Invaders

Tomorrow is the day I receive my test results for Lyme disease and various co-infections.  It is an odd thing, I suppose, to be rooting to have a disease that is extremely difficult to both diagnose and treat, much less cure.  But that appears to be the place I've arrived at in my life--hoping to be incubating a particular illness because it will make sense of my symptoms and because there is a path, though fraught, to healing.  It is still possible to have Lyme and have negative test results.  And it is still possible to treat for Lyme, doctor willing, by symptoms alone.  But I'm hoping, not just for Lyme disease, but for solid proof of it.  I need the assurance; I long for the validation.  Of course life doesn't often give us the things we want or need during times of struggle.  It does sometimes, via harrowing and circuitous journeys, bring us to a place--kicking and screaming--where we ultimately needed to go, and where, only by virtue of adequate distance from the trauma and rose-tinted hindsight we may appreciate the tribulations that shaped ourselves and our lives.  But I'm hoping that in this instance I've already traversed the aforementioned tribulations and have arrived at a time of clear knowing and clear planning.

In my mind I've already penned several indignant letters to numerous healthcare providers who have misdiagnosed and dismissed me for the past 10 months or so.  This metal reflex is childish and serves only to hurt myself by perpetuating anger that solves nothing and may or may not even be justified.

And I've come to understand that I'll gladly take any disease of the body over a disease of the mind. Throughout my life I've suffered from long seasons of debilitating depression and anxiety that would lurch into full-blown panic attacks without warning, and I've always tried to be honest about my experiences so that I might be an ally and advocate for others suffering from mental illness. But while I strove to remove the stigma for others, I could never quite erase it from myself.  If depression is a black-out drunk bender of unrelenting sorrow, then surfacing from it is a hangover of glaring shame. Once it subsides your mind tricks you into believing that it was your choice in some way, or at least a failure of will.  No matter how many doctors or therapists have told me otherwise, I always suspected that I was in charge of my depression and therefore at fault.  So while Lyme causes neurological issues, including depression, anxiety, and insomnia, I find it deeply comforting that it comes from something outside.  If something has infiltrated and invaded my body and brain, then I can't be held responsible for it.  It was not my doing.  But if it comes from within....well then that's a different story.  Even though it shouldn't be.