When Your Body Doesn't Love You Back

Sigh.

I know I'm not the first person to feel really betrayed by my body, but damn if it isn't frustrating!

So here's the thing--I haven't felt 100% for a really, really long time. I have felt generally crappy and lethargic, but nothing so much that I felt I should seek medical advice. That is, until a case of vertigo set in. Or at least, I think it's vertigo. Basically, for well over a week now, no matter what I am doing, or how my body is positioned, I feel like I'm moving. Sometimes I feel like I'm slowly moving toward the ground, sometimes I feel like my head and body are just slightly stirring when they're not.

It's affecting my life, pretty much all around, but not to a degree that I'm bed ridden or anything. On the inside, I feel like I am clumsily stumbling around, when in reality, I'm totally in control of my body. So as I'm walking my head will spin and I get nauseous very easily. I feel like I'm in a perpetual foggy headed state (even though I'm not really!) which makes me short tempered and irritable. It's extremely hard for me to concentrate on almost anything. In fact, because it affects how I view the world, most moments, it's all I can think about. Staring at a screen my eyes feel like they're moving, so of course I've been reading and writing less. In my day job, tasks that usually wouldn't feel too monumental get me overwhelmed because the fake-foggy-headedness undermines my confidence. Workouts are a big struggle because it gets much worse when I'm moving all around. I can sleep comfortably, but that's the only normal thing in my routine.

The best words that I can use to describe it is that I feel like I've had 2 beers on an empty stomach. You know that feeling? When you're not really drunk per se, but you're tipsy and trying to act normal? I've felt like that for almost every moment of the past 8 days.

Luckily, I'm going to the doctor tomorrow and I will hopefully have some kind of idea about what they heck is going on with me. Because all I know is that this can't continue. I came into a pretty tough day today at work and pushing through it with this going on was almost the undoing of me.

But it's got me thinking, in great detail, about what it means to feel betrayed by your body. I've always been fairly healthy. I mean, the worst things I've encountered have been a severe ankle sprain a few years ago and walking pneumonia when I was 13. Other than that, I've been privileged enough to take my health for granted.

It's no secret that I spend a lot of time strategically trying to love my body. And it's a hard task which takes attention, because the world is constantly telling me (and all women) that I'm not good enough. But I've never fully considered how much harder it can be when you're also frustrated at your body because of what it can't do or because of how it is currently behaving.

I know that my situation is most likely temporary and vertigo isn't the worst thing that a person can face on a daily basis--but damn if it doesn't remind me to be thankful for what I have.

So body, you're not my best friend right now, but I'm going to keep on loving you. Even though I'm drowning in anger at my damn inner ears.