Overcoming Obstacles

This past Sunday at church we read Matthew 28:16-20 and tonight in my Community Group we talked about overcoming obstacles in our lives. We each shared about a time in our life when we were faced with an obstacle or obstacles to overcome.

Besides the two times in my life when I struggled to stay alive in a hospital room, for me the biggest obstacles I overcame happened during my high school years. I surprised myself tonight (pleasantly) by opening up during Community Group and sharing with the people there what life was like for me during high school.

I developed Crohn's Disease when I was 14. I was diagnosed when I was 16. And my family finally believed me when I was 22.

I spent much of my high school years sick. Really, really sick. And no one cared. I was completely alone, weak, embarrassed and in a lot of pain. And scared. So scared. My father was unaware completely of my illness and my mother did not believe me. She accused me of faking it to get out of going to school.

Looking back that really frustrates me now as I didn't deserve her doubt. I never tried to get out of school. I was a good kid! I really good kid! I never gave her any trouble. I always kept down one, if not two or three jobs at a time and kept my grades very high. I was never out late at night (unless I was babysitting), didn't drink, didn't do drugs and didn't even have my first kiss until the summer after I graduated high school. I didn't deserve the doubt.

I didn't complain. I didn't whine. I didn't cry. Why? What good would it do? So I silently went on day after day and since my disease wasn't visable in that I didn't have a rash all over my body or a giant tumor sticking out somewhere, it was easy to let people think I was fine. I was so completely mortified after being accused of faking it that I set it in my mind that it was my problem to bear and to bear alone. There is no cure for Crohn's and back then there was very little in the way of treatment also.

And I was so embarrassed and ashamed. High school girls are not supposed to have constant and severe diarrhea for four years straight. And pain so awful it would double me over at times. And the vomiting. I was also accused by the school administration of being pregnant because of my frequent trips to the girls' room to vomit. Ha! I'd never even kissed a boy at that time. "No, Principal So-and-So, I'm not pregnant."

There are some memories that apparently hurt me so bad emotionally that I had blocked them out until about 3 years ago. I remember now very clearly that there were several times when I would come home to an empty house as my mother would be out with her boyfriend and was unreachable (yes, there was a time when there were no cell phones). I would be so weak and in so much pain by the time I came home that I would literally just collapse on the living room floor and lay there in the dark for several hours, unable to gather the strength to move into my bedroom. A few times I remember waking up in such a position and hearing the garage door opening indicating my mother was returning. I would quickly find the strength to get up and go down to my room and shut the door before she came in from the garage, knowing if she found me on the floor I would get an earful about being "so dramatic."

I told my husband about this memory a few years ago and he commented that he now understands a little better why I am so fiercely independent now. Gee, I think I do too!

So even though I feel some frustration about those years and feel I was treated unjustly, I also feel some pride as even though I went through all of that, I still graduated with very high grades and a member of the National Honor Society. Oh, and I was also awarded a full-ride academic scholarship to a very good private college.

I have a client now who has a teenage daughter who has Crohn's. I see the love, care and understanding in her eyes when she talks about her daughter. And there is absolutely no doubt in her mind that her daughter is sick and she would never accuse her of faking it. Although I feel some jealously towards the daughter for getting the parental care that I didn't get, I'm also really happy for her that she will not have to go down her path towards understanding and accepting her disease alone as I did.

You probably think after reading all this that I must be very angry with my mother. I'm not. Not anymore. She was pretty screwed up emotionally herself during those years and no one ever handed her a book on How to Parent and especially she didn't have one on How to Parent a Child with a Chronic Illness. I know she loved me. I have absolutely no doubt about that. I also believe she did the best she could at the time.

I don't think being angry about the past does any good. It was what it was and the past cannot be changed. I would love to talk to her about those years and hear from her perspective what was going on with her. Did she truly not believe me or was she so scared about the diagnosis it was easier to live in denial about it? But those questions will remain unanswered as five years ago my mother made the choice to no longer be a part of my life.

~kate