Twists and Turns

When I started this blog, I believe I was around the age of fifteen. I started this blog so that I could have an outlet. Writing helped me. I wrote things off. Got stuff out of my mind, onto a webpage and that helped, somehow. I deleted most of my old posts because they were the ramblings of a teenager. I re-read them and got annoyed with the style of writing. I got annoyed with myself. I eventually became an LDR blog. Where I wrote about my Long Distance Relationship with my (now) ex boyfriend from Taiwan. Now I don’t know what I am on here, but it has been a while since I wrote. I want to write things off right now. I need my outlet again.

Tai Yu and I are talking again. We have been for a while but not as a couple. For a very long time it was hard for me to message him back and talk to him, even when he was just being friendly with me and updating me on his life. Eventually, when he messaged me again, I finally felt like I was able to look at him as ‘just a friend’, instead of ‘my ex boyfriend’. We began messaging each other again, as friends, every couple of weeks or so. It’s not like we message one another every single week or even every single day. There’s quite some time between our replies to one another. The thing is though: we talk again. I can look at him as a friend again and that is fine. There’s no animosity between us, at all. There never really was. I just needed my time to give everything a place, and this took a very long time for me.

I got a new job as a callcenter agent for a telecom company, and then COVID hit literally 2 months after I started the new job. I had to start working from home and even though it was something very different from being a manager at a drug store- it worked out for me. COVID-19 has blown up all around the world, everyone is affected by it. The lockdowns, the deaths, the infection rate, people losing their jobs, losing family and friends to this virus- the list goes on. I was lucky enough to be able to work from home. Until I was not. COVID didn’t hit me, it still hasn’t, because I am extremely cautious. Since I do have asthma, I am a risk group and I am more prone to become infected. What happened to me, instead, was health issues that are not part of the virus.

I’ve always had issues with my stomach/bowels and my (h)EDS. However I never really noticed the issues, probably because I stayed so busy with my old job- where I constantly moved around. I was constantly walking/lifting- really moving. When I had the callcenter job, I was sitting all day long behind a computer screen. The issues with my bowels became worse, and not just with me, my mother started having the same issues around the same time. There’s a history of women in my family having IBS. My grandmother had it, my mother got diagnosed with it, and now I too, have been officially diagnosed with IBS. On top of having the issues with my (h)EDS getting worse from getting a lack of ‘exercise’. My knees/shoulders/ankles are constantly hurting/swelling. There are days when I wake up being in absolute pain from my IBS and then also feeling my shoulder ‘rolling’ when I’m literally doing nothing. I can feel it cracking and it’s constantly ready to pop out. Same goes for my kneecaps and ankles. I had to call in sick for a couple of weeks, trying to deal with everything, until the company I worked for ‘handed me over’ to a company doctor. I got so many tests done on me, guys. So much blood taken, so many stool samples, so many urine tests. In September of last year alone I had 17 tests done. 17 tests in one month.

I ended up becoming depressed. I was sleeping all day long, I didn’t eat because everything I eat seems to trigger my IBS. I tried the FODMAP diet, which is supposed to help with your IBS. You’re only allowed to eat a certain amount of things, and trust me when I say that it was a huge adjustment. However, the FODMAP diet does not work for everyone with IBS and for my mother and me, it did not at all. One day we would eat pasta and be fine, the next week we’d eat the same dish and we’d both be running to the toilet the entire time, whilst dealing with the worst pains possible. I was not allowed to go anywhere because of COVID, everything is closed anyways, my country instated a curfew too- there was nothing I could do. There’s no medication for IBS in my country, not like there is in the US because that medicine is considered ‘illegal’ to use here. So there’s literally nothing I could do to help battle the pain and problems I got due to my IBS. Sleeping all day long and still feeling tired. Not eating and not being hungry, being in pain all day long, on the toilet all day long, feeling nauseous all day long. I began crying and feeling emotional the entire time. I was not in a good place. I am still dealing with it today, with both my (h)EDS and IBS and there’s still nothing I can do against it. I’m talking to people who need to ‘assess’ my “”illness””. My job terminated my contract because I couldn’t work and I can’t find a new job due to COVID but also because there is not a day where I can do something without being in pain or having to run to the toilet at random. My depression is not as bad as it was a couple of months ago, but it’s definitely ‘easier’ for me to fall back into that ‘darkness’ of feeling worthless. Knowing that you can’t do anything and you don’t know what the future holds. I am scared every single day, I am stressed all the time, which doesn’t help with my IBS. Stress seems to trigger even worse ‘episodes’.

Right now I just kind of feel like I live in limbo.

There are brighter sides, of course, and currently I cling to any bit of positivity that happens in my life. My parents are healthy, they don’t have COVID, neither do I. I have friends who are amazing and stand by me. Who talk to me when I need a listening ear. I am not alone.

I re-read my old posts before deciding to write here. Life is just full of twists and turns. One day things go swimmingly, the next your whole life is turned upside down. I hope that if you’re reading this, that you’re being safe with the virus going around. I hope that everything is going well for you and your family/friends/loved one’s. I hope there’s a light at the end of your tunnel. Everyone just be safe and take care of yourself.

xoxo