When you are pregnant with your first child, shit is GOOD.

You are cared for and you have time to rest and literally contemplate your navel.

Everyone is oooohing and aaahhhing and so damn invested.

Same when you have one of those short term illnesses, peeps will be bringing you casseroles and flowers and offering to mop your floors and straighten your pillows and OMG IF YOU ARE IN THE HOSPITAL, bitches will pick your kids up from school and everything.

***

Then you get pregnant with your second child and people are still a little bit interested, but you are surprised that they are not offering to rub your belly like before and no fucker wants to babysit your other kiddo so you can just close your eyes FOR JUST ONE SECOND let alone rub some oil in your belly or some shit. What happened?

Kinda like if your short term illness drags on for like, I dunno, a couple of weeks… or say a month or so.  Peeps be saying shouldn’t you be better now, or you run out of casseroles or they forget that they promised to pick up your kids.  Shit like that.

***

And then you get to your 9th kid and people have OPINIONS, even if you have all the money in the world and a pelvic floor that snaps back like a trampoline.  Judgemental fuckers believe they have the right to tell you every. single. one. of them in GREAT DETAIL too.

It is worse when you have a chronic illness.  After a month or so the ‘how you goings?’ turn into ‘what are you doing to help yourself’s and the casseroles turn into ‘are you looking after your family?’ and there are a lot of eye rollings and gradual disappearances.

Other people get very angry or ‘disappointed’ when they try and help and their form of help is underappreciated.  Like when they send you links to miracle cures that you don’t immediately spend your limited income on, or when, you try to explain that that particular item when ingested by someone like me is very very harmful given the many medications I take, the response is ‘don’t take the medications then. Do you want to get better?’

Or my personal favourite ‘are you even TRYING to help yourself?’

*boggle*

It seems that when you live with a chronic illness you have to take the tiny crumbs of kindness dropped by others and treat them like precious gems.  Polish them until they are gleaming and then hand them back to their previous owner in the hope that they will see their worth and toss you some more.

I mean shit, what else do I have to do… I am just sitting here on my fat arse doing nothing anyway.

Fuck that noise.

{ 18 comments }