{"id":1178,"date":"2009-09-01T08:10:36","date_gmt":"2009-09-01T15:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.coolkarma.com\/dharma\/?p=1178"},"modified":"2009-08-31T20:34:36","modified_gmt":"2009-09-01T03:34:36","slug":"when-internal-experience-does-not-match-external-appearance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/?p=1178","title":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\">When Internal Experience Does Not Match External Appearance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Prompted by a flurry of heartfelt Facebook notes from my POTS peeps regarding <a href=\"http:\/\/invisibleillnessweek.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Invisible Illness Week<\/a>, I had an opportunity to look deeply into the eyes that look back at me within the mirror and acknowledge my own deep longings or dark thoughts about having an internal experience that does not match my external appearance.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1179\" title=\"how-we-feel-on-the-inside\" src=\"http:\/\/www.coolkarma.com\/dharma\/wp-content\/uploads\/how-we-feel-on-the-inside.gif\" alt=\"how-we-feel-on-the-inside\" width=\"335\" height=\"263\" \/>Whereas many of my friends dislike the puzzled inquiry of others, <em>\u201cBut you look so good, how can you be sick?\u201d<\/em> I must admit, if someone says that to me, in my <em>no make-up middle-aged gravity-baggy body<\/em>, I enjoy the complement.\u00a0 I have no problem explaining the bifurcation between what you see and what you get.<\/p>\n<p>Back in my college days, a mentor said to me, \u201cNancy, I don\u2019t understand how you can be so bright, yet not be able to spell at all?\u201d\u00a0 With conviction I replied \u201cIt is because spelling doesn\u2019t have anything to do with intelligence.\u201d\u00a0 And in much the same way that dyslexia does not correlate with our IQ, our appearance does not always reflect the state of our well being.<\/p>\n<p>I sometimes tease with my friend who also has momentary lapses of her own divine nature and we chuckle that we must have gotten into the wrong line for this incarnation on earth.\u00a0 As apparently in my case the queues for <strong>Looking Good<\/strong> or <strong>Good Health<\/strong> were <em>mutually exclusive<\/em> and my spirit body picked the wrong option.\u00a0 Actually for me it was a package deal that included Good Humor, Great Sex and Gifted Kids &#8230; so I can\u2019t beat my higher self up too much for not reading the fine print in the <em>Invisible Illness Clause<\/em> that I would have concurrent enrollment in during this lifetime.<\/p>\n<p>My appearance of well being when the sunlight glows on my gray hair, is not the only conundrum of inconsistency in this cloak of chronic illness.\u00a0 My high-tech as well as artistic skills enables me to produce an eye catching web content when by chance I am having a hour or so of unimpeded workability.\u00a0 However, being able to blog when the planets align themselves ever so briefly is galaxies apart from being able to turn out a project within any given time line.\u00a0 There are simply so many things that I am good at, and that I would like to do for people from retro-vision boards to board room presentations, or trouble-shooting a computer program for a non-profit organization.\u00a0 However as it is, I simply don\u2019t have the energy or the consistency of a body that will permit me to perform these tasks within a project timeline.<\/p>\n<p>Even people who know me can sometimes misunderstand the nature of the beast.\u00a0 When they ask if they can come by for tea next week and expect that I\u2019ll know in advance how I will be feeling as opposed to not even knowing a half hour before what will happen when the clock strikes tea.\u00a0 Well meaning, kind people, have even suggested that I \u201crest up\u201d the day before so that I can be \u201cwell\u201d for a special engagement.\u00a0 How wonderful it would be, if indeed we could store up our health in tiny bits that we tuck away, much like a health care cost savings plan that we draw upon when we need a co-pay.\u00a0 However, for me there seems to be no government bailout coming to save my chronic health crisis.<\/p>\n<p>What there is \u2026 is this moment, when I can make a little animated gif that makes me chuckle and share a few scattered thoughts about what it is to live with an invisible life limiting illness and give thanks to all of those I have met along this path who are amazing, inspirational and generous.\u00a0 I am quite certain, I did in fact, get in the right line after all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prompted by a flurry of heartfelt Facebook notes from my POTS peeps regarding Invisible Illness<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dharma","category-i-cant-see"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1178"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1194,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178\/revisions\/1194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}