Learning Not to Drown

Trigger warning: mentions of toxic relationships, abuse, cancer, and dying.

Drowning. That’s what my existence with chronic illness feels like.

You know those scenes where a character moves in slow motion beneath the surface of a vast body of water? Their arms reach upward, fingers splayed, scratching for the light above them. The surface is right there- close enough to see, close enough to taste- but not close enough to break through. They’re so close, yet so far from catching a breath that might allow them to hold on just a little longer.

That’s what fighting flares feels like. That’s what endless doctor appointments, medication changes, and unanswered questions feel like. Living in a body that betrays you without warning feels like being trapped just beneath the surface, lungs burning, knowing relief exists but unable to reach it.

Fibromyalgia is the price I pay for living, yet I didn’t sign up for this currency exchange. I didn’t agree to trade predictability for pain, or energy for exhaustion. Thalassaphobia, the fear of deep water, has nothing on this. Being afraid of what might be lurking beneath the waves is one thing. Being afraid of your own body and mind is a different hell entirely.

There are good days. There are even great days. And then there are days when my hair follicles hurt because my ovarian follicles dared to release an egg. Days when my body reacts as if it’s under attack for performing a function it was designed to do. I spend so much time searching for answers, receiving none, throwing myself a brief and private pity party, and then pulling myself back together to exist in this body as best as I can.

Because it’s not just about me.

Yes, these conditions live in my body. The pain belongs to me. But the consequences ripple outward. I have my family. I have my husband. I have my three children- especially my children- who are the reason I keep breathing through the pain and fighting to make something livable out of the hell I was handed.

Pain management. Medications. Injections. Talk therapy. Psychiatry. Rinse and repeat.

The doctors I have now are good. My therapist is wonderful. My husband and my older children are deeply understanding, seeing me not as broken but as human. Even on the days when I feel like I am failing, they remind me that I am still here. There’s a saying in Avatar, “I see you,” and that’s how my family loves me. They see me. They don’t look away. They don’t fault me for the daily hell I live through.

To be loved is to be seen.

I may never live a pain-free life, but I refuse to stop searching for answers. I remind myself that I am setting an example, even when it doesn’t feel like it. Especially when it doesn’t feel like it. Giving up is not an option for me, even on the days when floating feels easier than swimming.

My mother gave up.

She died at fifty-one after battling metastatic lung cancer. She chose not to seek treatment, and now, in my mid-thirties, I understand her choice in a way I couldn’t back then. I understand the exhaustion. The way pain erodes hope, grain by grain. The way drowning eventually makes stillness feel like mercy.

She lived with chronic pain, too. She was trapped in a toxic, abusive marriage. She was excommunicated from two of her children, myself included, because of that marriage. And yet, when it mattered most, I was there.

In her final days, I couldn’t come up for air.

I was stuck in a terrible relationship of my own. I had just been diagnosed with fibromyalgia and epilepsy. I had no support from my partner at the time; no help, no comfort, no understanding. My mother was dying, and I was traveling more than three hours on the subway to see her, each ride stretching endlessly in front of me. My ex had a car. He could have taken me. He could have paid for a cab. Instead, I carried myself through the city, exhausted and hollowed out, gripping a subway pole while the world rushed past me. “You have a family to take care of here, too.” He actually had the audacity to say that to me, knowing that my mother was dying, and it wasn’t only my job to care for the home, but in his eyes, everything was my fault and my job to do.

I was caught in an angry sea, in the middle of a hurricane. I thrashed and kicked, desperate for something- anything- to keep me afloat. I searched for a life jacket. I begged for an oxygen tank. What I was given instead were weights. Every obligation, every dismissal, every act of neglect dragged me further under. No support, and not even being allowed to grieve.

I remember one night standing in my mother’s hospital room, the machines humming softly, the lights too bright. My body ached in places I didn’t yet have names for. My chest felt tight, like I’d been holding my breath for hours. I pressed my palm against the cool window and stared out at the city below, wondering how something so alive could keep moving while everything in me felt like it was sinking.

That was drowning.

These days, I still drown sometimes. There are days when I wouldn’t wish my conditions, plural, because fibromyalgia is only one piece of a much larger puzzle, on my worst enemy. There are mornings when my body feels heavy and uncooperative, when even breathing requires effort. There are moments when I hover just beneath the surface, lungs burning, vision blurred.

But there are other days too.

Days when I have a life jacket. Days when someone hands me an oxygen tank. Days when a steady hand reaches down and helps pull me closer to the surface. Even if the storm hasn’t passed. Even if the rain is still relentless.

Almost is never enough.

And yet, almost is enough to keep me alive. Enough to keep me present. Enough to love my family fiercely and let them love me back. Enough to stop drowning, even if I never quite reach dry land. I tell my aunt that she needs to find her reason. A reason to keep going. To keep fighting the hellhole that is chronic pain. My reason is my children. I keep going, keep fighting, keep pushing forward. I stay in school so they can see that it absolutely is possible to reach for dreams that may seem unattainable. I show them that there is always hope, even if it feels like there is none.

Almost is never enough. But it is good enough.

Good enough for my family.

Good enough for this life.

And, finally, good enough for me.