What’s it like to write about being unable to think when you can’t think? Needless to say, it can be a difficult process. And the inexhaustible fatigue and ever-growing lack of motivation don’t do much to help.
My entire life has been a series of illnesses and injuries. I understand that I’m more fortunate than most. I’ve counted my blessings, but when most people say they’re sick, they tend have one thing I don’t: a diagnosis. -Ologist after -ologist, blood vile after blood vile, pill after pill, yet no one has definitively told me what’s wrong.
As of now, I’m stuck in a dazed state of extreme malaise and exhaustion—to the point where sometimes I don’t possess the energy to move. Beyond that, I work through a rickety and precarious train of thought. It’s almost as though I’m looking through an unfocused and cloudy lense, seeing only very basic and blurry shapes. Often I have trouble speaking as I try to grasp whatever fleeting shape passes by.
For the better part of my life, I’ve successfully worked through it all, but as the sicknesses became more frequent and thus more difficult to recover from, the effort required to do that slowly depleted. Last year, for example, just a few weeks before winter break, I developed bronchitis from a persistent cold that plagued me throughout the summer and into the beginning of the school year. It was nothing new and seemed easily treatable, but the bronchitis decided to stay put despite several rounds of antibiotics. In addition to the weeks of coughing, I soon developed a sinus infection.
Each new illness is conducive to the next one, never giving my already-chronically-depressed immune system a chance to bounce back. One after another, they build up and tend to strip me of what I was, rarely allowing me to return to the level of functionality I had before.
When I was younger, my illnesses were more of a bittersweet vacation. Aside from the countless injuries I’ve had, including three concussions, staying home for a day with a headache or a sore throat had little impact and could be quite fun when it wore off. That’s not so much the case anymore.
Absences have a very big impact now, and as I have gotten older, those absences have increased. There’s no doubt that my condition is exacerbated by stress, and as everyone knows, school can be a bit stressful. To combat that stress, I involuntarily built a lifestyle of apathy behind a facade of stoicism, and did nothing to prevent it. That did nothing but hurt me, and let me fall even further behind. That lapse in any real work carried over into the following year, and is now reflected in both my GPA and class placement.
There’s much I want to say, much I don’t want to say, and much I just simply can’t remember to say. There are always hopeful, albeit brief, moments of clarity amid the constant fog. And with the help of a diet, medicine, and a mother who has dealt with similar things herself, such moments happen more often.
Oftentimes, I struggle with explaining what exactly I’m going through to people, adults and kids alike. But despite that, so many people are still willing to help and accommodate me while I’m battling this invisible illness—and knowing that will always be heartening.
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