Sometimes I feel like my life with a chronic illness is a
lot like a banana. Not in the superfood, power inducing, on-the-run snack, but
in the bruised, blackened, and abandoned in the fruit bowl type of way.
Over the years we slowly begin to build up layers of
identity around us. Career, social status, interests, health, beauty, fitness,
tastes, etc…my list could keep going on. What this presents, if you will allow
me, is the image of a perfectly formed banana. However, when chronic illness
hits, in my case Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, you (and your identity) becomes
damaged, bruised and blackened.
First to go is your healthy self. This is when that layer of
protection around you known as ‘health’ is peeled back, a layer I had always
just taken for granted. No longer are you a normal healthy individual doing
everyday life, but a doctor traipsing, cure following and prescription popping
patient. You are self-conscious, you are in pain, you are confused, you are
feeling riddled with guilt, you are doubted by those around you, even those in
the medical profession…and as one more doctor tells you that they can’t find
anything wrong and maybe it is psychological, bruises begin to appear on your
now unprotected body.
Then fitness, body image and self-esteem get peeled back.
You’ve gained or lost weight, you’ve gone from training for marathons to being
out of breath moving from your bed to the bathroom. You physically look sick,
or if you have an invisible illness you look fine on the outer, but no one
truly knows how awful you feel on the inside and how much make up was required
to cover the bags under your eyes. You feel beaten and defeated. Bruise.
Any social life you once had gets stripped away, some
suddenly as you enter the land of hibernation and Netflix, others slowly but
surely as the illness progresses to months, and then years, and then more
years. The extravert is now just a shadow of what it once was, and your social
standing that you once wrapped tightly around you is gone, and along with it
went all the fun in your life. Another bruise.
The layer of your identity found in your career disappears.
No longer are you that successful, powerful, recognised, high achieving
colleague. Any aspirations or goals you once had now gone as you struggle to
hold down a part time job. Then even that disappears, along with financial
stability, and you are feeling less and less of who you were. Bruise.
When you can no longer shop for yourself, clean your house,
cook your own dinner, or live independently is when you feel like all of who
you once were is gone. The perfect outward impression that you have presented
to the world for years, has disappeared. You are now dependent entirely on
others…your mother is even back doing your washing for you. Who you were and
what you thought defined you has been stripped away. Bruise, bruise, bruise.
Then as the world moves on around you, as friends take
promotions, get married, have babies, or travel the world, you begin to feel
even more so like that last banana sitting in the fruit bowl, too damaged,
bruised and blackened to now be eaten, just waiting to be thrown away…
However, the story doesn’t end there. Despite chronic
illness stripping away everything you once held dearly. Despite it leaving you
feeling blackened, bruised and useless. You slowly begin to realise that your identity
hasn’t actually gone. Yes, it has changed, and it has shifted from what culture
perceives your identity should be, but it is still there. You are you! You
are an individual who is fearfully and wonderfully made. You are an
awesome superfood that has purpose and hope. When you are beaten,
blackened, bruised and feeling left behind, in the rawness and vulnerability,
there is so much beauty in who you are, and so so so much hope. When you
are in that place, you might not be able to see it, but anyone around you who
takes a moment to consider it can see it shining through. You are an encouragement
and an inspiration. You are abundantly greater and stronger than how you may feel your
chronic illness has changed and left you. So keep on fighting…you are well and truly worth it.
And, really, when you think about it, it is the bruised and
blackened bananas that without doubt make the best banana bread!
