“I Apologise for the Inconvenience”
The Invisible Emotional Burden of Chronic Illness
I’ve been lying in bed for half an hour, rehearsing the same sentence like a mantra.
I force myself to sit up, moving to a chair next to my bed, as if a change of position might somehow change the outcome.
I finally manage to hit the call button after having backed out at least twenty times.
As I hear the deputy-in-charge of examination on the other side, I say, “I need to extend my leave for a few days.”
There’s a silence.
And then, a cold voice responds, “Again?”
“I still haven’t recovered from the flare-up,” I murmur, knowing what’s coming.
“But you’ve already been assigned invigilation for today. It’s difficult to keep rearranging the schedule like this,” the voice retorts, audibly frustrated.
I sigh.
“I apologise for the inconvenience. But I’m bed-bound and won’t be able to move around. I’m really sorry,” I say, with a shaky voice, barely audible.
“Today’s class is cancelled. I apologise for the inconvenience.”
“I can’t make it to your wedding. I apologise…”
“I’ve to cancel lunch last minute. I apologise…”
I say it. Again. And Again. And Again.
“I apologise for the inconvenience.”
Living with chronic illness is a never-ending inconvenience, to put it mildly. But, do you see the irony? The burden of apology falls on you. You’re the one left apologising to others day in and day out for inconveniencing them.
As if you chose this.
As if you’re not already burdened by a body that betrays you every chance it gets.
As if you’re not fighting a battle every day just to show up.
You’re expected to apologise for missing work. Yet, no one sees the mental tug-of-war it takes just to pick up the phone and ask for leave. They don’t see how often you choose to push through, just to avoid being an inconvenience. And by the time you put in a request, you’ve already pushed your body beyond its limits by denying it the rest it needed days ago.
And when you do try to work, you end up apologising for needing accommodations. As if having to prove your sickness every time isn’t already exhausting. As if it isn’t deeply unfair to be resented by your colleagues when all you’re doing is trying to show up and do your best.
You become the “flaky and unreliable” one when you miss a meet-up or cancel a plan at the last minute. “It’s always something with you, isn’t it?” You apologise for not keeping up–again. It’s not just people who slip away. So does the version of you that you once recognised.
And worst of all, only you know the guilt you carry about not showing up for your loved ones despite your best attempts. Birthdays. Weddings. Bereavements. Who but you knows how it breaks your heart to be the absent one when it matters the most?
And you keep apologising. And apologising. Until it feels like that’s all you are: an endless stream of apologies, a person defined by what you can’t do. You apologise until the words lose their meaning, and all that’s left is the emptiness of never being enough.
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