Why me?

One of the phases that I went through at the beginning of my health problems (and admittedly still go through occasionally),  was the "why me" phase. This was not one of my most shining moments. My poor husband listened to my whining and crying for a long time. I felt like I was being picked on. As my friends were having babies, creating successful careers, and running marathons while nine months pregnant (seriously, so annoying) I was so sick I could barely get out of bed. My husband asked me why I was jealous of people having babies, did I want one? The answer was NO, but I wanted the option to have one. I also wanted the option to run a marathon while pregnant and then run another marathon one month after the baby was born.  I wanted the option to travel the world, to get my Phd, to have an awesome career, and those options had been taken away from me.  I was resentful that while everyone I knew was accomplishing something, I was a 27 year old with a body of an 80 year old.

Why me? For months I wallowed in my own self pity. There is nothing wrong with wallowing when things are at the worst, especially when your life takes a dramatic turn like mine did. However, eventually it helps to realize that bad things just happen in life, even if you're a good person. Sure there are people out there whose lives are just perfect and everything goes as planned and they accomplish all these great and wonderful things, but more often than not those people are the exception. As I talked with more people and got to know the struggles of many others I realized that sometimes I was on the other side of the "why me" question.

Why me? It took only two years for me to receive a diagnosis, for many it took decades.

Why me? I wasn't completely incapacitated by my illness and was never housebound.

Why me? I was able to find a doctor who took my insurance while many people don't even have the luxury of insurance.

Why me? I had a good support network of family and friends who for the most part believed and supported me.

I realized that there were some good things that were happening to me, even if they were smaller than I would like. Still it took me a while to give up on asking the "why me?" question and accept the positive things. I kept thinking just because other people's lives suck, why did mine have to? Why couldn't I be one of those people who get to lived charmed lives? Honestly, I think there is no good logical answer to that, because as my Dad always said, "life isn't fair" and "fair is where you go to see the pigs."  Sometimes bad things happen and sometimes we don't get lucky. but when things get rough maybe we need to focus more on the times that things do go our way. Even if it's a different way then we would prefer.