Depression/Anxiety

Lyme Disease is a serious disease. The leading cause of death with Lyme Disease is suicide. Many, if not all, Chronic Lyme Disease sufferers are affected by some sort of depression/anxiety.

Sadness. Hopelessness. Fear. Anxiousness. Stress. Anger. These are only a few words to describe the feelings of a person enduring depression/anxiety with Lyme. There are many reasons why Lyme would bring these horrid feelings to life. In my life its mainly caused by feeling alone all the time. I have never met a Lymie, face to face, that is close to my age. Of course, I have my facebook support system (ily all), however, on the rare occasion that I feel well enough to go go out with friends, or maybe just watch a movie at my house, there is no one for me to be around that understands how I feel and why I feel that way. This is very frustrating sometimes.

These feelings of sadness and hopelessness obviously don't last forever. I have days where I have the pleasure of experiencing feelings of joy, or at the least contentment. Unfortunately, these are the days that I generally endure the anxiousness, stress, and sometimes fear. Many days I am unable to sit still, whether my leg twitches, or my fingers are tapping, my body is not happy unless I am moving in some way. Take for example, right now I am in my computer chair and swiveling it back and forth. If I stop myself moments later when I stop thinking about it I will catch myself doing it again.

The anger is by far the worst. Feeling hopeless, anxious, and sad all the time often leads to frustration. Frustration easily leads to anger. It is very angering to be sick all the time, to not be able to do what other people my age are doing, and the most frustrating of them all is how differently I get treated. It's as if people think im going to keel over and die any second, or that I might forget them tomorrow. Which the chances of both are very slim.

I know that it is very hard to understand and to empathize without undergoing the same hell as us Lymies. Sympathizing, however, is one of the worst things a person could do to me. If anything I would love to be treated normally, rather than being felt sorry for.