Dear Christians,

Dear Christians,

Thank you for trying to care and spread love to all of God's creation, even those with chronic illnesses like myself.

But... I have something to say to you.

1. A lack of faith isn't why I suffer.
Why be condescending towards me? Is your faith strong than mine just because you don't have a chronic illness?

2. God doesn't necessarily want me to be "healed." 
Do you know God's will for me? Am I pre-destined to be healthy?

3.  Suffering doesn't make me a bad Christian. 
Living with depression and suffering from disabilities is not the same as living in sin. I don't need to be saved from the burden of physical limitations to reach salvation and find joy in God.

4. Do I need to be healthy to fulfil my life's purpose?

Are only the most physically and mentally qualified people allowed to do God's will, as if we're hired to do a job with prerequisites?

5. I'm still waiting for you to stop telling me what to do, how to feel, how to act, and what to be. I'm praying for you to seek to understand, not to be understood. All you have to do is let Jesus live through you, you don't need to be a dictator on how to have faith. To quote Bono, "Stop helping God across the road like a little old lady."

6. Laying your hand on me and praying for me in public is not always the best way to spread the Gospel. God blesses those who pray in silence when no one is watching. My faith is deeply personal, and I don't need you to put me on display. I respect and understand the need for a faith community, but while I'm on the clock at my job is not the time to prove your faith for me by forcing me into a few minutes of spoken prayer.

7. Faith is not an emotion. Let me say that again. Faith is not an emotion. If the Christian pop song on K-love doesn't melt my heart, make me stop what I'm doing to put my hands up in the air, and feel God's love it doesn't mean I'm lacking faith. I'm not charismatic in my faith. I don't need God to give me emotional highs to know He's present. I'm not falling away from God and into sin when I feel sad, depressed, lonely, or angry. I'm sorry if I don't look like I'm Christian just because this very new evangelical culture (as in it's not as old as the Church or the Bible) doesn't work for me, but I'm not trying to prove anything to you. I only have to prove my faith to God, and I can do that in silence where no one can see while I'm feeling depressed and angry. I don't want to be on display, fake or force emotions, or even feel guilty for not expressing my faith through emotion. I do not feel guilty for not being charismatic. But you might notice my faith through how I treat and care for people.

8. Consider that my suffering is actually a blessing to my soul, and that perhaps it's helping me serve God better. Is there not something to be learned from any experience? Should we not always grow as people? Can I not be formed into a strong faithful person through difficult times?

9. Stop telling me I'm not doing enough. You think I have to make an appointment with some stranger in some office building to have them pray over me for me to be healed? You think I have to fly to another state to meet with some special spiritual healer over 12 days in order to heal? You think my church community isn't good enough if they're letting me suffer? You think receiving the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick is not effective and your special spiritual leader is the only one who can help? Have a little faith in me and my faith community.

10. I see that you're trying to make the world fit your worldview that you think encompasses God's will for all of his creation.Please never stop learning, updating your worldview, and seeking new understanding. Stick to your values and morals - you need them! But allow yourself to empathize with people. Sometimes life isn't as simple as following rules that fit your worldview.

11. Consider that I don't have the energy to have deep conversation about which denomination I am every time you see me.Consider that you might be driving me away from the Christian culture due to how exhausting it is to listen to you tell me how my denomination is wrong, my faith is incomplete, and I need to change my personality to fit how people with faith should be.


Thank you for listening. Have a conversation, in which we take turns listening to each other without giving each other orders, with me when I can handle it. Ask for a time when it won't drain me and make me suffer more. Just stop telling me I'm wrong because I'm sick. I'm too tired to keep being beaten down by your lofty standards for Christians. Stop bragging about your faith being why your life is so good and mine has problems.

Sincerely,

A Concerned Christian


Note:
Each of these points are referring to specific encounters with multiple, various people. Most of them were complete strangers. These are not arbitrary references. I've debated on writing this publicly for over a year now, and it's time that I released the pressure and finally just express myself. I am legitimately concerned about how a couple (out of several) Christian cultures is treating people with Chronic Illness, but I believe all Christians need to hear my letter.

Blood Deficiency (Chinese Medicine)

In Traditional Chinese Medicine there is a concept called "blood deficiency." It doesn't necessarily mean that a person is lacking actual physical blood. If you would like to learn what it is, I suggest this article. In western medicine it often presents as anemia or chronic fatigue, but other wise healthy people can experience it.

I regularly fight blood deficiency. It causes me to fall away into the core of who I am, living there, unable to really connect with the world around me. I become distant, irritable, very guarded, and often incoherent. My thoughts and emotions feel highly intense and heightened due to living in them, but I have no energy to express them. There's no strength with which to pour that emotional experience into art, conversation, or work. So I appear outwardly cold, uncaring, dazed and confused, and perhaps even unloving. The truth is that I love hard and fierce, but if you want me to show it you'll just have to watch for the finer details in how I do spend my energy. If you give me time to be alone, let me recharge, and be very selfishly focused on my own needs then you'll see me come out of my cocoon and wanting to invest in you again. Until I'm once again drained. When people take a little from me every day, I never recharge, and you won't see me turn into that butterfly that is who I really am when I have full strength.

So you must understand that I have to pick and choose who I give my energy to very very carefully. For years I tried to maintain this blog, be active in Facebook support groups, be an attentive wife and friend, and give my best efforts to my job. It wasn't working for me. People kept taking more from me than I had to give. I now have accepted that my body has decided to control who I can give any energy to. Don't misunderstand. If I were well, I would treat every person in my life as equally important. I'm not well.

I have two versions of being trapped in this state. One version is that I can't tolerate outside stimulation. I don't want TV, music, people, or other distractions. I just want to be in silence. In this version I tend to be calm and submissive in my dreams, where I live. I can't step into reality, my dreams are always in my vision. I just let my natural desires and instincts play out in these dreams, and normally I find I'm just giving up and giving in to anything.

The other version is the one I'm in now. I crave music that reflects my emotional state, to the point of playing the same few songs over and over and over. I want to be fed what I want to feel, not made to produce those feelings on my own. I want my food to comfort and warm me. I'll drink hot herbal tea constantly. I want to have deep basal desires met, maybe physical touch, emotional, spiritual... like I'm hurting for not having my cravings filled. I want a very deep conversation with a person online to connect my soul with someone else I fully trust (no small talk or work talk or I will scream), but not in person. It's easier to type than to speak, and I'm not burdened with the need to show facial expression or body language online. Thankfully I have made a couple of online friends who are the same wavelength as me most of the time. I don't need a selfish conversation - often I just want to ask question and listen to them, but this sort of connection is like food to me. I selfishly need it as fuel so I don't go crazy. 

Either way, you may see the trend that I just can't fully exist in reality. It wouldn't matter how good my life is, I wouldn't be able to engage with it. No matter how many times I say this, people don't know how to respond. Some people think they can just force reality on me. Others just act like I didn't ask them to leave me alone. Some try to help me - and I do not want it. Help means work, which drains and only makes me worse. It means I have to respond with gratitude, and that response can drain me. Think of me like a cocoon. I'll come out and engage with you when I'm ready. 

No matter the version I feel, my physical symptoms are often the same. Poor digestion, bloating, blurred strained vision, light sensitivity, worsened POTS, low blood pressure, painfully freezing purple toes, joint stiffness and aches, aching heart from being over worked, muscle tension and pain, swollen tongue and tight throat, feeling 100 pounds heavier than I am, pale lackluster skin with huge bags under my eyes... and this time, I've been bleeding very heavy for a week during the middle of my cycle. All that bleeding prevents me from healing and improving.

The acupuncture bed is my favorite place to be each week. Acupuncture is a fine art, the practitioner and skill level really does matter. I start with having cupping done, and the warmth it brings to my back is one of the best feelings in the world. It helps my muscle tension, but it also helps me take a deep satisfying breath. I often cough from the raw feeling of breathing air into the bottom of my lungs after cupping. Then come the needles. Sometimes my body fights the effect and my heart rate sky rockets - my qi moves quickly and can feel like anxiety flowing through me for a while until I finally deeply relax. Other times the needles kill all the anxiety in me, allowing me to fall deep into soul and stop feeling my body at all. I have the best imagination and dreams in this state. 30 minutes of deep pure relaxation and comfort that can't be replicated by any drug. I've had out-of-body experiences, and that feeling is more therapeutic than anything else in the world.

It's hard for me to write this. The person I am when I'm well and healthy would be embarrassed by this. I'm careful about how I present myself so that I can get along with everyone. I like to know who people are, and I like to show how much I care. When I'm healthy I guard any dark, anti-social, depressed feelings I have from others so I can just show them love and care. I'm a highly empathic person, but I've turned that empathy on myself and away from others. I'm studying myself like I'm another person desperately trying to connect with this person I see in me.

The best thing you can do is let me guard my energy. Don't take it personally. Taking it personally will tug at my empathetic nature and drain me. It's not about you. It's about me being hardly alive. I'm a flicker of myself. Don't put that light out.