University, illness, diagnosis

Dear Internet,

Recently I have been having a bit of a hard time. My problems are likely to be insignificant compared to those of many others, but I feel that this is my own little corner of the internet for me to vent, so here we go.

Term was going great - I love Geography, my units are super interesting and everything was going well! Then I managed to get sick. Sinus infections are pretty normal for me, so I didn't think anything of it. Before I knew it, I had been sick for three weeks and was gradually getting weaker and weaker, finding myself unable to do activities that I take for granted.

I had a blood test, and fortunately I did not have Glandular Fever (a relief), but I am severely anaemic, and they are not quite sure of the cause yet.

It's not that I have a problem with being ill; I am glad that everything is being sorted out. What scares me is the uncertainty - I don't know what is causing this iron deficiency, meaning that there is something that has gone wrong with my body that I DO NOT KNOW ABOUT. If I got to find out next week then I would not be so worried about it, but the diagnostic endoscopy will probably not be until the end of December at the earliest. This means another month and a half of uncertainty.

This knocks me further because one of the possible causes of the anaemia could be coeliac disorder, which is a rather large happening to cope with. I am used to being able to eat whatever I like whenever I like, and the idea of having to avoid all gluten products scares the living daylights out of me - how will I tell people? Is it going to make me feel even more socially awkward than I do a lot of the time? How am I meant to eat meals and go out for dinner with my family and friends?

Although I do feel that I will be able to cope with this, in time; I still have a problem with food and ensuring I eat enough and enough healthy things. If I can't whip up a sandwich at lunch time, I am terrified that it will end with me not eating enough and then becoming sicker.

What scares me even more is that I have avoided gluten for the last couple of days and it has been the first few days in years that I have had without some sort of stomach cramps, bloating or abdominal pain, perhaps indicating that it is coeliac disease rather than the more favourable option of stomach ulcers (twisted right?).

To be entirely honest, either way it is just going to be another thing that I will have to cope with, and I am sure I will.

Any/all advice is much appreciated - I have no idea what is to come and it cuts me up a little.

Thank you for reading, friends;
Izzy x

Vulnerabilities

10/5/2015

Hello there people of the internet, I hope you're having a wonderful day.

Ever since I was little, the two places I have felt most vulnerable have been in bed, and in the bathroom. For some reason, these still resonate as situations where I have to be on edge constantly: I still jump at the tiniest rustle or someone else's door opening. Rational me knows that these fears are absurd; I was convinced for the first 14 years of my life that a murderer was going to climb through my second floor window in the night and stab me (although somehow my duvet protected me from this, causing me to curl up under a thick layer of feathery duvetness right through the depths of summer).

Mostly, this particular fear has subsided, mainly due to living on the tenth floor or a high rise block, but occasionally when the insomnia hits, my brain takes these childhood fears and magnifies them into a situation that could seem almost rational.

When you're lying in bed at 4am, paralysed with fear that one of your flat mates is, in fact, a serial killer, you realise that the crazy you thought you had grown out of is still there.
What I mostly am confused about is how my mind creates these ridiculous situations, yet I appear to be completely unaffected by every horror film I have seen to date. Where did this crazy come from? Will it ever go away?

The bathroom is a strange one - I love the thinking time you get during a warm shower, the warm water almost melting the tension away. The issue with the bathroom has always been being faced with my own, slightly lumpy body. It can be scrutinised from all angles, every little scar is a reminder of past mistakes;  all the bruises and spots are reminders of my clumsiness and poor diet. The fear remains that I didn't lock the door properly so someone will walk in on me inspecting my slightly wonky teeth in great detail.

I don't know why that is associated with being bad, I guess it's just not living up to the image of a perfect being.

Projecting an emotionally strong image is one of my talents, and any crack that is shown in that scares me; it's like a chink in my metaphorical armour that protects me from what others think, that stops me speculating on whether my legs look fat in that skirt or if my hair looks stupid or if I look like a ghost due to my general lack of good quality sleep. I don't know why this matters to me so much. Sarcasm is my shield.

I suppose that my vulnerabilities may seem odd to me, but they don't come up in conversation much, so my knowledge of others' is limited.

Am I crazy? Or do I just have an over active imagination?

Peace out x