It absolutely sucks when you think you’re having a good day and then out of nowhere you start to cry. Since becoming ill, that happens to me more often than I like to admit. Yesterday was one of those days. I was happily moving through my day when the tears started coming. I’m not sure what triggered them, but if I had to guess, I would say it was my pain. When I woke up yesterday I was feeling what I consider good from a pain perspective, but as the day continued, my pain got worse. Usually that wouldn’t make me cry, but yesterday it felt like there was no one I could tell about my feelings. That caused me to feel overwhelming sadness.

Even though my friends and family are always checking in with me to see how I’m doing, I don’t always feel I can tell them about the extent of my moods – or my pain. I tend to save most of the low feelings and troubling thoughts for my therapist, because I sometimes think that it’s easier not to have everyone worried about me all the time. As much as I appreciate it, I don’t find it comforting to have people constantly concerned about me. I don’t like answering the same questions repeatedly and feeling the need to reassure everyone that I’m doing just fine, especially when I’m not. The moment I tell someone about a bad day, whether my pain or my mood is the cause, they go into “what can I do to make it better” mode; when there is nothing they can do to make it better.

A prime example is me bursting into tears and not being able to explain why. If I told anyone about that, the worry would be immediate and I would feel bad about being the reason for that worry. The interesting thing is I know that if things were reversed, I would try to do whatever I could to make things better for someone I cared for.

Thankfully, I was able to express what I was feeling in poetry because of a timely silent share post, from my friend Bert, that I read yesterday morning.