Even
though I’m chronically ill, I do think that there are times when I am coasting
purely on adrenaline. But instead of
crashing and taking it easy for a day, as was required by my healthy self, my
chronically ill self requires several days, sometimes even a week or two to
regroup and totally recover.
It’s a
hard balance because so many amazing opportunities have come my way over the
last several months. And it’s hard to
say no to things that I really want to be a part of. But the reality is, for my physical and
emotional well-being, I can’t do everything.
Recently,
I had a phone meeting scheduled for a new project I am hoping to become a part
of. But something had to give. And at the moment, that was the easiest thing
to put on the back burner. I couldn’t
get out of my school or current work commitments, so I looked at everything on
my plate, and took off of it the must un-pressing thing. Fortuitously, the person I was meeting with
also happens to be chronically ill and completely understood where I was coming
from, which was really great, and made postponing the meeting, even though in
my heart I didn’t want to, much easier.
And it
made me realize that I have become more attuned to listening to my body. My head was telling me that I needed to slow
down and take it easy. So I took two
days. I had only intended to take one,
but one wasn’t enough. So I took some
time for myself, reading non-school related, junky reading, and rested, which
put me in a much better place.
When I used
to not listen to my body, I ignored the signs, and didn’t stop until a flare
was raging and I had absolutely no choice but to stop. Clearly, that wasn’t ideal. But now, I am better able to preempt a flare
when it is caused solely by stress. When
I feel myself getting too stressed, or I get that feeling where I am always
coming down with something but never get sick, I know it’s time to take a step (or
two or three) back.
Recently,
Chronic Illness Coach Rosalind Joffe wrote a blog post entitled, “the more i do, the
better i feel. sound familiar?”
This is me
in a nutshell. Except the more I do, the
better I feel is a hoax. Like I said
earlier, I might get an adrenaline rush from being active and doing a lot of
things, but it’s a total rouse. Because
the minute I stop, my body shuts down.
It rebels against me, and then I am really at its mercy.
It’s all
about balance. And when the balance starts
to tip, well I really, really have to start to listening to my body and the
signals it sends me.
It’s good
to listen before I send my body into a tailspin that leads to a flare.
As we all
know, stress exacerbates many chronic illnesses, and lupus and RA are no
different.
So how do
you balance bouncing back and overdoing it?
I don't. Not well, anyway. I keep learning the same lesson over and over again. In the last year, I've gotten a bit better at stopping before I crash completely, so that's progress of a sort. Right?
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