Today is one of those "off" days us Fibrates experience quite often, actually. Some days I wake up and feel great, others I wake up and right out the gate feel like crap. Well this was one of those days. I opened my eyes to the phone ringing, the stupid pharmacy calling to remind me to pick up my prescription. This is the same pharmacy that will "automatically" refill prescriptions even though I have to get them from mail order. Tryin' to get one over on me! Anyway, I feel that tightness in my neck and throbbing in my head that is so familiar. Once I get up I am hurting all over and already in a BAD mood. What is so different today from yesterday? Why do I feel good one day and awful the next? These are the issues we deal with when we have this strange illness called Fibromyalgia. So I walked the pups but did not do yoga, needed my caffeine too badly! Tried to get to work and got frustrated with my attempts to do anything and therefore accomplished nothing! Then I show up late to my neurologist appointment after hitting every red light possible and at this point I am ready to scream, pull my hair out and smash a window.
This weekend was a rough one for me. It was that wonderful time of the month that usually precipitates a flare. Couple that with my reduced dosage of Prednisone and I was quite a nightmare to be around! I sat there listening to my husband lecture me about how when I am in a bad mood the whole room feels it. My aura is too big to be contained, I just radiate negativity. Thanks sweetheart! But sadly he is right. When I am in pain I may think I am saving him, or whoever is around me, from my wrath by keeping quiet. But I am still flinging that energy, that negative, desperate, angry energy around the room for everyone else to absorb. It is not fair to any of us, but I am sorry, I am not going to plaster a fake smile on my face and adopt a high-pitched cheerfulness to my voice when I feel like my body is ready to crack into 1,000 pieces! So what to do? When I figure it out I will start selling that and will surely make myself a millionaire!
How can we combat this awful combination? How can we be allowed to feel without bringing down everyone around us? How do you combine pain and pleasantness? We have all been around perpetually negative people and they do indeed suck the energy out of the room. I really don't want to be that person! I have found two things which help me out of a funk and guide me back to a positive place. Yoga and laughter! Yoga stretches my sore, tight muscles, releases endorphins and psychologically I feel like I am doing something to help myself. And laughter, well, I don't really need to tell any of you how much a good belly laugh a day will do you. More than a few times I have sat down at my desk, that ready-to-kill mood oozing out of me and desperately scrolled through The Fibromyalgia Fun House wall until I come across some hilarious post or ridiculous comment thread that gets sillier and sillier as it goes on. Before I know it killing everyone does not sound nearly as attractive, I am laughing at the absurdity of life and find I have regrouped my psyche so I can get back on a positive platform. Life with a chronic illness is hard. Finding ways to manage it even harder. It is the little ways we can flip our thinking or change our mentality that make or break the difference between devastation and coping.
Thanks for joining,
Leah
I also try to keep quiet when the pain gets bad, most of the time I try to keep quiet, but wear my heart on my sleeve. You can pick up pretty quick how my day is going. I also do the same mundane answer if anyone asks besides my husband how my day is going, say OK. Because it is too hard to say how some days really are, I have heard every option need to try. If do wake up cranky, lord help whoever is around, then the anxiety is worse. I do yoga when can, that is not enough, or walking. I need to get back in the swing of it. My solance is reading, FB, fibro friends, tanning, my dogs and God. I keep my humor in tact because that has saved many days of badness. XO Sheila
ReplyDeleteWhen I'm having an especially cranky day, I find if I don't express it at all, I will stay cranky, and that helps no one. So I allow myself one brief outburst to get it out of my system and then immediately focus on something else. If it is something major, I will blog about it if I can.
ReplyDeleteKeeping a sense of humor is essential to my mental health, and I sense, my husband's as well.