{"id":2833,"date":"2025-09-29T13:07:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T17:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christinairene.com\/wp\/?p=2833"},"modified":"2025-09-29T13:07:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T17:07:09","slug":"facing-social-and-work-lives-after-an-extended-flare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christinairene.com\/wp\/archives\/2833","title":{"rendered":"Facing Social and Work Lives After an Extended Flare"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I’ve had quite a rough run with my chronic illnesses these past several months. Really, it’s been building up over two-and-a-half years, since I got COVID. Now, I’m finally making some headway. With help from medical professionals, I’m finally starting to feel better. I went from zero “good days” to having more good days than bad. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve got choices — choices I haven’t had in months.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

During my “super flare,” any day I felt even a bit like an actual human being, I would tackle as many tasks as I could, not wanting to miss the rare opportunity to get stuff done. It’s a hard thing to turn off now. Rest is now a choice, not something I am forced to do because I can do nothing else. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But will I actually choose rest? Yes. Here’s why.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

With chronic illnesses like my fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and post-COVID syndrome, I come to think of rest as this binary thing that’s either forced upon me or is a luxury I can’t access. I shift into accepting this idea much like I have, in the past, coped with a miserable job or even a toxic relationship. When the weight and restrictions of my our conditions are lifted, when the flare subsides, even just for a little bit, I have to drop those coping mechanisms and remember that I deserve to choose rest as much as a non-disabled person, even when I don’t have the choice, and especially when I do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will…<\/h4>\n\n\n\n