How DO I feel?

Doctors and good friends will always ask how you feel. When you have a chronic illness, you could go on and on about it. But the questions are, what's important for others to know and how can you make yourself limit it to the ones that won't alienate you from people in your life?

From weheartit.com

For instance, normally my limbs are tired. I probably have a slight headache. I've likely been dizzy on and off throughout the day and I can't see out of my left eye very well. Standing makes me want to sit. Sitting makes me want to stand. My stomach may be a little upset. When I close my eyes, or sometimes without even closing them, I sometimes see blue fireworks. Almost every day I have quick bouts of involuntary movement, whether it be an eye tic or a full-body shift. I probably only get about 6 hours of sleep each night because I wake up randomly and can't get back to sleep. I see floaters, lots of them, any time I'm awake. And I have lots of feelings I can't put words to ... vague aches, feeling off, bad balance, that kind of thing.

And that's just some of the physical stuff. I won't go into the emotional stuff in this post.

But you can see how hearing the laundry list of ailments, seemingly unrelated, can cause discomfort for the listener. If I were them, I'd first think, "Wow, she complains a lot," as well as, "I get that too. That's nothing." Sometimes I read people's laundry lists online and think, "Shut up. That can't ALL be happening."

Yet it really can. It happens to me. And only when you stop and think about all the things that are wrong in a given day do you realize how it's possible.

So when I'm asked how I feel, I have to stop what I'm doing and really pay attention to all the things that are chronically going on with me that I've shoved into the back of my mind so I don't go insane. I don't remember what normal feels like, so I have to really pick apart all the feelings I have at any given time and sort out the ones that seem abnormal enough to register with TABs.

And then I have to weigh the outcomes. What's the point of telling people these things? To get sympathy? To get help (when I know there isn't any)? To bring someone else down? I want to be honest about my life, but I also want people to want to hang out with me. No one wants to hang out with people when you know they aren't feeling well. But what if they NEVER feel well?

I guess this is where mind-over-matter comes into play. This is definitely something I need to work on. I either block things out completely or harp on them for days/weeks. Neither of those is probably the right thing to do. They say to "listen to your body," but my body has so many secrets, I'm a little terrified of it.