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Showing posts with the label spoonie problems

When Mental Health and Physical Health Collide

(Can this pug just become Young and Sick's mascot? Okay, thanks, this is a thing that is happening.) Having both a mental illness and a chronic illness is kind of like this: On your good days, you manage to be okay both mentally and physically. On your worst days, well... you're Leslie Knope falling head first into a pit. (If you haven't seen Parks and Recreation , please do so now.) It can be so frustrating because when you finally have a good day without pain or a good day without anxiety, then your other illness is just waiting in the wings, ready to mess you up. Additionally, both of them play into each other. Was your anxiety caused by your sky-high pain levels, or was your crushing headache caused by the anxiety constricting your lungs and making you worry about everything ? Who really knows? If you're depressed, sometimes you get even more depressed because your joints ache and everything hurts , even your soul. It's a hard thing to battle both your body  and...

Instagram Is Not my Real Life: The Trouble with Chronic Illness & Social Media

Instagram is not my real life. I know, I know. You're all shocked to hear this. You mean my life isn't contained in those pixelated images on my Instagram feed? No, it is not. (Though I will admit I spend a ton of time living vicariously on the internet due in part to my chronic illness, but I digress.) When I first heard about Instagram, it seemed tailor-made for me. I've always loved taking pictures (my embarrassing photography blog from 2011 will back me up on this). To have an app where I could easily share photos with my friends--an app made only  to share photos, no less--was a big deal. So as soon as I got a mobile device in 2014, one of the first things I did was get an Instagram account . This is one of the first Instagram photos I ever took. Yes, it looks like I was on an epic quest, but I was actually on the way home from my OBGYN. My Instagram photos are often of the people and places in my life. And I  really  like them! I love sharing them with everyone! I l...