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My Best Friend Self Sabotage

I really try hard not to curse… especially when I blog. But for goodness sake the shit that has been going on in my body has been uncool. I mean I understand what I have… I get that pain is a part of my life… FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE (and I’m not yelling at you, just yelling in general). My level of frustration is pretty damn high right now… can you tell?

There’s a lot going on… many stressful events surround me and I’m trying to take it one day a a time. My best friend at the moment goes by the name of Self Sabotage. Are you familiar with her? She’s a real bitch. She follows me around all the time and she’s super bossy! I try to get away from her, but one way or another she’s always creeping up on me. Needless to say, she’s standing in between me and my well being. I tried to kick her ass out of my life a couple times, but she always catches me when I’m down and for reasons I don’t really understand she lifts me up just enough to make it look like she’s helping (for example when I ate that big ice cream bar the other day). Even as I write this I can feel her sitting right beside me… ugh.

I took a couple days off over Labor Day weekend so I could have a nice 5 day break from work. Guess what I did the entire time? Yup, you guessed it… nothing. I will honestly say I don’t think I have experienced that level of pain in years. From the Friday I took off until the Tuesday I attempted to go back to work, I could barely get from the couch to the bathroom…. my husband reminded me that every time I take one of these long weekends to relax, my body decides otherwise.

It’s exhausting. I am exhausted. I can feel myself slipping down that f’d up black hole and I’m clawing at the edges to not fall in. Normally I don’t want to write when I’m feeling this way, but today I felt like it would help. As I sit here and think about what’s going on in the world… honestly? I am one person in a world of wars, hurricanes, earthquakes, racism, ignorance, intolerance…. the list of horrible, tragic shit is endless. When I put my life into perspective I realize that what I have is absolutely fucking awesome. Way to turn it around, huh? I have to tell you… sometimes it takes stopping my life, sitting at my desk and writing to stop feeling sorry for myself and be thankful. That really just happened, I sat down not feeling very grateful and after thinking about it I realized how wrong I am.

I have to interrupt this blog and tell you… I am definitely being tested, as I am sitting here I’m hearing this drip drip drip from across the room and I’m thinking it’s the humidifier doing it’s thing… it’s definitely doing it’s thing. I got up to take a look and it basically drained all over my dresser… a full tank of water. I’m being tested.

Anyway! I could definitely fall down that black hole with all the crap going on in my life but at the end of the day I still have my family. I have my friends and we have a roof over our heads which is a lot more than a lot of people right now. I AM BLESSED (I’m still not yelling at you, but I’d love to be on top of a mountain yelling this at the top of my lungs)!!

I am in pain… I am depressed… and… I am blessed. I can take the bad as long as there is good and I thank God for all the blessings in my life.

If you are feeling down, please take a moment to stop and remind yourself of all the blessings in your life. It doesn’t mean your life isn’t hard, it just means it’s maybe a little better than you first thought. Take a step forward with me and kick that bitch Self Sabotage out of your life and start new. Every day brings you another new opportunity to try again… in fact, every decision you have to make is another new opportunity to make Self Caring your new BFF. We will stumble (trust me… I have fallen down enough times to make it from the top of Mt. Everest to the very, very bottom), but at some point you will get that mean girl out of your friend circle. I will start tonight by not eating that donut… damn, and it sounded so good too!

I am so thankful that I you have stopped by today. Please have a pain-free day.

I love to hear from you, please take a moment to leave a comment.

Gentle hugz,

Tamiko

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Where Do You Go for Inspiration?

Warning! You may be tired of the word “inspire” by the time you get to the end of this post…

There is a lot of bad, uncomfortable, messed up shit going on out there in the world. Current events sometimes make it hard to see the good in people and looking into the future can be pretty scary.

Finding inspiration is not easy… but for me these days I don’t have to look far.

My son moved into his own place and let me tell you… his spot in no way compares to the 450 sq foot studio that was my first apartment (and I’m not counting my actual first place away from home). His first weekend out, we all went over to Ikea and I watched him pick out and buy furniture for the first time… and then? I watched as he and my husband put it together. For those of you that have gone through this, you know watching a father and son work together like this is a memory I won’t soon forget. For all the years that we battled while he was growing up… to get to the point where we are now…WOW! I can remember in those early years wondering what our relationship would be like once he became an adult… He is the most intuitive, forgiving, selfless person I have ever met. The decisions and changes he has made since he graduated from college… inspiring.

My daughter has had one heck of a freshman year. Through the challenges and experiences she has had over the last 5 months, she inspires me with her resilience. It can’t be easy being so far away from home, and although she has made a lot of great friends, it’s not the same as being at home with her lifelong besties. Yet she does what she has to, to be successful. And she has been rewarded for her hard work with some amazing opportunities.

I know I say it a lot, but even if I said it every day… shouted from the mountain tops… it would never be enough…  I AM BLESSED TO HAVE THIS AWESOME FAMILY AND FRIENDS!!!. They inspire me all the time. My mom is dealing with health issues that are much more taxing than what I go through every day, yet she makes it work… and her life story alone inspires me. I know we are supposed to raise our children to be better than we are… but it will take me a lifetime to be better than her. I guess that’s the point…

My dad has decided to share his story in the Japanese internment camps by going and speaking at churches, schools and local events. He’s the last of a generation that is living to tell this story. The people who have come to his presentations will walk away learning about something that we never want to see again.

I have watched my parents make a difference in so many people’s lives over the years, I can remember moments growing up when I was jealous of how generous they were of their time with other people. Yet they taught me to be just like them… and it’s one of the things I am most proud of. So inspiring!

My friends who have overcome the deepest, most incredibly sad losses in their lives. They amaze me with how they managed to carry on. It wasn’t easy, but their ability to work through the pain to become stronger individuals is so inspiring to me.

My husband who every day takes care of me. He inspires me to keep going. He teaches me how important it is to live life and not just let it pass by. He pushes me to be creative and works damn hard so I don’t go down that black hole of depression… You know as well as I do that sometimes nothing can stop the spiraling, but the fact that he tries means so much to me.

I could go on and on. Just sitting here writing this makes me see, once again, how blessed I am. What inspires you? I will bet that if you just sit right where you are and take a moment to think about the people around you today or those that have crossed paths in your life, you will feel just as inspired as I do.

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Yachats, OR… if you look close at this photo, with a little bit of positivity, you can see a heart in the ground!

I had someone tell me the other day how inspired they were by my ability to work through my pain. She wasn’t feeling well herself and she found herself thinking about what I must go through and it seemed to give her the strength to keep working. She has no idea what her words meant to me. For those of you with chronic pain, you know it’s rare for people to recognize how difficult our lives can be. Just the recognition and understanding for how challenging it is every day… that was inspiring to me!

I have been meaning to blog for the past few weeks. It’s important to stay positive and keep moving forward. With every reason to be negative and down these days, I need to remember the good. I hope this lifted your spirits a bit.

Be inspired! Best wishes for a pain-free day.

Gentle hugz.

Tamiko

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It’s December… Give Yourself a Break!

where-does-the-time-goHappy December!!!!! Wow, where the heck has the time gone? For 11 months this little voice in my head said, “You need to start working on your Christmas list so you don’t have to rush in December and make yourself crazy and stressed out.“. I mean I honestly had this little voice talking to me almost every day… while at the same time this big booming voice responded with, “December is so far away you have plenty of time!“. Awesome. Well, guess who won. That big booming voice is so annoying.

It’s December and here I am, with a ton of projects to complete and… wellllllll….. I started three weeks ago. Brilliant! I mean, I haven’t been feeling great a lot this past year but that just goes without saying. How many really good days do we have on a continuous basis? I can usually get through a couple days and then I have a couple days that aren’t great. And seriously… it’s been a crazy year!

Kiyomi comes home today… YES! This kid away at college thing is great for them… freedom, free room and board, lots of free time… a lot of “free” going on. For me? Not so much FREE happening and my mini me is no longer here to hang out with and let’s be honest… she helps me with a lot. I am still trying to get used to the quiet. I am not sure I will ever stop missing the sounds of all the laughter from her and her friends. I can’t wait to hear those sounds again in the coming weeks!

The college experience hasn’t been all awesomeness. When your baby calls to tell you someone yelled an ugly racist name at her… on top of the national news of the law professor who dressed in black face and then the kids running around in black face on campus… it’s not so awesome. As a parent who is 9 1/2 hours away by car, you basically send an email to a bunch of people with “President” in the title and jump in the car and go support your baby. There’s nothing more important than ensuring your child feels safe… and IS safe! Well, the campus has a long way to go towards dealing with the race issues overall, but they have done an okay job helping Kiyomi. It takes time.

There’s that word again… time. Everything takes time. It’s so hard for someone like me who has the patience of … well I have no patience. I fully admit I have no patience and the anxiety doesn’t help at all. I’m not going to blame anxiety for all of it… I’m just going to blame anxiety for NOT MAKING IT EASIER! You know what I mean. Anxiety is always instigating, I swear it’s telling my body things like, “Make her sweat… good! Now make her heart race… great! Now let’s see…. what can we do to really make her want to scream at someone for making her stand in this long line… hmmmmmm, how about make her stomach hurt really bad!!! Yeah!!! That’s the one!! Perfection!“.  Thank you Anxiety. After all that, if I fall into Anxiety’s trap (which really doesn’t happen very often) and kind of lose it, Depression pushes Anxiety away and stands tall. Depression is always lurking around. Depression likes to remove all the color from my life and turn everything grey. Ironic that I always tend to go for clothes with grey. You gotta love mental illness! Okay you don’t have to love it, but you do have to live with it… so learn how to manage it so it doesn’t take over your life and control it. I am learning every day.

I am all over the place this morning. What else is new? Don’t get me started with ADD… hahahahahaha! Squirrel!

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Buddy’s To Do List

I really just wanted to say to all of you out there who are dealing with pain, wh\ether it’s physical or mental or like me both, the holidays are very difficult for us. Let’s get through it together. Give yourself a break. You may not get through your long ass to do list. Let folks know that their gifts may be late this year… that although you’d love to, you can’t join every event… that this year, you are doing your very best to make sure you are healthy and happy so you can enjoy the holidays with family and friends. We don’t want to just give presents, we want to be present. Being present is the hardest thing for me. My mind is always racing with all the things that I need to do… I’d love to actually be present in the moment and enjoy it. That’s my challenge for December.

I have made it this far. We made it through Kiyomi’s senior year in high school, the search for the perfect prom dress, the search for the perfect college, the search for the perfect dorm stuff and the start of the freshman year in college a state away. If I can make it through the search for a perfect prom dress, I believe I can make it through December. :)

I’m off to get ready for another beautiful day. Thank you for dropping by!

Gentle hugz.

Tamiko

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Do you remember playing these machines? this is what the inside of my head looks like!!

P.S. Okay I read through this a couple times and it truly is all over the place…  in the end I will leave it as is. It will give you a tiny glimpse (that is such a strange word) of how my mind works. It’s like a pinball bouncing around from thought to thought… and as a matter of fact it’s already moved on to stressing out about needing to pack for this business trip I’m leaving for in the morning. Oh yeah! Did i mention that I have to travel to the east coast for business for five days? Well, I’ll leave that little piece of information for the next time we meet.

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Be Blessed… Accepting Your Limitations

Soooooooo…. another doctor’s appointment come and gone and once again I left the office with no answers. Today I went to the audiologist to see if there was any reason why I have this constant high pitch tone flowing through my head 24×7. OF COURSE I waited many, many months before going in… and OF COURSE I left with the same answers I have 90% of the time I go into the doctor’s office… and that is OF COURSE — NO ANSWERS!! Oh wait, I did get one answer… a referral back to my PCP. Woohoo!! Well, let me find the positive in this. I do not have any loss of hearing. And trust me, no sarcasm… I do appreciate that something is working the way it is supposed to! There’s a positive for every negative, right?

What a time in our lives… our daughter is graduating from high school in about six weeks. Damn. SIX WEEKS!! (I have no idea why I am using so many caps, I’m really not trying to yell at you.) I forget how much is involved with these graduations. We are in the process of selecting a college. When I say “we”, I actually mean “she” with a little help from us. She just had her senior prom… she’s planning a senior trip… we are planning her graduation party… senior pictures… college commitment/ housing/ budgeting… CALGONNNNNNNNNNNNNNN take me AWAYYYYYY!!!!!! (only those of you that are on the older side will remember that commercial… here’s a link for your viewing pleasure.)

IMG_4270It’s times like this when I tend to forget I am not physically able to do it all. For every one busy day, I tend to have two days where I’m down. Lately it’s been a lot more down days, than able days. We drove up to Eugene, OR to check out the University of Oregon. An amazing campus. The drive up was very nice, but sitting in the car is not easy for long periods of time. We knew it was going to be tough so we made several stops along the way… we took our time. Accepting my limitations in this instance made all the difference. When we arrived in Eugene, I was doing okay. Whew! The next day, however, was a bit trickier. We had scheduled a tour of the campus for 10:00am. We arrived early so we wouldn’t be stressed out, again planning in advance… what we couldn’t plan for was how fast the walking tour was. This tour guide was very enthusiastic. To make things even more challenging it was very cold outside. So just picture a very brisk walk for 90 minutes in and out of buildings, up and down stairs and in the cold… This is where I tend to not speak up. I don’t want to be a burden or slow a group down so I stayed the course and I made it through. I was really proud that I made it. The rest of that day IMG_9659and the next morning… MAN DOWNNNN!!!! What can I say? I did my best and we actually accomplished everything we wanted to. We just did it in our own time and tried not to stress. We made it home and I was able to rest up for a couple days before going back to work today.

I know there’s a lot coming in the next couple months. I just have to keep reminding myself that it’s okay to ask for help and it’s okay if everything is not 100% perfect. It will be the best we have to offer and as far as everyone is concerned it will still be great! The thing is… it’s not about me. It’s so easy sometimes to just get all engrossed in how crappy I feel, I have to remind myself that it really is NOT about me 99% of the time. It helps to remember that although I am in pain and struggling with depression/anxiety… it could always be worse. Like I could be losing my hearing!

It really has been a rough year. I have struggled with my depression/anxiety a lot this year. For one reason or another, my flares are closer and closer together and they seem to last longer. I know I can do better with taking care of myself, but as you all know, it’s damn frustrating living like this. To have a week without any kind of pain would be amazing. To be able to take time off work for vacation and not be sick… what a concept!

Listen, I realize each day is a challenge living with Fibromyalgia and Depression and Anxiety and Essential Tremor and GERD and ADD and… oh wait, sorry, lost my train of thought. Anyway! I realize every day is a challenge living with all the crap we live with, but we just have to remind ourselves to accept our limitations and remind ourselves of the blessings we have each day.

Which leads me to … I am still journaling every day! I haven’t missed a day without snapping a picture or journaling. There have been a few days where I have just put a picture because I was too sick to do any more than that… but I have kept up the practice of journaling every day! Find something that helps you think about the positive in your life. As I look back through the pictures I have snapped since the first of the year, I can’t help but smile.

Thank you so much for stopping by and please have a blessed day!

Gently hugz…

Tamiko

 

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Welcome 2016!! Hello Happiness!!

 

Stress takes a toll… relationships… health… sleep… diet… PAIN!! Stress takes a toll.

What do you do when you are stressed? Me? Some days I manage well… other days? Not so much…

2015 was full… I mean FULL of stress and challenging times on a personal level (honestly… what would it be if not personal)? I can take classes, read  books, gather tips and best practices for managing stress… but the problem is, as many of you well know… you actually have to PRACTICE those things that one learns. WTH? No magic pill? No snap of my fingers? No twitch of my nose? Damn! I actually have to work to make it WORK.

Every year I write down my goals… each year, kinda the same thing. I want this year to be different. I want this year to be better. I will do better. I will set and achieve my goals. No more, “I will lose 50 pounds in one month.” … maybe something like, “I will exercise once a week.“… (damn, even that sounds hard to me… Crazy!! Full confession… I don’t exercise at all right now, so exercising once a week is going to be very challenging). Maybe I will set goals to achieve each month. For examplgoalschangesm.jpge, in January I could… eat less sugar! Hmmmm I need specific achievable goals… so in January I will reduce my sugar intake by not eating sugar 1 day in week 1, 2 days in week 2, 3 days in week 3… that will be damn hard, but changing fro
m bad to good habits isn’t meant to be easy. Accountability! (I really need to figure out a better word to use as my mantra.) Most important…  I will do my best to be happy about small successes.

That’s a challenge in itself. Being happy. For those of you with depression, you know exactly what I mean. Happiness does not come naturally for me, it requires me to take meds and accept things and not be sad or down about shit, not get upset – I am super envious of people who are able to “take things in stride”. What the hell is that anyway? How does one do that? What’s the key to happiness? I’m quite sure it all goes back to exercise, eating right and acceptance. It’s everything. These three things solve stress, pain, depression, anxiety, self-confidence, self-esteem… the list is infinite! These three things. Exercise. Diet. Acceptance. Three words. How can there be so much behind three words?

Wouldn’t it be awesome if I had one of those believe it and you will do it minds? Well… I don’t. I have one of those… “Jussssssttttt one more See’s candy… I deserve it!” minds. “CALLING ALL SELF CONTROL TO THE FRONT OF MY MIND!! … PLEASE … COME TO THE FRONT OF MY MIND!!” Wait.. what? It’s gone in hiding? Can’t find it? Damn thing is never around when I need it. I really have to work on that. Self Control has to replace “I deserve it!” as my BFF… that’s going to be a hard one. My current “I deserve it!” BFF has a box of See’s candy in one hand with a Nordstrom bag on her shoulder and the remote control to the TV in the back pocket and of course, an “I will start tomorrow on… (you fill in the blank)” attitude! Replacing her is going to be tough… I mean I have to kick her to the curb HARD to make this work.

Well welcome Self Control to 2016 and g’bye “I deserve it!“!

I hope you are saying hello to all good things this year and g’bye to the bad.

A big gentle hug and I wish you all the happiness, good fortune and pain-free/ improved health in 2016!!

I leave you with one of my favorite pictures of 2015… Three generations! Happy new year!!

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Tamiko

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My Foggy Brain… Awarded Healthline’s Best Fibromyalgia Blog of the Year Award!!

It’s an amazing honor. I checked my blog over the week-end and I noticed my stats were off the charts… My initial thought was that the spam was completely out of control. As I took a closer look at the referrals,  I realized that http://www.healthline.com awarded my blog one of the best of 2014… for the 3RD YEAR IN A ROW!!!! WOOHOO!!!! It’s awesome. It’s amazing. It’s super cool. It’s so many things to me, I can’t believe it. I’m honored.

Please take a moment to visit all the blogs awarded this year: http://www.healthline.com/health-slideshow/best-fibromyalgia-blogs#1

Thank you for supporting me all these years.

15 Best Fibromyalgia Blogs of the Year

15 Best Fibromyalgia Blogs of the Year