Stuff I don't talk about

Part of being a regular person is that everyone has stuff and a lot of people don’t talk about that stuff. We probably should talk about the stuff more, but for various reasons we don’t. So in this video I share some of my stuff. Things I just don’t talk about. For me, many of them are medical, I don’t really know why that is, but those are the things I just can’t get on board with talking about to other people.
Firstly there is Fibromyalgia - I was diagnosed with this in my mid 20s and it has been the cause of many issues in my life. I’ve lost friends because of it, being unable to go places and do things had quite an effect on my social life. But over the years, I’ve learned to manage my symptoms and understand my body. I don’t like it, because there are times it really holds me back, and there are also times when I don’t have the option to be able to take it easy - like when I moved - and then I know that there are going to be some really hard days ahead.
Next there is Aspergers - I still call it Aspergers though it has been reclassified as Autism Spectrum Disorder - so it is now regarded as Autism, I’m still adjusting to this. I was diagnosed with this later in life nearly 4 years ago. I don’t do well at talking about this as you can no doubt see from the video. I don’t really know what my struggle is, maybe because I’m still getting to grips with it and how it impacts my life and so that makes me feel unqualified to talk about it. In the video I say that people with Aspergers can change, and I want to make it clear that I don’t mean you can change as in you can ‘fix yourself’ or that you can ‘change to not have Aspergers’ I hope that isn’t what’s taken away from the video because I 100% do not get on board with that idea, but I don’t articulate what I mean very well! I mean that one of the things we’re well known for is needing routine and needing specific things to happen, but we can adapt to change. We can change routines, we can be flexible - it’s hard, but it can be done and I just see a lot of people claiming the opposite - that they can’t change or adapt and other people need to change or adapt to them, but relationships with people involve a bit of compromise on both sides and sometimes that means having to change or adapt certain rigid behaviours or routines - it can be done. Anyway. I have Aspergers, I don’t talk about it, maybe one day I will when I can organise my thoughts on it a bit better.
Hidradenitis is next - I got a diagnosis for this a few years ago and it took a lot of back and forth with the doctor to get it. I’ve actually had an issue with boils since I was a teenager, but in my 20s I didn’t really have very much issue with it, but then in my 30s things have really kicked off and I’ve had an absolute nightmare with it. It has absolutely changed the look of my body forever and that’s been hard to come to terms with. I wish more people talked about having hidradenitis because there are people who suffer with this so badly - many worse cases than mine are out there - and I think that people need support with this. It’s very debilitating and it can be so hard to talk about - who wants to talk about being covered in boils and how painful they are and how leaky and smelly they are - no one really. So maybe a bit more understanding for people with this condition would go a long way.
Finally I just mention weight loss - It’s a huge myth that people have - loose weight look great - I mean you will often feel great when you lose weight and it is an absolutely worthwhile endeavour, but often people think they’ll lose weight and end up being super skinny and with washboard abs or just everything will tone up nicely, in reality it leaves skin, stretchmarks and wrinkles and I think if people went into weight loss knowing that it would be less of a shock when you get there!
So those are the things I don’t talk about - some of them I might actually try and open up a bit more on in future videos, but for now, this was hard enough!