Dreaming Sleeping Waking

My body is so tired. A short trip to the hospital for a scan the day before has left me so fatigued I can barely move. You saw me to the shops, or sweep the floor, what you don’t see is that I need to crash out after the slightest movement. You tell me I look great with all the weight I'm losing but don’t question maybe it’s because I'm not well and burnt out from stress. My outer looks belie how weak my muscles are, how my hormones make me insane, how the all over searing pain travels to my finger tips and even holding a cup is agony, on how much energy it takes to just do the bare minimum, how much living is a strain.

You say I have a few aches but you’re not in my body and my invisible disabilities have me worn down to nothing. You say isn’t it time I go back to work and criticise me because in your mind I just do nothing but my struggles, being awake trying to just get through the day is unfathomable to you because you just see in your mind that I'm fit and healthy , too well for what you see being inactive. I say something about how I am, even the little bits and you look at me not with empathy or even pity, but a wry look for what you see as me just whinging.

My dreams are polluted with the trauma I endured but never tell anyone about, many hands on me, robbed of a normal life, their demon seed trapping my mind and body in a non stop cycle of pain. I dream of all my inadequacies and failures, I dream of all the judgements you pass and when I wake my day is already stained with their impression. I wake up in the physical sense but drag myself through the day with pure exhaustion and brain fog. I feel because of all you say and think of me that I'm in the wrong, intense pressure imposed to do more, be more, but my body says no whenever I try to do the slightest thing. I sit and write when my mind will let me although it can be hard. I try to make something of myself but I won’t tell you I'm trying in case I fail, in case you say it’s not enough, I wait until I gain success and momentum. I wait until I have the backing and feel confident to tell you I'm succeeding. You say there’s no money in it, it’s not enough, question why I'm not sitting at a desk back to the jobs I did that broke my soul. This is all I can do, not just in the physical sense, but because I did the work you value and I no longer can bring myself to crush my spirit again. I have to make this work not just to prove to you, but also to myself, that I am not useless, that I follow through, that I can harness a passion, that maybe I can be more than the disabled woman, knocked back in the corner.

My body is weak, chronically in pain, my mind has deteriorated, driven to distraction, but somewhere in there is a desire that may become a drive with practice and encouragement, that I can do this, be like the others in my life who are talented and passionate, who I'm awed by their stunning performances and art. Maybe one day I'll feel not an imposter in their company but one of them as they say I am. Society and those in my life make me feel like disability has depleted my value, and yes I feel that too with the weight of their judgement and expectations a rock on my back as I struggle to get through the day. Dreaming, sleeping, waking is mired with pain but something inside is waking from its slumber, to push through these chains and demons, be more then a broken body and mind and catch up however late in life with those who pursued and polished their skill, made something of themselves. It remains to be seen whether I can make this work or whether it’ll just be yet another thing I picked off the shelf and failed at, swinging from one fantasy career to another, nothing ever really fitting. This one has to last  as I feel I have nothing else, but there is more passion than pressure as I return to an aspiration I has when I was young and idealistic before life broke me down. I want to be more than my conditions but for myself,  not those who think less me. As I count the years ticking by, still ill, still no measurable success , still where I fought to get away from, I want to prove to the negative thoughts that turn and twist in my brain that it’s still not too late to become someone I want to be. If I fail again the bet I made with myself looking in the mirror on a dark night maybe will come true, but I'll fight and push for this and maybe live the life I want, and my way out of these torturing thoughts will not be the one it used to be, but moving forward, writing my stories, clarity not catastrophe, maybe you'll realise that yes I'm battling illnesses you can’t see, but you’ll see me as worthy, someone struggling, but trying and perhaps succeeding.