The girl in the glass box

I watched this movie tonight called Wonder. Real tear jerker. It's about a boy born with a genetic disorder that causes him to have deformities of his face. At the beginning of the movie he describes that he acts like an ordinary 10 year old, he thinks like an ordinary 10 year old but doesn't look like it. 

I relate to this boy, but in reverse. I am sick. It's not something I'm happy to say but for all my adult life and maybe before that I have had some sort of invisible illness: depression, anxiety, fibromyalgia, endometriosis. Now I'm not as sick as many others with the same conditions as me. I don't look sick at all. I have a full time job and have never had to stop working for extended periods. I guess you have to take in to account that , as I am a health care professional, I mostly know how to manage my illnesses. 

So it's like I live life in a glass box. I see the world around me, I participate in the world around me, but I just can't fully relate to the world around me. Or more so, I don't think they can relate to me. There are places I want people to feel , to understand, but the glass always seperates me. 

My strategy for a few years now has been to live as if I wasn't stuck in this glass box. Well, trying to do that has cost me. I'm afraid it has all come crumbling down. I've accumulated debt from trying alternative health care and my health seems to deteriorate none the less. Worst of all is I feel myself giving up. I have no emotional, spiritual, mental and physical energy to fight. And guess what; I'm still in this damn box. 

So now here I am. Once again trying to redefine my life. Realising that something isn't working. All the while even the people I love the most just can't relate to me. I see it when I have conversations, it's this look in their eye. As if they are searching and all I wanted was someone to really listen with their hearts and switch off the reasoning for once. Or I see the pity in their eyes which makes me instinctively draw away. I've become so self-sufficient I don't think anyone thinks I need practical help like making me dinner or driving me around; I never ask for those things. I've become so good at pre-empting other people's reactions to me that I have the right responses to try and ease their guilt. 

It's very draining keeping up relationships from the confounds of this box. For both parties. Even writing this will come with a guilt storm. 

At the end of this movie Wonder, I cried when he said that we all deserve a standing ovation... It hurt. I guess sometimes in this box I just want to be seen, to be heard to be held

 And yeah maybe even applauded for living life the best I can as the girl in the glass box