My mom has fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, she recently developed lupus, and on top of that she also has an extra vertebrae in her spine. She also has OCD and anxiety and had depression for several years (she would consider herself no longer depressed in her own words tho).
I know already I have depression and anxiety to an extreme, and when I’ve described some of my “quirks” to her she’s told me it sounds almost identical to her own OCD symptoms. She also says my constant lower back pain and general aching joints seem similar to how she feels, but not quite as bad as hers considering she’s 43 and I’m only 26 of course.
She’s been trying to encourage me to see her doctor about my physical issues because they can diagnose and start treatment ASAP and make my quality of life far far better in the future. She’s also been trying to get me to see a therapist after my regular doctor did the whole “here’s a chart where you circle 1-5 on how much you want to kill yourself and if you agree that others would be better off without you around” and shit like that, and my dumb ass decided to be honest about how every single point was a big fat 5 for me. So my doctor gave me the number of a therapist she wanted me to start seeing and went so far as to ask if I thought I needed inpatient treatment and made sure I had info for if I feel I need to get an emergency pickup and loony bin lockdown.
I don’t know what scares me so much about finding out. I guess up until now, I’ve blamed my aching body on my being obese and not very active even tho I have to confront that even when I was at an “acceptable healthy” weight and was working jobs that had me moving all day I was still in constant pain. If I can blame it on my weight and inactivity I can pretend it’s something I could fix rather than something I simply have to live with that will kill me some day. And with my mental illness, I can also just blame that on abuse and tell myself it’s something I can also fix if I just try hard enough. I guess somewhere in me, I’m just trying so hard to avoid admitting that I am simply broken at my most basic level, that my problems will never go away. I think that’s what scares me, that if I get diagnosed I have to face the reality that none of it will EVER go away, I don’t want to end up like my mom, having to give myself shots in the leg regularly and go into a million doctors offices a month, having to quit working and rely on either disability or someone willing to take care of me for life (luckily my stepdad has been willing and able to take on the role of her caretaker). I don’t want to end up having to carry a cane everywhere I go at 35. I don’t want to have to use a wheelchair when I’m on my feet for longer than an hour. I’d honestly rather die early than live to become a curled up prescription painkiller addicted vegetable in a wheelchair, especially if I have to watch it happen to my mom first.