I’ve heard & used the phrase ‘fake it till you make it’ many, many times throughout my adult life. I have practiced & perfected the faking part.

If I’m asked how I’m doing, my current go to is “I’m upright and breathing”. “I’m fine” is so subjective now. I can’t define fine anymore. Does fine mean there’s nothing wrong? No pain? No abnormal feelings? No worries? If so – I am never fine.

I censor the issues I perceive as being a problem. It takes a lot for me to tell anyone, even those closest to me, what is actually going on. The majority of my random, unexplained aches & pains stay in my head. I don’t tell many about most of the things I experience. Sometimes it’s because I can’t explain it clearly. Often it’s to avoid being a burden or whiner. Then there are those things I try to ignore because I don’t feel like dealing with them, or don’t want to figure out which provider to contact, or just don’t want to know.

I grew up in the ‘just walk it off’ / ‘you’ll be fine’ / ‘rub some dirt on it’ / ‘just ignore it, it’ll go away’ era. That is still the mentality I tend have but it’s harder to ignore things now. Any literal gut feeling of abnormality brings on what I would term PTSD from the pre-diagnosis period. I lived with the incorrect diagnosis of IBS for 5 years and dealt with horrible GI pain intermittently. The 2 bowel blockages after surgery had the same intolerable pain. Any time I have any pain in my GI area I panic – but I also don’t tell anyone because of how often these come and go. Heart palpitations – tingling in my hands – shoulder pain – nerve issue in a foot – all come, all go – I don’t mention most of them as often as I feel them.

I’m good at the faking it part – how do I know when I make it?