I feel disgusting. I can’t hear from my right ear, my eyes keep overflowing with tears, I can feel the sterilization of my gut from ingesting over 1,500 milligrams of penicillin every day and the strength in my muscles leaving me as wretch into the toilet. Not exactly the best feeling.

I’m always the one that has something wrong with her. Always the one comes up with the perfect excuse; flipped back into depression or something went awry and I couldn’t do what needed to be done. My own body, constantly failing, always coming down with the worst of the flu or common cold, which wrecks itself into pieces as I shiver under the blankets. People always ask me, “Why do you get sick so often?” A friend tells me I drink too much tea along with family telling me I’m under too much stress while there is someone else close to me constantly whispering into my ear asking why haven’t I given up yet and that I should quit everything before too much time and money has been invested. Unfortunately, that person is not myself.

I want to scream.

Of course I get sick. I’m only human, no? And shouldn’t you know, after all these years of knowing me, that my body doesn’t have the best constitution and the fact that I never sleep enough chains and suffocates my immune system even further? Does it really look like that I try to get sick and stay at home because I love missing a week of college and football practice, which will end up reflecting on my grades if I don’t find some way back to the top? I’m not just sick of whatever continues to ail my body - I am nauseated from what nonsense I hear from my own family and friends, and especially from my own mouth. There’s always an excuse. There’s always someone to blame. There’s always something someone believes you should give up.

Stop.

I don’t want to hear it.

Stop.

I don’t want to say it.

There’s no one to blame but yourself. What are you going to do about it?