A Good-bye Letter to me from me
My dear Dianne
I know how you struggle to accept your limitations. I know what it was like to be able to do as you pleased when you
pleased. I know what it was like to
think nothing of getting up, showering, dressing and putting make-up on. I know what it was like to feel energised and
to look forward to a day of excitement.
I know what it was like to be healthy; not giving your body a
thought..that it was just a vehicle to carry the essential you towards what you
wanted to achieve. But that Dianne is dead.
She will never come back. What
you need to do now is bury her; mourn her and grieve. So I have to bury her now;
not later but right now. She is gone.
She won’t come back. Only by
doing that will you be able to close that door on the past and begin again to
create a new Dianne, another one who is content and who regains a sense of
self-worth and self-esteem. The old
Dianne lived a life of meaning. Chronic
and debilitating illness has robbed her of everything that had meaning. She feels left out, alone; with huge feelings
of doubt regarding her abilities and her life. Life has very little meaning now. She thinks a lot about suicide. Suicide is just a nice word for killing oneself
– of removing the pain and shame of not being able to do much and not having a
sense of living a life of worth. She struggles
to find peace with these invisible ropes that bind her to her room and
bed. She struggles to connect with
others and a simple answer to “How are you?” becomes a nightmare. Does she lie
and say she is fine or does she take the chance of telling the truth only to
find that her answer makes no sense to the one who asked. Or
worst still the response is “But you don’t look sick”, or “I am also tired”. The responses that are meant to make one feel
better when they say “Hope you get better soon”, irritates because no thought
goes into what they are saying. She knows
she will never get better! She hates
not being able to care for herself financially and often physically. She struggles to do the basic things like
shower or change the bed linen. These
are tasks that were so easy before that she never thought about them. She just did them. Now she spend hours and hours doing these
things in her head, but never managing to do them herself. She has to ask someone to help her and finds
that degrading and humiliating. She HAS
to find meaning and worth in a new life.
She has to find something to fight for and to live for that is bigger
than she is. She must have something
that is life-affirming and that will give her life meaning; something that will
force her to think about someone else who has no voice or who has been unfairly
punished or put into a situation that is prejudicial or discriminating. I want to be able to write to a new Dianne;
a Dianne who loves what she does and who feels like she is living a worthwhile
life again. This struggle for psychological survival and self-esteem in our
culture is going to be a difficult task.
But the new Dianne can do it. Hello
Dianne – I am going to have an exciting time discovering a brand new you. With love and gentle healing – be patient
with yourself. You will be OK.
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