseases, and be assertive about what does and does not work (just because I can do it does not mean I should be doing it sort of thing). Do the best I can with what I had, but strive to do better if I stumbled. Apologize especially! Unless I am comfortable with someone, I am utterly tongue-tied and I sound robotic and rude. I am also self-conscious and had been judged so many times that I sometimes feel like I am taking too much space.

Chronic illness, especially after you've been the only one holding it together, is a difficult thing. It's also very lonely. The only people who stay by your side are those who understand and truly love you. And oddly enough, my father was there. He pelted me with the new information he gained in the last years of his life. He apologized only once. Although it was generic ("I was hard on you kids when you were younger and I'm sorry."), it still taught me the power of responsibility.

And that was it: I am in control of what's around me, but there is so much that is out of my control.

I am sure that, with plenty of dedication and good eating, I could be in the best shape of my life. But with no money and no community, I cannot dedicate the time to it. I do the best I can with walking the dog, eating as little bad foods as possible (or not at all) and stretching often/chair exercises when I do long periods of writing.

I can be a better parent by working with my abilities. Luckily, Calvin is at an age where he can pretty much take care of himself throughout the day. He does not run off unless he knows there's an emergency, and he knows where to go. I can nap for a couple of hours when I have a migraine. I can slowly do chores while he bounces to Kiss 95.7. Calvin has been able to help with the housework too.

And that is a lesson my son taught me: everybody can do it, you just have to find your way of doing it. We are all on the same journey. Our lane is the only one that should matter.

For my father, redemption came after his death. For me, it is easier to forgive him now because I understood the role he played in the trauma clearly. Yes, my father could have done better. That man working on the roof could have focused on his children better. But he gave me more than a headache with his name on it.

It was patience, grace and empathy.

I hope to give that love to the world when I can - without remorse.

Namaste, everyone. Have a great rest of your weekend!

#ChronicIllness #Lessons #Generational #FamilyIssues #Misunderstood #Accidents #LifeAfterward #Empathy #OneDayAtATime