Do you have any friends left

Aerose - I’m sorry you experience this with your “friends”

I am lucky in that I have 4 good friends that are supportive. I see one of these 4 once a week on average.

I have not made any friends during the 5 years I’ve been sick though.


Do you have any family members you can connect with?

Mark FW said...
Its a lonely illness. I am facing that fact myself.

It would help if it was somewhat recognized by the medical community. But it’s not.

Think of i this way, part of their actions is they can’t deal with the fact that your still having to deal with it after all this time. It’s just to painful for others cope with.

And sick people remind them of their own mortality. Something you don’t want to think about when your feeling normal.

One more night the Full moon is over and we can at least sleep a little better.

I didn't get the impression that it wasn't too painful for them, they just flat out didn't buy it and hated me for being a liar.

Feel you on the full moon, they kill me

Aerose91 said...

Mark FW said...
Its a lonely illness. I am facing that fact myself.

It would help if it was somewhat recognized by the medical community. But it’s not.

Think of i this way, part of their actions is they can’t deal with the fact that your still having to deal with it after all this time. It’s just to painful for others cope with.

And sick people remind them of their own mortality. Something you don’t want to think about when your feeling normal.

One more night the Full moon is over and we can at least sleep a little better.

I didn't get the impression that it wasn't too painful for them, they just flat out didn't buy it and hated me for being a liar.

Feel you on the full moon, they kill me

Sorry to hear, that’s just not right.

However like girlie mentioned ..hopefully you get some family members.

Hey I hqve an idea. Use this to motivate you to get better, go to the gym workout and then kick their ass.

Then ask them why they still feel crappy. And when they tell you say they.re a liar.

Aerose91 said...
Struggling with this more than usual lately. Nearly everyone i was close to prior to getting sick thinks I'm a bald face liar because in their minds, there's no way i could still be this sick after so many years. They especially don't understand the psychological issues i have so i can't really explain my limitations to them. I honestly don't know what is more devastating; a severe, life altering chronic disease that spans a near decade, or being called a liar by the people you love and care about most

It is tough to see friends come and go, especially due to them not understanding the persistence of a lyme infection. Maybe one day, people will know how resilient the bacteria is and hard it is to combat the infection, just as Cancer.

You must live your life and if you don't have friends willing to slow down for you and make time for your dealing with lyme, you're better off finding new friends.

Look at how Yolanda Foster was treated. How many of the lyme patients marriages ended in divorce in the documentary Under Our Skin. Living with this disease is not easy, but just remember there's millions of other people going through the same thing. And just by relating with them, you can find support through lyme forums and social media sites like Facebook and YouTube.

I think it really helps reaching out to other people on the web!

Aerose91 said...
One of the worst parts of it is trying to reach out to someone who i haven't spoken to in a long time, who has no idea what i have, and have them tell me I'm making it up. That I'm full on lying about it after all these years, still. To think i would give up all of my life for all these years for an elaborate act? For what? These are the people i cared about the most. I can't even describe the hurt

Aerose,

I'm sorry about how these people hurt you. I've been hurt before (unrelated to Lyme) by someone I'd known and loved since childhood. That person's blatant rejection of me for reasons I didn't understand at the time seared my soul.

In response, I made what some Christians refer to as "inner vows," saying to myself in my heart that I would not waste another day of my life loving and caring about somebody who didn't care if I was dead or alive. I still remember the moment I uttered those words in my heart. I felt something like iron bars close in around my heart in that moment, and my heart went into lockdown mode. Not only did I stop feeling anything for this person, but I also stopped feeling anything at all. I went numb, emotionally. I could hardly smile or laugh unless I forced myself to. This went on for several years.

To make a long story short, this person died unexpectedly a few years later. At that point, all the pent up emotions I had washed over me like an avalanche. I opened up and confessed my anger, bitterness, and unforgiveness to God and let Him start a healing process in my soul. It was then that those iron bars around my heart lifted and I could feel again. I felt pain, anguish, and regret at first, but I also felt love, joy, and peace again. Honestly, feeling pain and sorrow felt better than feeling numb and empty.

Moral: Be careful how you allow yourself to respond to the hurt. Shutting down emotionally can put you in a prison of your own making, and it could take an act of God to get you out.

Post Edited (WalkingbyFaith) : 8/26/2018 11:02:42 AM (GMT-6)

Lost friends, finances, 20 year career, fiance, health, self confidence, function, yada yada

I'm fortunate in that I have been able to keep my life together through the past year of illness, but for some reason I haven't been hit as hard as many other people with Lyme and Bart. I actually asked my doctor about it on Friday. I wanted to know if there was something I was doing differently than other people, because if there was I wanted to keep doing it and share it. He told me that everyone is different, and that it's most likely genetic. He told me some people can be bit by ticks and not get sick at all, but other people get very sick for a long time. I guess there's just so much we still don't understand about how the body works.

I'm fortunate in that the majority of my friends and family are supportive, although I have learned to be careful about how much I complain about my symptoms. My girlfriend gets annoyed sometimes because she likes hiking and I'm not always up for it, but I've decided recently to push myself a little bit more to do things she enjoys more often. She's stayed in for a calm and relaxing day with me so many times when I wasn't feeling well, even when she wanted to be doing something active. Now that I've made some progress in treatment, I want to pay that back and make it up to her. I may not be all the way back to normal yet, but I can push myself for a hike or two.

I wouldn't say any of my friends straight up don't believe me. In fact, I'm not the first person to get Lyme that they know for most of them, that probably helped. But they do quite obviously get bored and annoyed of constantly hearing about it, so I do my best to act normal most of the time. Sometimes that's pretty easy on a good day, but other times it can be tough. On my worst days I just do the absolute necessity to keep my job and mostly just don't interact with anyone until it passes. Fortunately that kind of day hasn't happened in a while, and I hope it doesn't anymore.

But some of my friends really do care, and ask how I'm doing every time I talk to them. My mom and dad do, too. I try and stay optimistic, it makes it easier for everyone if I'm positive about it.

I think part of it is that I'm only 24. Most of my friends are around my age, and open minded. I was fortunate enough to go to a top engineering school (and graduate before falling ill), so most of my peers have open minds and some of them have researched the condition themselves upon hearing my story. There's even a nurse practitioner at a nearby Urgent Care center that I've converted into the Chronic Lyme camp, and now he always treats tick bites with 4 weeks of Doxy without waiting for a test to come back. I like to think I helped at least one person indirectly through him.

I'm very sorry so many of you are dealing with denial from those that were closest. I don't know how to help with that, but I wanted to share that there are kind and open minded people out there. I wish all of you the best and hope improvements come soon.

Sorry for the wall of text, guess this thread sparked something in me.

Thank you! Whenever I do get there I’ll be sure to let you all know. I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in treatment over the past 7 months, you know what it’s like. I’m in an up right now. Hoping it stays that way! I’ll take what I can get these days, though.

So true Sandyfeet

I do still have some old friends that are around though we're not super close. It's great to have them and i love them but there's a huge part of me left unfullfilled not having a close group of friends who i am in daily contact with about the little, stupid things. I never realized how important those are

arieco said...
This is my second full moon with herbs treatment and the herx
is just unbelievable.

I got knocked down for 48 hours.

I still cannot wrap my mind around that thing

Mark FW said...
Its a lonely illness. I am facing that fact myself.

It would help if it was somewhat recognized by the medical community. But it’s not.

Think of i this way, part of their actions is they can’t deal with the fact that your still having to deal with it after all this time. It’s just to painful for others cope with.

And sick people remind them of their own mortality. Something you don’t want to think about when your feeling normal.

One more night the Full moon is over and we can at least sleep a little better.

Sounds like a lot of us are having trouble with this full moon. Normally they hit me but this is one of the more intense ones I've felt