Day 19: something I miss

I miss a lot of things. I'm a pretty nostalgic person, and I think a lot about how things used to be. But the thing I miss the most is my life before I had POTS.

When I first got POTS, it made my life a living nightmare. I didn't know what was wrong with me, and my family and friends thought I was bat-shit crazy because no one could see my symptoms. In January, when I was diagnosed, I thought I finally had the answer -- I thought I was going to start taking this medicine and I would be fine. And eventually, by about March, I was feeling lots better.

But this past few weeks have been rough, culminating with tonight, where I almost passed out at work. I feel like I'm not even on medication. It feels just like it did when I first started having symptoms. I don't know if it's the heat, or stress from finals/birthday/graduation, or what, but it's killing me. And my mom told me tonight that I just need to learn how to control it. Well if I knew how to do that, I obviously would already be doing it. No one in my life understands. My family thinks I'm crazy -- yesterday, for the 30 day challenge I'm doing on facebook, I posted a picture of POTS for something that has impacted my life recently... and my grandma commented that there are people with worse things than that. No one has ANY FUCKING CLUE what it's like to be inside my body, miserable all the time. In pain, dizzy, completely confused all the time. It makes my life a living nightmare, and, contrary to popular belief, I think I'm being pretty DAMN positive about having a chronic, incurable, possibly lifelong disease... But no one agrees.

And then there are the people who tell me they think it's all in my head. I think my mom thinks that. I KNOW she thinks that about the anxiety I've been having for the last ten years. She tells me to just "stop". Like I hadn't thought of that brilliant idea yet. Like I could do that if I wanted to... Other people think that too, and it's really upsetting because it ISN'T all in my head. But to prove that, I'd have to faint in public, or drink alcohol and then have a heart attack or something. NO ONE BELIEVES ME, and it is SO FUCKING FRUSTRATING.

... But I've strayed from the point. I miss my life before POTS. I miss being able to go out until 3 in the morning and not have to worry about getting enough sleep so I'm not sick the next day. I miss being able to have a drink with my friends. I miss being invited out. I miss spontaneity. I miss not taking 8000 pills a day, even though they don't make me feel that much better. I miss being happy...