The Urge to Prove Our Worth

My doctor gave me a sticker that says 'slow' to put on my phone. I need the reminder, because every time illness loosens its grip, I try to make up for all the lost time at once.

When illness loosens its grip even briefly, restless energy takes over: a pressing need to make up for lost time. The moment I can leave the bed or the house again, I plunge headfirst into everything, craving contact and stimulation like a plant reaching for the sun after a long winter.

In that eagerness, I overload myself to prove I'm not defined by the illness, that I'm as capable as anyone. I convince myself I'm fully recovered. The thought of scaling back feels like defeat.

It always backfires. The overexertion has a price: the crash that puts me back in bed.

Every chronically ill person I know tells some version of the same story. A few months of freedom and productivity, cut short by relapse. We ride the wave up, then get slammed back into the rocks.

Why is it so hard to listen to the body's own signal? Part of the answer is that the urge isn't really about the activity. It's about proving something to a world that spent years doubting the illness was real in the first place.

What's actually needed is patience: waiting to find balance before running at full speed, and knowing the worth was never conditional on the pace.

My doctor printed me a small sticker and asked me to put it on the back of my phone. It says "slow." Several times a day, picking up my phone, I get a small reminder to breathe, to stop rushing, not to take the most precious thing, hard-earned health, for granted.