Tryin' to Yogacise

My motivation to start exercising again is sorely lacking. I mean I want to be the person who springs out of bed in the morning and hits the gym like it's second nature. I want my pain gone because there simply isn't enough room in my muscles for both fibro and strength. I want those firm arms and flat abs back. I want to do yoga three days a week and workout twice, like I used to when everything was going so good. I desperately want to wave a magic wand and be back to how I was before I fell apart.

But apparently I don't want it all that bad. Because I'm doing very little to make it happen. Maybe six months or so ago I decided gabapentin was the culprit that was stealing my motivation. I'd been on the drug for years, and while my dose was relatively low considering where it'd been in the past, I was still on a fair amount. It was something I had convinced myself I needed to sleep and hadn't stopped to reconsider if it was still necessary. So I weaned myself down, slowly, a step at a time, until I was on one quarter of my previous dose--barely anything at all.

Well if I thought I was taking the drug to sleep I was sorely mistaken. My sleep ease or quality didn't change a bit, but the pain in my hips and low back morphed into a monster I'd forgotten lived inside my body. Suddenly sitting was unbearable, and standing up from the sofa made me scream out in agony. Ice picks stabbed up and down my hamstrings from my booty to my calves. I felt 85. I was stiff and couldn't move. It sucked. And I was no more motivated to start exercising than I was before I reduced the dose. Maybe less so, because I hurt so bad...

So being true in my commitment to torture myself, I decided I needed seven straight days of yoga to fix this disability. Loosen up those tight muscles. Snap me back into the habit. Rediscover those neuropathways that like the agony of exercise. Because on the other side of all that pain sat the absence thereof, if memory served correct. Now I knew full well doing yoga seven times in seven days was going to push me into a flare. But I didn't care. I just wanted to be able to sit, stand, or walk without feeling like my nerves were shooting electrical currents down my legs and out my ten little toes.

Six times in seven days. I was amazed I accomplished that. Unfortunately, however, it was one of those angry flares. The kind that makes me wonder what I'm doing on the planet, taking up so much space and contributing nothing. Makes me question why on earth anyone still loves me, and how I can still love them. Makes me go nuts on Instagram when I start to read the comments section, on any page any topic, wondering why on earth everyone's so awful and stupid and mean. I started retreating down the rabbit hole again... And then it passed.

I'm still averaging yoga about once a week, as I was before my 6-times-in-7-days offensive. The pain in my hips is less, I think because my brain's pain impulses have adjusted to not having medication artificially soothe them. But not much else is different. Meaning I didn't find the key to my missing motivation. This rebuild forms the same basic structure as every other time I've come back from this mysterious ailment they call fibromyalgia: Trial and error. One step forward two steps back. And a whole hell of a lot of torture every inch of the way.

Thanks for joining,

Leah