This was originally posted on my political blog at https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2019/10/overcoming-health-challenges-so-as-to.html.
In my 20s, I was quite fit - largely so I could be effective at competitive sailing. In my early 40s, I achieved a reasonable level of fitness so I could compete in the Sydney 2002 Gay Games. However, since then, I've had a few health problems - collapsing disks, arthritis, various physical injuries that doctors were glib about, etc, and my health has deteriorated.
That hasn't been helped by getting older, by having work and other demands (stress has actually been quite debilitating), and the occasional problem from my diabetes (which I think i had for a fair few years before I was officially diagnosed - which was when I was training for the Gay Games and running 7 km each day plus doing 3 two hour weight and flexibility sessions).
I don't have CFS (I have known people who did, and it is far more than just being tired), but I do use the "spoons of energy" concept from CFS to help manage my daily life. (Of all the other self care techniques, alternate nostril breathing exercises are actually the most effective for me - they boost my ability to cope with stress, and enable me to start doing other things like exercise, etc.)
I think my biggest problem is actually wanting to do more.
On that, I recently re-watched the film "Darkest Hour": I know Churchill had problems with depression, but then I started thinking of other major people in world politics who had overcome problems to make a major contribution - obviously Franklin D Roosevelt, who was largely confined to a wheelchair, and John F Kennedy, who had a series of health problems, but also other people who were less well known but also significant - people like Robert A. Lovett, who was one the people written about in the book "The Wise Men" and who used to refer to "his glass insides".
In my nation, we had John Curtain, who ultimately died of heart problems.
With the exception of FDR, most of these people's problems were not immediately obvious. Others do have significant issues to manage and still manage to make a major contribution - Senator Jordan Steele-John is an obvious example.
However, while I have great respect and admiration for Senator Steele-John and the campaigns for better treatment of people who are differently abled, given that most of my health issues are not immediately obvious (although the consequences often lead people to make stupid, wrong and hurtful assumptions), I personally can more strongly relate to people like Lovett.
Those are the people who I think: well, if they could do it despite most people not knowing what they were struggling with, then so can I.
