Ugh, had a couple discussions with H about my overspending and how I cannot stop it like he can. Which turned into a conversation about MI and if I am using the MI to my advantage to not hold down a job, etc.

People without MI just don’t get it. They don’t understand how one person can have MI but still be able to work and pretty much function normally in society while another cannot.

I wish MI and MI pain were visible, at least to your immediate family. H doesn’t understand how if I am having a super long panic attack, I can hardly function, but yet I still do feel if I were having that panic attack, and I had to act immediately or my daughter would die, I feel like I could act to save her life. I think he got a bit upset/concerned when I explained to him that there are times that I just dissociate all together to keep going on. I guess that’s the right word? Like sometimes you feel like you are watching your life happen like a movie?

And MI is so complicated. One drug can work for one person with a given diagnosis and not another. How sometimes meds work and sometimes they stop working. Then, you throw in multiple MI diagnoses, perhaps with something like fibromyalgia that affects your mental health too (brain fog, depression, anxiety, pain all over that makes your skin hurt the instant water hits it from the shower), then throw in a physical illness that needs medication such as my stomach med, Protonix, and things get complicated fast.

If only others could see it. It is a disability and yet because only your actions show, you look perfectly healthy, but you are not. How even though H feels he must go forward through everything for our family’s sake, why can’t I when he has the added burden of work and not an easy job at that? There are times when I am only just barely keeping it together, just on the precipice of needing to go IP. Why can’t I just plow ahead? I don’t know. Why can’t I? I wouldn’t choose to have MI just like I’d never wish perforated ulcer surgery on anyone. It is a God-awful surgery, more painful than a person can imagine, and that pain is visible in staples, in a 4 inch long scar I will have to live with the rest of my life. You can’t looks at that scar and not doubt I had some major surgery done in there.

But H can’t see MI. Can’t understand while even with high anxiety, he can take time, watch a show on TV and keep up with it or get lost in a book, why can’t I?

I wish MI were visible, and having so many MI diagnoses sucks so bad, especially the stupid ED. Though right now it’s panic disorder vying for the top spot of things bothering me along with BP. But the stupid ED is relentless too...don’t forget I’m still here! OMG, you did not exercise today, here comes morbid obesity!

If only others could see...