Why Blog About It?- Attention Seeking
I’ve been asking myself lately, why I feel the need to blog about this.
Like… Is this really something I need attention for? And I know me, and I know that’s not it, so I persisted, but the question persisted as well.
Reasons
My reasons for blogging my medical journey are three fold (probably many more than that, but for the sake of this post it’s three fold).
Writing enables me to process my experiences. When I write I analyze, I put puzzle pieces together, I complete ideas and lay them to rest, I discover questions and directions I hadn’t seen before. When I write my errant thoughts gain purpose, and I find pieces of peace.
Second, this blog is a record of my journey, my symptoms, my experiences. It’s a timeline of a course of illness from before a diagnosis. If I need to find out when I started talking about electrical storms, it’s now searchable. Gems like lightheadedness or incontinence become trackable. I can look back on when my eyesight started going out when taking stairs, or when the stairs started dancing in my vision. I can track when I’ve missed work because of this. It’s a medical record that reads well.
Lastly, representation matters. Visibility matters. If I hadn’t had a friend, being honest, open, and public about her diagnoses and experiences I would not have a clue WHY I’m feeling so awful or how to have any of the conversations I’ve needed to about it. I’m actually shocked at how many friends I have with similar symptoms and similar diagnoses. If we all suffer in silence, we all suffer.
So, that’s why I’m blogging about it.
Leave a Reply