RA AND THE FAMILY FIT

Guilt: A feeling of worry or unhappiness.  Something that we deal with time and time again having Rheumatoid Arthritis.  Guilt, does it make you cry your days and nights away?  How can we get someone to understand the guilt we feel when we can’t get them to understand the Disease we have!!!

Having Rheumatoid Arthritis causes us so much guilt because of the limitations brought on for the many reasons associated with it.  Guilt makes you wonder and it makes you cry tears, tears and more tears.  Guilt why does it hurt so much and why does it seem we have so many loose ends while dealing with it.  We feel guilty because we can’t do the many things that we want or need to do.  We feel we are coming up short in so many ways therefore opening the door for the multitude of guilt to walk right in.

Do you find yourself feeling so bad because you want to do all the things you should for your family but you’re unable to because you can’t force yourself to get out of bed some days.  You say to yourself “If I just lay here a little while longer” I will be okay knowing those very words are wishful thinking.  No matter what, you just can’t make yourself move no matter how much you try.  You lay quietly in bed coming to the sad realization of just how bad you are at the moment and how bad you feel because you’re failing at the things you wish so much you could fulfill.  You’re thinking how unfair this is to your family to have to go through this all the while hoping they understand it’s not your fault things are the way they are but the fault of this Disease, Rheumatoid Arthritis.

The guilt you feel can’t be measured by any means.  We are put down time and time again by our pain and our medication.  Still we’re fighting hard against the urges to just curl up in a knot and giving in to the nausea, headaches and dizziness that forbids us to make a move while it happens to us anyway.  When this happens, we are saddled with insurmountable guilt.  Guilt that weighs so heavy on us for being in a position that we have no say in that’s binding our minds in knots of emotional overload.

Through it all we want so much to be able to do things for our family and our love ones but let’s not forget ourselves.  It’s not just others that are missing out due to the effects of this disease, it is Us as well.  It is true we know this is not our fault but it doesn’t make the weight of guilt any lighter.  As we deal with not being able to do the things we want to do, the many times we want to, we are constantly hoping and praying for that distant hope of change.  It is not easy coming to terms with our limitations, still we never give in to defeat or give up trying. 

Our guilt is because we love and wish to do so we feel what we’re perceived as are failures to ourselves and others though realizing it is something that is out of our control and is an ongoing fight and will continue to be so.  Having the opportunity to do the simple things for those we love is a joy that can only be understood by those that are walking in the shoes that fit all of our feet. Though this might sound trivial to many, it is a great task for those dealing with a chronic disease.

As we live with the many emotions that having this disease brings, we are bound to it for a lifetime which means that we will forever be dealing with many emotions. But guilt and isolation have their place etched in our minds reminding us just how lonely and unforgiving Rheumatoid Arthritis can be.  If only we could rise above our feelings of guilt and accept that we are not responsible for the limitations that we now have to live with. But even knowing this does not ease the pain of the guilt we still feel.  It is hard for us to rest our minds no matter how hard we try.  We only wish for understanding of our plight.  We wish that others knew that we deal with pain more than we can say and that brings about our inability to do so many of the things we want or need to do which brings about isolation and guilt. 

Two of the things that we find just as hard to get away from as the symptoms of this disease because if the truth be told, these 2 are also symptoms in an emotional form.  It’s true we are not to blame but it’s true we feel to blame for what Rheumatoid Arthritis has taken from our lives therefore forcing its limitations upon us causing us unbearable guilt.  Guilt is not fair but it is real.

Be Blessed.

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