Navigating FOMO with a Chronic Condition

So clashes. Depression, full-time work, and thyroid issues say to sleep all the time and not leave the apartment when I have a choice. FOMO says I should go hang out with friends every day like I did when I was single.

I feel like I can't have the college experience because going out for a few hours requires days of recovery, bipolar depression made it so that i had to come home and so now I'm a year behind my friends. And even walking to class is difficult when I'm in pain. Drs can't figure out what's wrong so i don't have a diagnosis and can't access to disability accommodations

I feel like I'm missing out on maintaining relationships, meeting people, education opportunities, travel, sports, a romantic relationship, and so many more. Most of all, I miss feeling whole.

Losing my virginity by choice and having a healthy/normal sex life. Having a childhood. Not feeling so split up bc of trauma. Being able to feel love. More fully. Being able to experience life at even 80% instead of 40%. Being truly happy for more than a day and loving myself with confidence. Not dissociating. Sleeping peacefully instead of battling with nightmares that make me nauseous and throw my entire day off. But then I wouldn't be me.

I miss going out with my friends 😕

I live in a place that's definitely not built to be accessible - where is, really? But no one has made the effort to make their events, groups, or meet-ups accessible, either. So, since moving here, I've been completely alone except the family I live with and doctors! It's lonely to say the least. I try my best by volunteering, working, ect - but it all has to be online and I can only do so much in person. I just wish I didn't live in such an isolated, vast, and inaccessible place that has a real lack of young people.

Every time I have to miss a get together with my friends or a holiday celebration with my family.

When I have to miss holidays or events because my fatigue and nausea is crazy

When I can't/requires a lot of effort to go out to eat at restaurants. If we are eating at someone's house then I can simply bring my own food but checking that a cafe or restaurant can cater is so much harder

When I was abused as a child by my sister. I grew anxious for events that where elsewhere like clubs or outings with friends because I didn't like being home. The age gap between my sister and I is significant. There's over a decade in between us so by the time I was five, she was an adult.

Between significant abuse as a child stealing my childhood from me (literally in some cases since I don't remember the first 11 years of my life at all) and causing many of my physical and mental disabilities, getting my autism diagnosis later in life, being in several abusive relationships where I was gaslit to hell and back, and having my "full time job" for the better part of a decade be managing my health and insurance companies, I've lost most of my friends, all of my family, and all of my money. Now I'm in a new city with zero way of getting anywhere or meeting new people, minimal energy to unpack so it's taken me significantly more time than it would normal people, and constant physical and emotional pain that prevents me from relating to neurotypicals and people without a background in trauma. FOMO is in constant war with the negative voice in my head that tells me there's no point in dating because nobody but abusers are going to want me.

i haven't felt like i was living life like a normal person in ten years. my pain and fatigue, among other things, have cost me my friends and social life to the point where I don't have anything left. Picking up the pieces and making new friends seems like so much work. Book clubs and things haven't been willing to accommodate me. FOMO has become a different emotion entirely. It's on another level

On days where I want to go out but my anxiety is too high not to be handled by my as needed medicine..