Focus, Please.

Reaching for something to focus on when you don't feel good is probably one of the most frustrating experiences ever.  Well, that is for someone who doesn't have a support system.  With family and/or friends involved, dealing with the known and unknown of chronic illness becomes a little more bearable in that there is always a soft place to fall.  I mean, anyone who deals with autoimmune disease know that falling isn't an option, but an inevitability.  Not accepting that as a fact means being blindsided when it happens.

Nope, I'm choosing to have my eyes open.

That fleeting sense of good health isn't enough to sustain me, and those temporary little flashes of what once was don't occur often enough to sustain me.  This is my new reality, for now, and it leaves me with not much of anything to focus on, anything to sustain me, anything at all to give me that emotional fuel to keep moving forward as quality of life diminish.  Oh, it's not as depressing as it sounds, because I've only just begun treatment and have yet to see where it takes me.

Escape is the only thing I have at the moment.  My methods are at least reasonable, providing me with enough distraction to carry me through the day.

Coffee, which infuses something akin to 'energy' and 'wakefulness' to start my day.
Music, the vessel in which I use to retreat when the weakness is too much.
Reading (Kindle), when I need to turn my mind completely off to what's at hand.
Sleep, which now gives me little respite.

Lack of focus brings the need for escape.

Oh, don't get me wrong.  My every waking day is filled with one real focus in mind, and that's eating right, getting a handle on the Prednisone hunger and other sides, and remembering that I have to get back to me again, to SOME semblance of health.  What I need is what comes with true focus, and that is the driving force that takes us along that path to our ultimate goal.  Without that energy and vitality focus fades and the lines between what I want and what I'm going to get begin to blur.  And trust me, it's not good when this happens.

A few mantras run through my mind every single day, and the dialogue rarely changes.  At times I give in to those random thoughts that this is it, this is the REAL 'New normal' and I can't fix any of it. There are times when I want to give up COMPLETELY and just let whatever happens happen.  There are times when pushing myself so hard to do simple tasks just drains me, and the world shrinks away from this very small space in the world of which I've unwillingly taken up residence.  In those hours, and they are hours, the despair is real, the weakness is real, the waning health is real, the isolation is real, and the realization that I'm NOT in control is very, very real.

And then suddenly denial sidles up, elbows me and says... "Are you sure?"

The only thing I'm sure of is that I'm caught perpetually in that swinging pendulum that smashes against acceptance and denial.  And honestly, I latch onto denial more often than not, and I'm pretty damn sure that's not the smart thing to do.

Confusion in all of this sucks.  It just sucks.

More research.  Continue treatment.  Say the enemy's name and say the words out loud if necessary....