Time stops when you’re in an autoimmune flare up or facing illness
It’s a surreal feeling of being out of linear time
And into your own internal clock
Out of sync with the rest of the world
All energy turns in and goes toward surviving
Time disappearing while your body gets to work
Doing what it needs to do
Sending you a wave of fatigue so strong
You can do nothing to fight it
So you have to ride it
And illness doesn’t wait for the “right” moment
Or a “convenient time to hit
It just does
Sometimes with warning signs
But often times out of nowhere
Just when everything seems like it’s falling into place
And while your in this place, time only stops for you
Those around you carry on living out their lives
Going about their tasks while your eyes gently close
Your heartbeat slows and you contract in to focus on the inner work and healing
And often by the time you begin to wake once more
You are left with this disorientating feeling of all the time you just missed out on
The catch ups with friends and family you missed
The events you missed
The jobs around the house you missed
The work you missed
Missed calls, emails, texts
The adventures you wanted to go on
The relationships you eagerly wanted to build on
And when your energy returns after some time
And you begin to feel semi human again
You end up in a flurry of this notion of making up for the lost time
The time illness stole from you
The time that seemly just drifted away
The time you won’t get back
So you set about attempting to achieve twice as much as normal in the limited time window you are given to feel good
As you know
At some point
More time will be taken
More time will disappear
Taken by your body to do what it needs to do
And that’s the path of living with any kind of chronic illness
The one that has to be walked alone as no one else can do this for you
The one that doesn’t fit into anyone else’s schedule
The one that constantly steals time and puts you to rest
The one where your body leads the way
The one where each period of lost time teaches you to stand up stronger than before and become more resiliant every time
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