Hi - I joined this site back in spring and even replied to a few posts but then kinda faded out and I don't think I ever made an introductory post or anything, so here goes.
I'm a 40 year old genderqueer woman living in Madison, WI, US. My main diagnosis is fibromyalgia, but of course there's lots of side and sub diagnoses such as migraines, bulging discs in my back, hilatial hernia in esophagus, fun stuff like that. I also have co-existing but not totally related mental illnesses - depression, ocd, and ptsd.Those are mostly in check with meds and the coping skills I learned in my many years of therapy, but they lurk under the surface - and living with chronic illness keeps that surface pretty bubbly!
I've been struggling a bit this past year or so with the limitations of my health issues. For more background, I've had fibro since my teens but was only really disabled and homebound by it all about 12 years ago. It happened suddenly at the time - the worsening of symptoms - but since then it's been a slow decline. I go through the various stages of grief about it cycling mostly back and forth between depression - anger - acceptance. I'm currently struggling with how limited I am and how it seems to get worse rather than better. It's scary to think what will happen if it continues in this regard.
I live with two of my closest friends, which is great. We joke that all put together we make up one real grownup and we all help each other a lot with different things, although I often end up feeling like my health issues mean they're helping me more than I'm capable of helping them.
Up until two months ago, I also had a cat. She was my whole world. As other folks who are homebound probably know, having a pet to be there with you always and to be responsible for and to - it really makes a difference in your world in regards to isolation and feeling like you have a purpose in life. Sometimes it felt like she was the main thing keeping me together - so not having her anymore is definitely adding to the struggle!
So, in addition to the health stuff I'm also grieving pretty hard for my cat. She was like my baby, my best friend, and my soul mate all wrapped in one snuggly little package.
Eventually, we do plan to get another cat but right now I'm just making space for missing the one that was in my life for 16 years.
With my cat gone, I've been finding myself missing my family more - specifically my nieces. I won't ever have my own kids, so being an aunt has become really important to me. I haven't seen them or even heard from them in about 8 months now and it hurts. My brother and his wife are kind of hermits socially, and also really busy with the kids and work and such. So I know it's not personal - but it still hurts to be so isolated from them for so long.
Anyway, this is all probably long enough but I wanted to say hi and that I'm here and looking for some support and connections with other spoonies as I continue to work through all of this. I just spent some time in the chat room, and was glad to see that it's got active participants. Hopefully will be able to connect more here and there!