Life.

I don’t want it. Not like this.

It feels like some kind of eye-roll moment, here we go again, she’s moaning. Like a stuck record you can’t switch off. I know.

But sometimes your day is just awful, and being brave isn’t what you need.

I started a new job recently, and I’m still in the phase of trying to be strong. Don’t get me wrong, I do that with everyone anyway, but with new people you almost have this guard up.

They don’t know me yet. What if they don’t like me? What if I talk too much? What if they think I’m just a bit crap? All the what ifs embedding themselves deep in my brain, screaming at me to show no weakness.

Everyone knows I have a few health challenges. it’s not exactly inconspicuous with a walking stick you can hear a mile away, my slow-motion walking, and my wobbly jelly legs. I joke about it. I make fun of myself because what else can I do? I have to see the funny side to these things or I think I’d lose my mind completely. But knowing I have health challenges and really seeing me are two very different things.

Until now. I threw up. Okay, that’s fine. I do it all the time, what’s the big deal, right? I wish.

I wish I’d made it to the toilet, or even had some kind of warning it was going to happen. Thank God for the bin strategically placed by my desk “just in case” last week. The “it won’t happen, but just in case.”

No nausea. No signs. No warning. It just happened.

To some people, throwing up into a bin at your desk still wouldn’t seem like a big deal. But it was so much more than that. It exposed the other side of me. The weaker side that struggles.

The girl who cries when she wakes up because she’s woken up and it’s another day of pain. The girl who needs help brushing her teeth or hair because her arms become dead weights. The girl who wakes up choking on blood from a nosebleed. The girl who wakes up on the floor because she passed out from the pain of trying to get to the bathroom. Those are the moments I keep hidden.

I smile and say I’m plodding on because who wants to hear the same thing every day? Who wants to ask how my weekend was and hear anything other than “good”? No one wants the hard truths all the time. They don’t want to hear that I couldn’t put my own shoes on. That I couldn’t walk to the bathroom. That some days the pain is so intense I pass out.

The hard truths are hard for a reason.

In that moment, I could feel all of it bubbling to the surface. The anxiety. The embarrassment. The guilt. Because I knew people would help me. And somehow, in my head, that made me a burden.

I interviewed as this strong, independent person, and then they got me. The real me. The person who sometimes shakes too much they can’t even hold their medication properly. The person who needs help getting to another room. The person who smiles through pain because it’s easier than explaining it.

I know my thoughts aren’t rational. But it isn’t about whether they make sense to other people. It’s about how it feels inside my own head.

The reality?

There was no staring. No judgement. No negativity. All I felt was warmth. I was surrounded by people who cared. And I can’t even begin to explain how much those small things matter.

Getting me a glass of water. Sitting with me and talking about anything other than what happened. Helping me take my medication when I couldn’t stop shaking. Helping me move to another room. Moments that probably seemed tiny to them meant everything to me.

Those small acts make life possible for me sometimes. They allow me to keep being me. Do I suddenly feel okay now? Do all those vulnerabilities magically disappear?

No. Of course not. Because vulnerability is terrifying to me.
What if people see my health as weakness? What if they doubt my ability to do my job? What if helping me becomes frustrating? What if who I am is just… too much?

What if I’m not enough?

But then…

What if I am?

I think that’s really why I write these things down.

I started writing this feeling ashamed and vulnerable. Feeling bad for the people who had to help me. Feeling scared people would quickly get sick of the sick girl. But I don’t want to be the sick girl.

I just want to be me. I want to be the person who smashes her job despite the bumps in the road.

And honestly, the people around me have been incredible. They didn’t make my vulnerability feel shameful or make me feel like my conditions were something to hide. When I said I wanted to keep working, they respected that. There was no pity, no trying to take over, no acting like they knew what was best for me.

Just support. Just kindness. Just people treating me like me.

What I keep trying to teach myself is that support doesn’t mean weakness. It doesn’t mean people will doubt your abilities, see you as disruptive, or think you’re a burden.

I can’t smile all the time, and I know days like this will happen again. But maybe strength isn’t pretending you’re okay every second of the day. Maybe strength is allowing people to help you survive the hard moments.

Because some days life feels impossible. Some days the goal is simply making it to bedtime.

So maybe it isn’t one day at a time. Maybe it’s one moment at a time.

And sometimes, we find our biggest strength in our weakest moments.