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on living with sickness
I’ve been sick.
For about three weeks, I’ve been coughing and fighting general cold like symptoms. It’s been miserable. My cough turned into bronchitis, but luckily, no pneumonia. I’ve just generally felt like crap day in and day out with no real energy.
Hence, no words.
I’ve been silent about the lectionary passages for a couple weeks now, and it’s simply because I haven’t had the energy or motivation to write. I’ve done a lot of thinking about processing of the passages, but nothing to share.
In part, it’s because I have been sick. But there’s another component to it as well.
The truth is I live with sickness all the time. There’s not a day goes by that my chronic illness isn’t a reality to me. Day in and day out, The reality of my disability rears it’s head. Most of the time it’s benign, and the reminder comes with the medicine I have to take. But other times, like this month, I am acutely reminded that I live with mental illness.
I’m someone with lives with bipolar II.
Without my treatment of mindfulness practices and medications, I am at the mercy of my moods. Left untreated, my brain seems to work against me, convincing me that my depression or mania is a accurate reflection of the world around me. It’s a special kind of hell on earth to live through (and survive) the wild mood swings.
Like I said, most of the time, I’m stable. I’m one of the lucky ones. I have found treatment that works for me. Until that treatment gets interrupted.
I recently changed insurances, and after that switch I have been trying to figure out how to get my insurance to pay for my psych meds. When the battle started, I had enough to last me a couple weeks. But things have drug out so long that I have ran out of most of my medications, and going through my days without my medications can make for some precarious mental conditions, not to mention the physical withdrawals.
All in all, my head hasn’t been in a place to write, and when I can’t write it is a signal to me that my mental state isn’t in a good place.
Luckly—as if this can be counted as lucky—I’ve only been dealing with a low level depression and have still been functional in the majority of my day to day activities. But still, I have been more depressed, a reminder that I live with a chronic illness.
I’ve had to go ahead and buy some of my meds out of pocket so that I can stay stable. It’s frustrating, but this is the reality of the United States medical insurance system: it doesn’t always work.
I hope to have something written for you this week. I better, seeing as I am preaching on Sunday for the online church The Llama Pack. Lord be a Bible commentary. Hopefully, I can afford to get the rest of my meds and get back to “normal”, including regular prayers, protest, and prose about the lectionary.
I am in the process of becoming a community chaplin with The Order of St. Hildegard. This program is designed to help form people into spiritual leaders that lead from the margins and serve the margins. It’s for the people who don’t quite fit with the traditional church because of trauma, disability, or identity. If you, as my community, would like to help me fulfill the financial obligation this chaplaincy program has, you can give at the link below. Thank you for the myriad ways you support me.