People like to feel comfortable. From a young age we are conditioned (either consciously or not) into associating certain tactile sensations with and equating them to comfort. Soft, fuzzy blankets or clothing is one example. Environmental warmth is another. Whether we are creating that through a heat source in a room or through a blanket (double bonus points if it is soft and fuzzy, right?), we just equate that with safety…. Security.
I’ve spoken before about how some of what I experience expresses itself. For instance, Probably my most pronounced and observable symptom is ambulatory. That is to say, in general, I don’t walk as smoothly as I used to (although moving gracefully was never my strongest suit. I think the term clod-hopper was invented for me). Between just generalized leg movement and my left-sided drop foot, in my reality moving from this place to another place can be less comfortable maybe than it used to be. There is so much room before it becomes an insurmountable challenge, so please don’t take that acknowledgement as a complaint. It’s more of a minor irritant.
These two ideas, and the overarching point today, are related. My gait challenges get worse as my core body temperature rises. People also have an aversion to “worse” especially if it can be avoided or controlled by their own personal behavior. Do you know what raises your core body temperature? Warm, fuzzy blankets. And so, effectively, most of the time, I am presented with a decision: which is the greater of two evils? Warming my body and paying the price that it will inevitably have or dealing with the lack of comfort that the activity would have provided.
And so it is when you are chronically ill. Not only are you having to make choices based on what your energy levels will allow for in a day (or how miserable you are willing to feel relative to what *has* to be done), but you are always faced with these basic-level mental health decisions that have (to use a rugby expression because the Seattle Seawolves play tonight) a knock-on effect on… well… literally everything else. A lot of times, you can find some replacement in your daily life. Locations (home!), controlling your schedule, involving friends and family in your daily experience. All of these things provide important things to you with regards to base-level body chemistry and feelings of comfort and security. Cruelly, for someone such as myself, the limiting of the things that you can control exacerbates the things that maybe you can’t… so if you lose things… daily things… if you need to be away from home or from Your People or your animals or outside of your comfort zone and You choose not to compensate with or just plain don’t have an acceptable blanket… well that’s just plain less than ideal. So if you happen to know someone who is chronically ill and maybe they just seem a little “off”, spare a moment to think about what you know to be happening in their life. And maybe invent a soft, comfy blanket that wicks heat away from the body. That would probably be good too.
Disclaimer: I was going on all guns blazing for a while and then just flat lost focus. I think all of the ideas are there, even if they aren’t presented as eloquently as maybe I would have preferred.
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