I have Rheumatoid Arthritis. It’s not my fault, so why do I feel to blame. Why do I feel bad for being sick. Are you blaming me too! Rheumatoid Arthritis is to blame. Did it chase you away or do you blame me.
I know this sounds really sad but there are many with chronic diseases that have lost loved ones because they have been sick for what some feel “too long or too often”. No, it’s not our fault but we have to suffer the consequences. It’s a sad day when you’re blamed for the times you’re either too sick or just too tired to get out of bed to do anything and sometimes the sad fact that you’re blaming yourself for this. As much as you try, you just can’t bring yourself to put your feet on the floor to make that first move.
As much as you try sometimes to do the best that you can, it may not be enough to keep those in your life happy and at home or in your life. The burden for them gets to be too much to bear though they’re not understanding your burden is with you 24 hours a day. They don’t understand that no matter what you have to live a life of pain, fatigue, medication, lack of help, criticism and loneliness. Their burden doesn’t compare in no way to yours yet they can walk away but you can’t.
Walking away for them maybe the easy way out. They don’t have to face your day to day battles. They don’t have to see you suffer. There are some that just get tired of dealing with the life of a sick person. They don’t want to deal with having a person around who they feel will not be 100% or at least 80% of who they use to be. They don’t want the responsibility of having someone they feel they have to help fix. There are those that just don’t believe any of this is really real. Whatever the reason, they just walk away.
Leaving hits home for many. Not just those in your home. It is those that you thought you could count on like your friends, your close co-workers and others. They turn away because they get those feelings that most get after a while. Is this all real. Are they really sick. Can they really be that sick. Oh no, not again. I’m so tired of them being sick. Just some of what we go through having a chronic disease. But this is our reality, this is truly what we face.
In the end, it is not our fault we are sick. We have been dealt the blow of having a chronic disease which makes our lives chronic in many ways but we are not chronic. If someone walks away from us, it ultimately for our best. We will make it.
Blessings.
RA AND THE FAMILY FIT 
September 18, 2020 at 11:01 pm
Encouraging post, Corrie. Blessings for the weekend and grace π
September 18, 2020 at 11:36 pm
Thank you. The same to you.
September 19, 2020 at 5:18 am
Oh man, this was so tough to read. Thank you for writing it! This is really important and a part of having a chronic condition that nobody can truly understand until they’ve been in that situation. But the lack of attempting to understand from some people is really horrible, and not something I can understand. I hope that you can use this post to help people to understand.
You are right that if someone walks away, it has to be for our best, because a true friend would read up about (in your example) rheumatoid arthritis, surely?
I have experienced this with just having an arthritic knee which was caused through injury. As somebody who used to be extremely active, and despite it being just one joint (at least at first), it has limited me a lot compared to what even average people can do, nevermind athletic people. I’ve seen people aged over 70 walking better than I can do! I can walk seemingly fine, but just not for very far at a time (100 metres or less), nor very fast and it’s very deliberate. And being a young person, who can seemingly walk fine (when people happen to see me walking around a shop or in a house), that makes it impossible for some people to understand my situation. It’s made even ‘worse’ by the fact that I continue to exercise how I can using weights, so the rest of my body still looks fit.
I’ve always used this phrase: people cannot see what you cannot do. As in they cannot see what you WOULD be doing, if only you could!! Younger people can be cruel sometimes with lack of patience or understanding. I am now 33 so things are getting better, and I’ve had this injury since 25 (also again during teenage years). Though a friend’s mum recently declared that I am using the knee as an excuse not to go out for a walk. Incredible. She even knew me back when I ran everywhere with a backpack on! π
We have to grow extremely thick skins to deal with not only our limitations, but sometimes these extremely harsh and unfair judgements about us.
September 19, 2020 at 11:53 am
Thank you for taking the time to read my post. Maybe share this and let them know itβs not just you and itβs not just an excuse. I sure hope you get better and better as time goes on but do what you can do. I know itβs not an excuse and you would do better if you could do better. God Bless you. People donβt understand sometimes because they really donβt want too. You donβt have to waste your time forcing them too.
September 19, 2020 at 3:24 pm
Thank you. I will definitely refer to your post if/when I have the need to! Thankfully it’s not currently that common (since I’m fairly isolated at the moment π).
I agree, sometimes people don’t want to.