Tag: disability

This Year I Hope to Write Honestly My Disabilities and My Passions

On By corrinnebrumbyIn chronic illness, chronic pain, Ehlers' Danlos, fibromyalgia, Nature Writing, Thoughts About Life and Love, Writing Through the FogLeave a comment

My chronic pain is very much a part of me. It is me, it does define me, but it’s far from all of me. I often hear attempts at inspiration try to say things like don’t let your illness define you. But living in denial won’t help me either. I think, like many things, it’s a balancing act. So, I want to try that this year, writing and living honestly with my disabilities along with my passions like nature. Because it’s all part of me. 

I have hesitated to write because so much has changed since I began my writing journey. I am so much more disabled now. I find it hard to fight through brain fog and make sense of my thoughts. I have also found it hard to connect with nature since I often can’t hike or be outside for extended periods anymore. I have to relearn how I approach writing and nature. 

Writing this, my joints hurt. I’m wearing wrist braces (which makes it very difficult to type) because my wrists are hurting after spending some time at the arcade. I think I did overdo it after all, just when my physical therapist told me to, “have fun! But don’t overdo it.” That’s always a fine, faint line that is so difficult to gauge until I accidentally cross it and realize it too late that yeah, I overdid it… again… 

I want to give a snapshot of what life is like for someone with disabilities and chronic pain. These things are so often sugar-coated. Or we are reduced to medical research, diagnoses, and doctor appointments. However, there’s a much more human experience to chronic pain and disability, that whether disabled or not, we all should learn to acknowledge. 

In other words, I want to tell our story, to make it more than data, and show what it’s really like to live it, the good the bad, the painful, and the frustrating. Also, let’s make this an open space. If you want to tell your story of living with disabilities, you can comment or email me. I’d love to chat and hear your story too and share it if you wish. 

A week and a half of migraines…

On By corrinnebrumbyIn chronic illness, fibromyalgia, mental health, Writing Through the FogLeave a comment

I’m going on a week and a half of migraines… I’m exhausted. My head is spinning, I can’t think straight, I’m wearing my sunglasses inside and my noise canceling headphones to try to lessen the sensory impact on my sensitive nervous system. One of the worst things–how difficult it is to write. I want to write so bad. I miss it. I love it, and I feel as if this passion is being taken from me along with everything else, unless I can reshape it and rework it to work with my body and mind and my many new limitations, which have become a maze to navigate. As if writing alone wasn’t hard enough, now to try to get these two to work together. I’ll see what I can do.

This is one thing I’ve learned with disability and chronic illness, you have to get creative with how you do everything, even things you were familiar with, you have to invent new ways to do them that work with your body and mind and become your own inventor for all your accommodations.

I’m having to do that now and it’s a challenge. I don’t know how I’ll do that with my writing or where to start but here’s to trying because I’m not quite ready to give this dream up.

Writing Through the Fog

On By corrinnebrumbyIn chronic illness, fibromyalgia, mental health, Neurodivergent, Writing Through the Fog1 Comment

I want to write more but the mental fog, the burnout. It hurts knowing how much I love to write, how much writing means to me, and being too exhausted, in pain, and foggy to focus on it much at all. 

I know what my writing could be and maybe that’s part of what holds me back from writing the little bit I can. I fear my words and thoughts will come out jumbled. The thoughts get stuck and sometimes lost altogether before making it to the page. 

But I’ll try writing even though it may be jumbled, messy, and incoherent at times; at least I’m writing and that’s something. I’ll write in short jumbled snippets if I have to. So here it goes. You can follow along if you wish my writing may be messy but it’s me, doing what I can.