Disability and the Spoon Theory

Last year I was struggling to explain to someone why I wasn't able to go out with them, and a few days later I ran across this article. It explained exactly what I go through on a daily basis.

 I contracted mono my freshman year in high school, like most of the drama department. All but me completely recovered. I didn't have a clue why I kept feeling bad for months to years afterwards. My mother, who didn't even take me to the doc until I was almost too weak to walk, would tell me that nothing was wrong with me, that I was just lazy. I left home and went to college, got married, and still didn't feel completely 'right'. I could remember what I'd felt like before age 14, and I knew something wasn't kosher. My ex mother-in-law worked at a medical clinic, and she urged me to see the specialist. It was he who pronounced "You have what we call Epstein-Barr Syndrome." When he described the symptoms, and what to expect, I thought to myself "No, he must be mistaken, I don't have a chronic debilitating condition! I can't!" I was in denial for many years after that.

 My oldest sister 'P' has always known something wasn't quite right with me after the mono. She never made me feel bad for not being able to hold a job for any length of time (Partially EBS, partially being an Aspie, but that is for another post.), or be able to do much around the house. She always supported me emotionally when I would have a really bad 'spoonless day', as I now call it. If it wasn't for her, I probably would have killed myself years ago from the depression and the way everyone else treated me.  It was P who finally convinced me a couple of years ago that I was not "all right", and would never be. I mean, I knew, but I was still in denial, even after all this time. After I read the Spoon Theory, it all made sense. I know that sounds silly, to have lived with something like this all my adult life, and just now really finding out how to deal with it.

 Some days, like today, my spoons are nearly gone when I wake up in the morning. I'm having to deal with an old dog that will be euthanized at some point this week, and the stress of taking a trip where I have to drive in San Antonio (the horror!), and go to one of the biggest anime cons in the country. (I'm 'chaperoning' a young woman, her mother did not want her to go alone, and I am an experienced con-goer.) The amount of people there will totally suck, and the distances I will have to walk even more so. But I slog onward, knowing that some day, maybe soon, I won't be able to do these things at all any more, and I need to enjoy them as much as I can now.

 So onward and upward, damn the torpedoes and full steam ahead! I might be slow, but I'm not down yet.