Day 27 - 5 Challenges & 5 Small Victories

Today is day 27 and I have to write about five challenges and five small victories that have to do with my health topic.  It certainly will be easy to think about the challenges, but I am glad they asked me talk about the victories too, for it is the small victories that give us hope.

Challenges:

1.  Knowing whether I want to stay home and rest, because I am depressed and want to isolate OR if I am tired from having chronic fatigue syndrome and need to rest in order to take care of my body.  It's a tough call and I wrestle with wanting to take a nap and miss some type of event just about every day.  I tend to cut myself more slack and let myself stay home if I have been doing well at attending groups and events for several days.  I also try to weigh how important a group is for my recovery.  Right now, my DBT class is a top priority and I don't let being tired be a reason for missing it, but I certainly might miss an aftercare group if I'm really tired.  I love attending groups and events-I make friends fairly easily and I thrive off of human interaction.  When I miss a group that I usually attend, I really feel the void of not having had a certain amount of human interaction and I usually regret not having gone.  Unfortunately, it is really hard to keep that in perspective when all I can think of is how tired I am.  On the other hand, I think it is really important not to get so busy that I don't have any time for myself.  Sometimes I need a break from people, so I can calm down and recharge my batteries.  The trick is not doing it so long that I start acting out in order to get my attention fix or that I start to become depressed.

2.  Changing old thought patterns, so I can stay in the present. While depression and anxiety are biological, even taking the right medications will not completely fix the disease if I do not address my negative, old ways of thinking.  And I absolutely have to change my thinking if I am going to address my Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), which does not respond to medication nearly as well.  This is really hard.  Recently, I have realized just how bad and pervasive my habit of reliving past trauma is when I don't have anything to do.  My therapist and I are working to change this bad habit by helping me stay in the present.  She says that my wallowing in the past is a form of self-sabotage, because I am actively changing my mood from being really positive to really negative, which is not the goal.  Just having the awareness of what I am doing has helped me tone it down.  I also have been avoiding the angsty music that I normally love to listen to while driving, as I noticed that I tend to space out and wallow during those songs.  It's hard to stay in the present, but I am working on it.

3.  Setting boundaries - When I was in a treatment program many years ago, I was told that I had no boundaries.  I am a very open person and I have to be very careful to not tell people way more than is appropriate.  I am not the best at being assertive, although I am getting better.  My therapist and I also work on how to set appropriate boundaries with many different types of people and how to stand up for myself.  I would like to think that a decade later from when I was first told that I had no boundaries, that I now have at  least some.  The problem is I often think I have set good boundaries and then I discover that I need to set still more, so that the person will truly understand what I need, i.e. more space, not talking about certain topics, etc.  The fact that boundaries often need to be redefined frustrates me, but each time I tell myself that it is good practice.

4.  Not worrying about what other people think of me and not comparing myself to others.  This is SO hard when many times it seems as if mental illness and fibromyalgia has taken away certain stages of adulthood that many people take for granted.  I can easily look around at what other people have and feel sorry for myself, but doing this only takes away my own power.  What I have lost due to my mental illness, I have gained in empathy, compassion, and a willingness to help others.  When I worry about what other people think, I forget about my good qualities and I forget the essential truth that I am already enough.

5.  Making my health a priority.  So many people take their bodies for granted.  They use and abuse their bodies without a thought, because their bodies don't give them any trouble.  I used to be one of those people, myself.  In fact, in my eating disorder days I was proud of the fact that I barely ate anything-it was proof that I was strong and in control.  Utter bull-crap, I know now.  Now that I have fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, and many mental disorders, I know just how sensitive my body is to what I do to it.  Instead of having pride in how I can abuse my body, I take pride in how I care for it.  It can be tricky figuring out how to eat healthy and at regular intervals when I travel so much.  I have to make sure I remember to bring a snack with me wherever I go, especially since I also have low blood sugar.  I need regular exercise to keep my joints from getting too stiff and yet there is not a lot of exercise that I can do.  I have discovered a yoga place that I love and I try to attend once a week, which isn't really enough, I know, but it's as much as I can fit into my schedule right now.  I have to make sure that I get enough sleep, which can be hard to do, since I am a night owl.  Sleep deprivation makes my mood and anxiety much worse and some scientists believe it to be one of the causes of fibromyalgia, so I really try to get at least eight hours.  I take my medications twice a day regularly, which is still a little bit of a struggle for me.  I had a really hard time taking my medications as prescribed for a long time and I still have to give myself a little pep talk in the morning and at night to convince myself to take them.

Small Victories

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