I was flattened for a very long time by a chronic condition. During a number of those years of living with ME/CFS, any talk of gratitude would have filled me with fury.
I wasn't grateful. And the very suggestion that I should be would have sounded to me like my being sick was a good thing, or an insignificant thing. That wasn't really getting in my way, hadn't really altered my life to the point that it no longer resembled a life at all.
It would have felt like my suffering was being negated and discounted in a world that already negated and discounted me daily.
Before I got sick with ME/CFS, I was no stranger to gratitude. In many tough situations I would find and focus on reasons to be grateful, because I knew it was good for me.
But after years of illness and loss, I had no appetite for that anymore. The very idea just seemed grotesque. It looked to me like a form of pretending. And I thought it just made it easier for other people to write off my suffering.
I stayed angry for many years.
Ultimately, it didn't bring me any relief. I was obsessed with the wrong-doings and dismissals that I endured during my worst years. There was so much bad in my life, and it was all I could see.
I had had a habit earlier in my life of downplaying my hurts, of hiding how I felt, so as not to upset other people. That went completely by the wayside, and a few people got shocked more than once and must have wondered who I was.
I think that I had to go through that angry time. I needed to step up and say out loud, "Hey! I don't like this. I'm not accepting this. Don't come here looking for a happy face to make you feel better. No faking here. What you see is the real deal. And it isn't pretty."
I don't know if I would have come through the other side on all that if I had remained so ill. It's entirely possible that my ability to feel, and to cultivate, gratitude came about in part because my circumstances improved.
Over time, things were getting better. I was able to work. I was able to be up and about, drive a car — if only to the next small town — and do some shopping — even if only for an hour or so at a time. I no longer had to spend hours during the day in my bed, trying to catch my breath and stop vibrating.
Even then, at first, the idea of gratitude felt like a dangerous road. But eventually I remembered that cultivating gratitude is not to look good to others, or to sound like a "good" person to yourself. It is a way to have more peace. It is a way to find more pleasure and fight less fear on any given day.
It is a way to fully appreciate the good things that so often get overlooked and taken for granted. Instead of chafing about what might be lacking or painful, I could choose to savor what I did have to the fullest.
I wanted to feel better. And I knew gratitude was one path that would help me achieve this.
In spite of still being sick, of having to manage my condition and live within my constricting limitations, I began to change my focus once more. And being grateful has opened the way to more joy in my life again.
Was it OK with me that my life stopped when I got sick? That I was virtually housebound and sometimes bedbound for months at a time? That I didn't even get to the local grocery store for more than two years? That all these years later I am still trying to reconstruct my life, and that some things will never be regained?
I hated it all. But I am grateful for many things that have come from those awful experiences.
It has been very tough but I have learned who my friends are, who I can count on.
It has been disturbing to find that most of the people I had thought were my friends disappeared very quickly, never to resurface. But those who care about me are there for the long haul through the ugly times, willing to carry the weight of the world for me and with me. And the only reason I know that is because of having been through such dark and lonely times.
These days, I am much more accepting of myself as just myself. Sounds ironic, at least it does to me.
It took losing all the things that I had tied my self-worth to. It took that grief for me to really know in the core of my being that it whether or not I am ever able to do anything of value ever again — I matter. I have worth. And I am fortunate to have a small circle of champions who believe it, too.
I am a more honest individual. I speak more plainly and more clearly. Sometimes I just don't go the diplomatic route and get to the point. It's not always comfortable but I think it's better anyway.
I am more sensitive to the hurts of others, after being sick myself. I am aware in a new way of how important it can be to have someone who will do your laundry for you or do some dishes. I know now how insurmountable such daily tasks can be. And sometimes people are just too sick to be able to take care of themselves, even in these seemingly small ways.
I look back on people I used to know who were dealing with their own chronic conditions, people that I would have said I cared about. But it wasn't until they were gone, and I became ill myself, that I realized that I had been just as guilty of being obtuse and oblivious as the people I've railed against in my own illness.
Recently I have been spending time in a nursing home visiting someone I care about. Each day when I am able to walk out under my own steam, climb into my own car and drive myself home, I have mixed feelings.
I grieve for their losses but at the same time speaking just for myself — life tastes good. The appreciation of being alive that I experience these days, of being able to do the things that often go unnoticed and taken for granted, is powerful and profound. While the problems and obstacles don't disappear and I don't pretend that they don't exist, I am so happy to have this life of mine.
Visit Jody's website at http://www.ncubator.ca