Posted in chronic illness, chronic pain, Life in your forties, mental-health, Migraine, self care, writing

Commitment Issues (But Make It Chronic Illness)

Let’s clear something up real quick …

It’s not that we don’t want to commit. It’s that our bodies don’t RSVP in advance.

People love to label it “flaky.”

Unreliable.

Commitment issues.

But what they don’t see is the internal negotiation happening every single time we say yes to something. Because “yes” doesn’t just mean showing up. It means calculating energy levels. Pain levels. Medication timing. Recovery time. The very real possibility that our body will wake up and choose violence.

We don’t make plans casually … we make them hopefully. And hope is a fragile thing when your body has a history of breaking promises.

So yeah, sometimes we cancel.

Not because we don’t care or because we’re inconsiderate, but because the same body we trusted yesterday decided to change the rules overnight.

And the guilt? It’s heavy.

We replay the conversation. We worry about how it looks. We tell ourselves we should’ve pushed through … even when we know pushing through has consequences.

So we start doing something else instead.

We hesitate.

We say “maybe.” We keep plans loose. We protect our energy before we even have it.

Not because we’re unreliable, but because we’ve learned the hard way that overcommitting comes with a cost our body will collect later.

This isn’t a lack of commitment.

It’s survival with a nervous system that doesn’t follow a schedule.

And if you’ve ever felt like a bad friend, a bad partner, or a “maybe at best” kind of person because of it … You’re not broken. You’re adapting.

Blessed be 💫

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Author:

Melissa is an avid reader, loves coffee, and is awed by the arts. She has been running There for You Editing company since 2011, and has edited over 700 manuscripts. She is the mother to two amazing children, Kendric and Amelia, has 2 beautiful granddaughter, and is married to the love of her life. She resides in Connecticut, where she has lived her whole life.