#17 - External motivation
Sometimes, motivation to move forward hides in unexpected corners. Often, I look at my health as my main motivation. And that is plenty of course. Especially since the results are there already.
But today I saw an article about the “Warmste Week”. That’s an annual week, organized by Belgian radio station Studio Brussel, which benefits a variety of charities. This year, the main theme is “invisible illnesses”. Now that touched a soft spot with me. I’ve mentioned having diabetes on this blog on several occasions already. And of course there’s the hernia. Both are invissible, and both are the main reason I started this website. To tell my story after the diagnosis. For me, that news was the start of this story. It motivated me to start working on those issues. The diabetes is clearly going the right way, and for the hernia, the news is even better at the moment. At the end of last year, I could’t go a night without pain medication. Often, I even had to take more during the night. Today, The pain is gone. The mobility is actually returning, and the tingling feeling in my fingers is noticeably less.
And then there’s something else. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, since I didn’t feel it was relevant to the story. Mostly since it can’t improve by working out. It’s something I lived with all my life. It’s just there. The third invisible illness I have, is autism. I know for about 15 years now, that I’m living on the spectrum. My kind of autism used to be called Aspergers Syndrome, but apparently mr Asperger wasn’t all that correct during Nazi times, leading to people not wanting to call it that anymore. It doesn’t change my position on the spectrum, As I said, It’s just there. No matter what it’s called.
For the most part of my life, I have just lived with my autism. Through masking and coping, I never knew it was an issue. How could I know, nobody told me. All through childhood, and later on in my professional life, I felt different compared to many people. But I didn’t realize what it was, or how it affected me. It’s hard to imagine until the point where someone tells you what the difference actually is. To me, the actual point in time where that happened, was when reading an article in a Belgian magazine. It was an interview with someone who lives with a partner on the spectrum, I believe. As I read it, I started marking the things I recognized in myself. The pages ended up looking like some sort of abstract work of art. I don’t know if he ever had a yellow period, but if he did, Pablo Picasso could have painted it.
That brings the grand total to three invisible illnesses I live with. Getting the diagnoses did change my life, but mostly in a good way. Over time, I’ve had help finding ways to deal with the issues at hand. And that’s where this years “Warmste Week” comes back in the story. Because this years bennificiairies are organisations, offering help to people with an illness you can’t see. They are not mutulated in a visible way. They don’t have a hearing aid or a white stick. Not even crutches or a wheelchair. You can’t see that they have an illness. And that’s why many of them not always get the help they need. The help they deserve. That’s something I’d like to contribute to. Making that help possible for more people.
It’s still to early to reveal what I’m planning to do. You will expect it has something to do with this website of course. But what exactly is for a later post. I do have some standards in mind it will have to live up to of course:
- It has to be a real challenge for me.
- It has to make money for the “Warmste Week”.
- And what I do, has to have links with some of the organizations I feel a link to.
As allways…
Stay tuned for more.
