Copping out?

My blog friend Jacula has poured scorn on my worries and says I should stop looking for excuses to cop out. I don't understand her attitude. Why should I want to cop out of doing enjoyable things with people I love? I had been looking forward to going there for weeks, but I couldn't enjoy myself when I was feeling ill, and I didn't want to be a pain in the a*** by merely nibbling at the gorgeous food she cooks and having to retire to bed with a hot water bottle on my tum.

For the last three or four years, I have spent at least three out of every seven days feeling ill. This has no bearing on whether or not I am supposed to be going anywhere. I can have four days of feeling normal, then suddenly the pain is back. As well as a general all-over, burning, gassy type of ache, I have a pain in my right side that makes me feel as if I've been kicked by a horse. At one time, it swelled up into a tennis ball sized lump, but I was abroad and couldn't do much about it and the lump had subsided by the next day. I can rarely sleep on my right hand side and if I do, I need a cushion tucked under me.

There is something wrong, but nobody quite knows what and as I manage to stagger on, helped by the occasional pill, the doctor isn't doing anything. I suppose I should make more of a fuss, but I don't like going to the doc's except if something is really bad, because I don't like taking up their time when there are much sicker people than me who need their help. I suppose I go two or three times a year.

As for copping out, I am a gregarious person who loves to have fun - but I can't have fun when I am in so much discomfort all the time. Like everyone when they feel off-colour, I just want to hibernate.

I started this blog as a form of diary for myself. I wasn't concerned about whether it was read or not. I intended it to chronicle my search for natural cures for my ills, but I haven't found anything that has really worked. If you think I am just a hypochondriac, fair enough, you are entitled to your opinion. And you don't have to read my ramblings, anyway!

It took a lot of guts for me to write about the rape. I hate remembering it. And in fact it was the second time I have been raped. I was raped by a stranger, in my house on a Sunday morning, when I was 21 and my parents were on holiday. I took an overdose but woke up after 18 hours, staggered into work and told my boss, who said I shouldn't go to the police as they weren't at all sympathetic in those days and always accused a woman of leading a man on. So I didn't, and the rapist got away with it.

Since then, I have been at knifepoint twice, gunpoint once and have managed somehow to escape with my life. If I were to write a book about it, I don't think anybody would believe it. Only the friends who were close to me at the time know it is all true.

My blog entry yesterday was my way of trying to explore what is going on, looking for reasons and possible causes. I don't think I was being over-imaginative. My sister is urging me to get tested, to put her mind at rest as well as my own. So I shan't apologise for sharing this with you. As I said before, if you think I am just a sad hypochondriacal whinger, then, to paraphrase the Rolling Stones, "Hey, you, get offa my blog!"