For a couple of days this week, imagine my surprise that I awoke to no trembling or even pain in my lower limbs. None of the severe shakiness that makes me feel that I am balancing on jelly. No sign of the often debilitating pain that feels as if my legs are being squeezed in a vice, and which makes me wish that I could tear my legs off and discard them as many young children do with their dolls.
For these couple of days, my immediate thoughts after waking and realising that neither of these disabling symptoms had returned were “So that’s what normal feels like!” I had forgotten how it felt not to experience disabling pain and trembling in the legs. They had become such a part of my life, that without it, it felt almost strange (although was welcome if it was only for a couple of days!
Actually woke this morning with no #trembling in the legs and immediately thought ‘So that’s what normal feels like!’ #ChronicLife
— Rhiann Johns (@serenebutterfly) February 12, 2016
That’s the thing with living with a #chronicillness – the abnormal soon becomes the norm and when we experience a slice of normal it is odd
— Rhiann Johns (@serenebutterfly) February 12, 2016
However that it is not to say I have always experienced these particular troublesome symptoms or to this degree as I haven’t, although I had struggled with them for so long now I am unable to recall when they first started. That’s the thing with living with a chronic illness; the unusual and disabling symptoms soon become the norm and part of our daily lives. Life with chronic illness slowly become our new normal.
[Tweet “That’s the thing with chronic illness; the abnormal slowly becomes our new normal.”]
A lot of people have experienced some moment in their lives when it feels that their lives have been divided into a before and after, whether it be through a bereavement, injury, illness or some other life event. A moment in their lives where they have to adapt to a new normal, the lives which they once knew becomes a chapter in someone else’s story.
Perhaps what is most difficult when living with a chronic illness is that we intermittently experience a glimpse into our lives before illness struck and its onset of debilitating symptoms. Times when our symptoms are mild, or even nonexistent and reminding us of our old normal.
[Tweet “The times when our symptoms are mild, we are briefly reminded what our normal looked like.”]
However, this preview of our ‘before illness’ soon ends and again we’re back to our new reality of pain, fatigue and the other symptoms that make up our conditions. It’s we have a brief glimpse into an old, familiar room before a door being slammed shut before we had a chance to step inside and familiarise ourselves with our past surroundings. A preview of an old life that although can be seen it is out of our grasp.
When given a chance to experience aspects of our past life, however, what is most surprising is that it no longer feels normal, it feels odd as if that life no longer belongs to us. When living with chronic illness, the abnormal soon becomes the norm and without us even realising, we forget about our old normal. When experiencing our old normal, therefore, it feels unnatural and strange, as if that life no longer fits.
The new normal just becomes normal; erasing our past life and who we once were paving the way for life with a long-term condition and who we are now.
3 Comments
You explain it very well. I am in remission with some of my diseases and conditions and it feels weird not to be in pain all the time or have mobility issues. Yet I never went back to my old self. It’s as though I were sick for so long I don’t know how to be without it. That’s how deep the scars of my diseases go, you know?
Enjoyed your article! Chronic illness does cause one to continually adapt to a new normal, that’s for sure. The neat thing to watch is that although there is some grieving as the old self becomes harder to find, the new self, the one who has adapted to these changes, has really great qualities as well. This new person has learned wisdom and life lessons that the old one would have never learned if it weren’t for the illness. I don’t know if I would purposely choose this different life! However, it is sometimes what life has given us.
I’ve had this before, only a couple of times but I call them ‘blip’ days. They are so strange! Very welcome but, as you said, it makes you remember what it is like to be ‘normal’ again when you have completely forgotten what it is like!