I sometimes have a few days when I can walk, mostly normal, and I don’t spend the entire day complaining about the pain. It’s not that I don’t feel pain (I wish it were that!), but that I don’t feel as much pain as usual. When people see me on days like these, they always ask me if I’m already healed. As soon as I reply “No”, they look at me like I’m lying and trying to trick them. It’s far from frustrating: it’s infuriating!
I won’t go into why people think they know better than me how I’m doing. I’m too tired of doing that and explaining why the fuck they don’t know what they’re talking about and why I should then start to do the same to them. But I will go into why people think I might be lying.
If one usually sees me having a hard time walking, staying sit or standing still on my feet, glimpsing me doing such things without much difficulty might seem an improvement. It’s sort of an improvement. The thing is, if I make any physical effort, the pain comes rushing in twice as hard as it would if it was constant. That means carrying a shopping bag will hurt even more; hanging the clothes too; cleaning the house, likewise; the list goes on.
Do you know how things on the surface might be different from below? It’s exactly like that. I have to be idle on those days, or pain will hit harder. I try my best to be on idle mode because it’s one of the rare periods I have some relief.
photo from Matthias Oberholzer, on Unsplash