202nd Post - Guilt

I can't believe I missed it...the passing of my 200th post. This post here is my 202 - it just feels a little anticlimatic to celebrate it now. Oh well.

I managed to accomplish most of my cleaning projects over the weekend. The cleaning continues this week and will hopefully pick up a bit with some better days ahead. My head has been pretty threatening for the past 3 days - fortunately never developing into a full blown migraine. Instead I've had all the precursors and effects, just not the extreme pain.

With the onset of some good days I'm beginning to feel an increase in guilt over my unemployed status. There was a fairly large amount of self imposed guilt before when none of my days were good days. Now that I have those good days they are days sullied with this ugly guilt. I'm so very thankful that I've had the opportunity to stay home during this very very difficult time. I don't know what I would have done if we couldn't manage on my husband's income alone. Even though we manage to pay our bills, there isn't much left after that. We can't afford to do much and that causes stress. My husband works so hard and he has such a stressful job. I feel like if I could only work we would be able to live in a less stressful place, and do more fun stress relievers like vacations, movies and such. We would have more money to save for retirement and maybe could even afford to adopt a child.

The worst part about this guilt is the stress from feeling like I have no control over what happens. I don't know if I'm ever going to feel up to a regular full time job. Sometimes I think I should just do it anyway- you know, suck it up and just work through all the pain, fog and sensitives. I fear I would just be trading one guilt for another. The guilt over not contributing financially to our lives would quickly be replaced with guilt over not being able to keep up with things at home, including spending quality time with my husband.

I'm so thankful for my husband's appreciation of the role I currently play in our marriage. We both know things would be easier if I felt better and could work. But he doesn't make me feel bad about it. He really appreciates that things are taken care of around the house. I wish I was as kind to myself as he is to me. This is perhaps the most difficult part of adjusting to life with chronic pain. Some days I manage my guilt pretty good, other days not so good.

Do you ever struggle with guilt over the changes chronic pain has forced on your life?