When you can't help yourself anymore. Literally.

I'm (usually) all for help. Not this time.

Welcome to Imperfect Working Order—where we survive capitalism while sick and do it as fancily as possible, running microbusinesses, smooching hotties (well, one hottie, currently), and rolling with MEeps and regular peeps alike.

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Do you want to be hugged, heard, or helped?

Apparently, this is the question schoolteachers now ask distressed kids.

It’s one I wish I’d asked my distressed body sooner.

Like, before I spent a decade rabidly researching, tearing apart the internet for any little thread of potential relief, battling my way into exclusive rock star doctor offices, and maniacally messaging with brilliant buds about methylation pathways.

When my body cried out, I rushed in with hot packs, Costco’d ibuprofen, new diet ideas, and seven (no exag) different brain retraining programs. Then I dashed off, vowing to return, triumphant, with all the answers.

Yeah, this mirrored literally every codependent relationship I’ve had ever.

My fix-it urge came complete with a frenetic, compulsive drive.

Just like other victims of my rescuer urges, my body wouldn’t TAKE my meddling. She was allergic to the allergy meds. She exploded on the healthier diet. She got MORE disabled while brain retraining. The harder I tried, the worse my labs.

I was bewildered. I was right here, HELPING, with the BEST advice. Why was she continuing—nay, CHOOSING, to drown even deeper in her own drama?

Because that’s what happens you help someone who needs hugging or hearing instead.

When my body got louder, I thought she was screaming for help. She wasn’t. She got louder because she wasn’t being heard. And she was yelling much wiser things than “just fix this already” at the top of her metaphorical lungs.

Not that I could understand. Ever tried to “listen to your body?” It’s like trying to un-cry a baby. Is it hungry? Gassy? Nappy? Just testing lung function? Hell if I know. Does anyone? Yes: grandmothers. Because they’ve had several decades to decode the wails. It took me an entire decade just to finally make out my body-baby’s cries:

Slow down. No, more.

This shit doesn’t matter. I do.

You can’t keep feeling responsible for everyone and everything.

Do less, sooner.

You can’t do this alone.

You’re missing all the good stuff.

This feels too hard.

The truth was, I had needed to hear these messages in my entire life, not just the sick parts. But even if the ONLY reason my brain was hollering them was BECAUSE I was so sick…I was still so sick I needed to heed these calls.

Pushing limits hard to even just BE THERE on a family camping trip where everyone does everything for me and I drool in a padded camp chair.

I wasn’t great with the hugs, either.

The LAST thing I wanted to offer my help-resistant victim-ass body was a hug. Are you serious? SHE’S ADDICTED TO CHAOS.

I was embarrassed to be seen with my body. She represented everything I thought I wasn’t: unkempt, untoned, stooped, weak, and slow. She didn’t support me in my favorite things: skiing, hiking, and working myself to death. She wasn’t peppy. She wasn’t bright.

Her pain was making ME deeply uncomfortable, and I wanted her to fix it. I resented her for not trying, leaving me out there questing for cures she kept brattily rejecting.

I didn’t recognize how deeply she was exhausted, struggling, and really couldn’t give a shit about white people sports right now, mmkay? She had bigger fish (or viruses or gut bacteria or wonky genes) to fry.

Even when I kinda clocked that, I didn’t care. She wasn’t making enough money, spending enough time with friends, cleaning enough, anything enough. Do better, I thought, insensitive to her realities. I was vicious. We were frenemies. At best.

And anyway, how do you hug your own body (in this semi-ridiculous extended metaphor)?

You listen. And then you resist the urge to fix and respond instead. Empathetically. (This is so much harder than it sounds. Maybe worth another post?)

Body hugs sound like:

Cut yourself a fucking break.*

Good enough. No, really.

I’ll prioritize the routines that makes you feel better.

Let’s not run uphill looking for trouble.**

Just go as you are.

Baby steps are fine.

Let’s take 10 minutes and do that thing that always makes you feel better.

Thank you, I accept this nice thing from a friend/the Universe/whatever.

I love you anyway.

These are hard hugs to give, especially when you’ve been heavily conditioned not to give them. They’re gonna be awkward at first. They’re gonna get easier over time.

I feel things unclench and exhale when I intentionally beam these ideas at my body during peak wails. I can feel it when she feels heard and helped. It’s usually not what *I* want (a super intense caffeine-fueled workathon after a ski morning) but she’s the smart one.

I’m done “helping” my body, for now.

My body and I agree: we’re tired of chasing doctors who (however smart) don’t move the needle. We’re tired of meds with side effects worse than the cure. We’re tired of searching when even one billion dollars of blown long covid research didn’t figure it out. We’re tired of winding up our hopes and everyone else’s. We’re tired of thinking we can do everything “right” to be as well as humanly possible for some event or other and then we rando-flare and it’s so discouraging and time-consuming and dammit we’re just tired.***

We’ll still stick with the habits that have been working enough—safe foods, pacing, meditations, the odd hypermobile-aware PT sesh. We’ll sample something from the supplement graveyard for funsies here and there. We gotta get some iodine up in this bitch, because ye olde goiter is goitering.

But mainly? Hearing and hugs time.

“Hearing and hugs” sounds a lot like “thoughts and prayers.” Aka: like I’m vapidly choosing to let a shitty situation persist when I have answers right at my fingertips. But however solvable sickness seems (and it seems SO SOLVABLE to me…if I only knew how), it just ISN’T.

If it had been, I would have solved it somewhere in nine years of obsessive aggro trying. Instead, I’ve had maybe three accidental, incidental minor breakthroughs. Overall, my condition has worsened. And the energy I’ve spent seeking and worrying and tracking has just robbed me of more.

My body isn’t a victim. I’m not the rescuer. We’re just two halves, stuck together, for good, who need to work on our communication.

While my body’s been trying to share her truth, I’ve been going to the ends of the internet to negate it. Enough. Time to listen to my body, for real. And whether I understand or not, do my damndest to hear her, hug her, and find a way to show her we are truly in this together.

Because finally, we are.
Imperfectly, anyway.

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*My bestie and I scream this one in voice notes at one another at least once a week. It’s therapeutic. Try it.

**A Dad-ism I wish he said more often.

***Big caveat: I don’t encourage anyone to quit treatment. Many, many of my sickie buddies have made huge strides on meds, neurosurgeries, prolotherapy, cortisone injections, carnivore, biologics, peptides, nervous system work, whatever, even though I personally did not. If you can find something that’s supportive of your body, TAKE IT. On the other hand, if you need a break, TAKE IT.

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Note: I put zero thought into naming this (origin story here). It’s not a con(ference), it’s a scale! I made mine for my bestie and boyfriend and now I’m sharing it with you so you can dial in your own version. GITCHA ONE.

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