Dear Multiple Chronic Illnesses,

It is strange to think we have known each other for the last eight years, maybe more, and yet it is only now I have decided to speak directly to you and not just about you. To be honest, I think it has been the recent awareness days/weeks that has made me feel I need to speak to you one on one. Let me make this clear there may be five of you, but for the most part I am going to address you as one, seeing as you all make me feel the same way.

For a long time, you have been a stranger to me – somebody I have kept at arms length whilst trying to find reasons to why the both of us cannot and should not co-exist. I am not surprised I felt this way, you did decide to enter my life in the period that should have been the best days of my life, hitching a lift on a body that didn’t belong to you. Nevertheless you did and you have hung on ever since, digging your heels in as I tried and I tried to shake you off.

How does it feel knowing you have robbed me of precious time? Knowing that because of you and your power over me, my ability to live a ‘normal’ life is long gone. Knowing that with you by my side, the future terrifies me.

The thing that gets me about you the most is, the fact you want to be so noticeable to me, yet invisible to everyone else. It’s almost like your a performer in a pantomime – you know when the audience screams ‘their behind you’ and the person on stage turns round and they’ve disappeared – only this is in reverse. I’m in an audience of one whilst everyone else is on the stage struggling to see what I do.

You know how cruel that is to do that, right? To not only make me suffer physically, but to make others question my sanity too. To be laughing at me, as eventually I started to question it myself. I’m curious do you ever think of the mental health impact you have had on an already anxious mind? Did it ever bother you watching me get gaslighted time and time again by many a health professional and even people who knew me?

When all is said and done, there is really only one question I would like to ask you – why me? What was it about me and my life that made you want to tear it up so badly? Was it my accident, my struggles in life, my mental health, or was it random? And why was one illness not enough, why did it go to two and three, then four and five, why did you need me to keep gathering illnesses like some people gather junk? I guess my initial ‘I have one question’ was a bit off – maybe I have several – but that’s what carrying you around does to me, it constantly changes my direction.

Over the course of the last eight years my life has changed it’s path on so many occasions. You have single-handedly stopped my working life, my relationships, my social life and my future plans. I should hate you, and trust me at times I really really do, but you’re apart of me, so if I hate you am I not hating myself too? Hating you won’t change anything though because I now know you are here with me for the long run, and for us to get through it we have to work together.

I know this is still a work in progress at times, but I don’t know about you I feel we have been working more in sync lately. Like with any relationship though it’s give and take, and you definitely need to work more to match me in the giving department. I know, I know, it’s all about you, like literally all day everyday, but you have to give me some air time too. I get it you thrive off attention and you find nothing more enjoyable than rearing your head when I least expect it .

But, guess what? It is me who is going to have the last laugh. That’s right, me! Because I am no longer trying to run from you, no longer hiding from you and no longer trying to find a way to push you off the moving train, because I accept you. And because I accept you, you have no power not really.

You see you are the weak one, not me. That’s ok though, I am strong enough for all six of us.

Sarah xx