My Second Post…

“Do I want to get a shower,” my husband asked me just now. I want to. Really, I do. It has been two days since my last shower, but I just don’t have the energy to deal with all it entails. All the pain that will happen while doing it. All the needle-like drops of water hitting my skin. Over and over. And over.

Two days is hardly the longest I have gone between showers. Try 5 to 7 days in between showers. Let alone washing my hair. That is even more painful. Putting my arms above my head for extended periods of time is torture. Absolute painful torture. But I do it when I can. When I have to. When my hair and body are so dirty and smelly I have no choice, if I want to live in the real world. Especially at work.

I have a relatively easy job, but I do work with the public. I no longer just work from home like I did for a while. That was its own torture. My bosses were crazy and they literally drove me to a nervous breakdown. That’s when they finally realized I was bipolar, not just unipolar depressed. So now I do my little part-time tech job as a public servant.

Part-time is about all I can handle at this point. I’d like to do more hours, but the fibro and bipolar kind of prevent it. And I’d like to make more an hour, but I am afraid to ask for a raise, as I need to take so much time off of work, as it is. I can’t remember the last time I worked a full 20 hour week at work.

So now I devalue myself. I question whether or not I can do my job competently. I question my worthiness at work, all the while knowing that I truly am worth it. When I can be.

And I question whether or not I stink because I can’t remember the last time I got a shower and washed my hair.

Such is life with Fibromyalgia and Bipolar I Disorder.