My birthday just past, and while I used to love birthdays, I’ve come to hate them since getting sick. Maybe it’s because I’m at a “certain age”, maybe it’s because I’m chronically ill, but I just want to skip over it. It was my 37th birthday the other day, and it made me much more emotional than I expected. I can’t believe I’m actually that age– thirty-seven. Just typing it out makes me teary and anxious. When you have chronic illness, aging is not the same as it was before you got sick. There’s many emotions that go along with it, most of which include anxiety.
Growing up in the 80s and 90s, I was a big fan of sitcoms. I watched so many, ranging from Full House, Home Improvement, Family Matters, Boy Meets World, and everything in between. All the adults seemed so old to me as a young child. They had their lives together– careers, marriage, children. They had homes, and money, and friends. They had social lives, and entertained friends and family in their homes, and went to parties. They were everything I wanted to be, and I couldn’t wait to get to that point in my life.
Tim Allen was 38 when “Home Improvement” started, Bob Saget was only 31 when he started playing Danny Tanner on “Full House” (RIP), and Roseanne Barr was 36 years old when her show “Roseanne” first aired. These are the people I watched every week, people with their lives together and beautiful families. These are the things I not only thought I’d have at that age, I expected to have them. I had no doubt in my mind that I would have them.
My own mother had me at 34, and she was married for 10 years when I was born. She was considered old to have a child back then, and was the last of her friends to have kids. She had her own reasons for having children later than everyone else though– she was struggling with Endometriosis, and it took over a decade for her to get diagnosed.
It was so bad by the time she finally got diagnosed, that she was told there was no way she could ever have children. My parents were in the process of adoption when my mom miraculously got pregnant with me. It was after a surgery for her endometriosis, and her doctor was in shock, saying it was an actual miracle. Her doctor was the one who told them to adopt in the first place, since getting pregnant was off the table.
I keep asking her to write about her own experience with chronic illness so I can post it here, but she hasn’t had the time yet. Hopefully soon. She knows medical gaslighting firsthand herself.
Since I grew up watching these shows, and I knew my mom was a mother at 34, I expected these things. What I didn’t expect, however, was getting so sick in my 20s that my life would be turned upside-down. I didn’t expect to have to quit my job, in a career-path I was finally excited about. I didn’t expect to be financially dependent, far from independent. I didn’t expect to still be living at home, in the bedroom I grew up in. I didn’t expect to be unmarried, and without children. I didn’t expect a single one of those things, and thinking about it still breaks my heart every single time.
One of the most traumatic things about being chronically ill (and there are a lot of traumatic things), is the fact that a lot of us feel like we are behind on life due to being sick. This can include a multitude of things, from being left behind in school, to having to drop out of college or quit your job. The emotions can come from being single and unmarried, or not having kids. There are so many things that can cause someone to feel “left behind”.
Getting Sick in My 20s
When my POTS symptoms started at the age of 26, then worsened in the two years following, I was at the age where I should have been thriving. I started at a job in an industry I was excited about and loved, travel. I was doing great at my job, and was heartbroken about having to quit 2 years after my POTS symptoms first began. I was left without a choice though, as I couldn’t get into work anymore. I was only given 5 sick days a year, and had to accrue (earn) them.
With this system, I only “earned” 1 sick day every 2 1/2 months, and was only allowed to take what I had– I couldn’t take a day I did not have, and if I did, I was written up. Because this system is unfair and impossible for someone with chronic illness, especially when you’re trying to go to doctors to get diagnosed, I ended up going on FMLA (Family Medical Leave of Absence) and took unpaid days off as needed, without the threat of being let go from my job. There’s only so many of those though, and once that ran out, I had no other options besides having to quit my job.
It was a very depressing time for me, because I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to grow in this industry, but I just couldn’t work anymore. I worked for a year with the worst of my symptoms, 2 years total. By the summer of 2014 though, I was getting daily migraines, was dizzy 24/7, had horrible brain fog that left me stuttering on the phone with clients, and I was deeply fatigued. I left my job that June.
Leaving my job put me in a position I never expected to me in. I was someone who started working at 16, and had worked consistently since I was 17 years old, at times 2 jobs. Now here I was at 28, financially dependent on my parents. I was still living at home, as I live in one of the most expensive places in the country– Long Island, New York.
A year after I left my job, I realized I wasn’t getting better, I was getting worse. I was getting more diagnoses what felt like every few months– Fibromyalgia, POTS, and autoimmune disease within that first year that I left my job, and I’d end up getting dozens more as the years went on. I went to a lawyer in the summer of 2015 to enquire about applying for disability, and officially applied in October of 2015. In a week or two, it will be 8 years since I applied. If you’ve been following along with my story, you know I’ve been denied since. But if you haven’t, you can read my disability story here in part 1 and part 2.
During this time, I was dating someone for 7 years, until we broke up in 2019. I had expected to be married with children at 30. Here I was at 34, single again, unmarried, living at home, and broke.
Now it’s 2022. I’ve been in another relationship for 2 years next month, but I don’t know what is going to happen with us.
Every time I see my primary care provider (every 3 months), she asks me if I’m going to get pregnant soon, because she knows I still want a family. It becomes overwhelming, because I know it’s her way of saying “Tick tock, your time is running out”, and that’s exactly how it feels. I know she’s trying to be helpful, because she knows I want children, but it doesn’t make it any less overwhelming to me.
Tick Tock, Your Time is Running Out
If I want children, I don’t have much time left, that’s just the truth of the matter. It’s not me putting pressure on myself, or being unrealistic. I’m in my mid-to-late 30s, and I can’t have children forever. So the pressure is there, and it’s immense, and it gives me so much anxiety.
I wish I could afford to freeze my eggs, but when it costs anywhere from $10k-$20k, that’s obviously not a realistic possibility for me.
I recently went to a psychic who told me that I wouldn’t be able to have children past the age of 41. I know, most people don’t believe in psychics, and I’m obviously not relying on the advice of one, but with all of my complications, it’s a definite possibility that that’s true.
On top of the rest of the diagnoses, I also have PCOS, which could make getting pregnant even harder. So now it’s in the back of my head that I have until this time to make it happen, or else I’ll never have the children I so desperately want.
I’ve had to give up on so many of the dreams I had for myself. I used to want to be an actress– a dream I gave up long ago. Then my dream of having a career in the travel industry was crushed. The one dream I won’t give up is the dream of having children– it’s something I really want, and I’m not going to let being sick stop me.
Here Comes the Aging
In addition to the pressures put on me that come with getting older, there’s the physical aging as well.
I’ve always been told I look young, and I know I don’t look 37. If I were to say how old I thought I looked, I’d say around 25 or so, overall. But I’m starting to age, and it’s starting to catch up with me.
I was around 29 years old when I found my first silver hair. It was before my childhood best friend’s wedding, and it was shocking to me. I’m lucky that I don’t have darker hair, because now, 8 years later, I’m speckled with silver hairs (especially on my right side, for some reason).
Recently, I’m noticing the deep lines on my forehead, and my makeup (when I wear it), likes to settle there. As I was taking my makeup off the other day, I noticed that the lines around my eyes are starting to appear– they’re already very hyperpigmented, and makes me look extremely sick without makeup (even with sometimes, as it’s hard to cover up with even fuller coverage concealer and foundation). My eyes are sunken in underneath, hollowing with age. I can tell you firsthand that gravity is real, because I’m seeing my face and body start to sag and hang in a way it never did before.
These might seem like little things, but when you feel like your life has been stunted for the past decade, therefore you should still be in your 20s, these little things lead to big emotions.
Aging was something I was never really particularly worried about, but now that it’s starting to happen to me (while I feel like I’m not actually living, I’m just existing), it’s now starting to bother me.
Seeing these things, these “flaws” (I know they’re not actual flaws, they’re natural parts of aging, but my brain isn’t reacting that way) can be jarring sometimes. I feel like I’ve lost a decade of my life so far, and yet I’ve still aged.
It seems unfair, like a cruel joke. Like maybe I’ll wake up from this nightmare and be back in my 20s. If only.
Feeling Less Than
While I’m a 37-year old woman living at home with her parents, reliant on them for any money and help, my friends and family are thriving, living the best years of their lives.
It started with the engagements, then the marriages, and now we’re at the kids. Most are past their first kid, some even past their second, and are having their third child now. They’re buying homes, going on vacation and traveling, living their best lives, and I’m still here, like the child left back in school multiple years while all their friends move onto new schools.
The worst part about it all? Some of those friends and family members judge you for it. They think it’s weird that you have to live at home, that you don’t make your own money, that you’re sick at all. They’ve stopped calling you, stopped checking on you, stopped talking to you at all.
I’m not speaking about all of my friends, because I do have some good ones too. Friends that have these wonderful things– homes, families, careers, and still include me. Still want me in their lives, and still try to make plans with me now and then.
I want to be in their lives, I want to be a cool aunt or family friend to their children– I love their children. But there are still the ones that don’t do these things, that seem to forget I exist, because that’s easier. Because they’re too busy with their own lives to worry about a single woman who is too sick to work. Since I don’t have kids and I don’t work, I’m not on the same level as them, and therefore, I am less than.
This was hard when I was in my late 20s and early 30s, but the older I get, the harder it becomes, and the more pronounced it feels. I’m not in the same place in my life as they are in theirs, and therefore, I am not worthy in their eyes.
Maybe this is just my anxiety making me feel this way, maybe it’s not the case. But I don’t think I’m making any of this up, I’m pretty astute with things like this.
Writing a separate post about the loss of friends while chronically ill has been on the top of my list of topics to write about since I started this blog, and eventually I will write about it in full. It had to be included in this post as well though, because there’s a lot of overlapping.
You’re Not Alone
This has been a difficult post to write because it brings up a lot of unresolved emotions I have about aging, not being where I want in life, and not having what I’ve always dreamed of.
I know I’m not alone in these feelings, however, because when I’ve mentioned it in the past on my Instagram, others have reached out to me to tell me that they have the same feelings about things. Whether it’s school, a career, financial, your love life, or starting a family, the feelings of being left behind are the same.
There’s nothing we can do about it but make the most out of what we have and the life we were given, so we have to push forward and try our best to make our dreams happen, whatever they are. I’m not giving up on mine, and you shouldn’t give up on yours. If your chronic illnesses get in the way, restructure your dreams and goals in a way that is more feasible given your circumstances– I’ve had to do that more times than I can count. It might not be the most ideal, but it’s better than nothing.
