Time To Slow Down and Post More

May 18, 2013

Hello!  I’m back!  It seems as soon as the April writer’s challenge ended, my life sped up and I was too busy to write.  I’m not the kind of person who can stay in the fast lane for long before I become too overwhelmed and have a meltdown, which is precisely what I did on Friday.  I recognized that I was beginning to feel overwhelmed several weeks ago, but I felt like everything I had agreed to do was equally important and so I did not amend my schedule.  In fact, I added more to it!  If everything would just happen the way that I planned them to, then I would be able to do everything, or so I thought.  Of course, this did not happen.  Friday I went to my art therapy class where I found out that it was canceled and that's when my body decided that it was time for a meltdown.  I sobbed and sobbed.  I felt like I was a failure-if only I had been  perfect, than the class wouldn't have been canceled.  I cried all the way home and I continued carrying on for several more hours.  In the end I decided to cancel all of my plans for this weekend, because it was obvious to me that I desperately needed a lot of rest. Now that I have had a day to recover, I can see that the class being canceled had nothing to do with me and I feel a bit embarrassed.  My sponsor said that it's good that I noticed the signs of being overwhelmed ahead of time, but that next time I need to actually tell somebody how I'm feeling, so that we can look at my calendar together and figure out what I can do to prevent another meltdown.  I feel so much better now that I've spent the day relaxing. I will certainly remember this lesson for a long time.  Besides, I really don't like spending so much time away from my blog!
Even though I stopped posting here for a while I still kept on writing for the first week of May.  In honor of fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome awareness day on May 12, I wrote a three part article called, The Truth is a Powerful Medicine, for the website MyFibro.com.  In it, I address some of the stigma surrounding those illnesses and some of the foolish, hurtful things that people sometimes say.  Eventually I will post my earlier recovery story from Psyweb.com and this story on an easy to find link on the side of my blog, but for now, click here:  The Truth Is A Powerful Medicine Part I, Part II, and Part III.  Most people seem to like the first article the best, although my favorite is the last one.
My next post will be a report on the fair trade luncheon I attended in April.  Hopefully, I'll post it soon!

2 comments on “Time To Slow Down and Post More”

  1. It made me sad to think of you weeping outside the locked door of your classroom. Maybe because I understand from my own experience getting so overwhelmed and exhausted that a meltdown is inevitable. We understand how this works in toddlers; why is it so hard to apply to ourselves?

    On a happier note, I finally read your fibro/CFS series. Well done. Personally, I already knew most of what you were teaching. It was still a good read though -- I liked how you interwove the general parts with your own stories. I'm a big believer in the power of stories.

  2. We seem to believe that we don't need the same amount of care that we did when we were young, but now that I think about it, I really don't think our needs change that much at all-we just now have to take more responsibility in getting our needs met.

    And thank you! I enjoyed writing that series. Me too!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *