Mental health

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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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Fibromyalgia at Fifty!

50… wow. I can’t believe that I am 50. I can’t believe how quickly the last 50 years have gone by. Damn! I have to make my life better. I realized lately that I spend a lot of time living for another day or another moment. On Sunday, my mind is stressing about having to start work Monday morning. During the week… “Lord have mercy, when will this week be over.”. On Thursday, I’m thinking… “Just one more day…”. There’s a lot of, “I can’t wait until… XYZ“. When that moment or day arrives, my mind has already moved on. I really envy people who can just live for the moment. I want to train my brain to enjoy the now. In order to do that I have to somehow shut my brain off. It’s constantly processing… whether it’s curiosity about something going on 5 feet from me or thinking about a project at work or what will I do when I retire or what are my kids doing right now or what should I eat… I mean seriously. I could have kept typing until my fingers got numb because my mind started going 100 mph just thinking about what I think about!! Oh man, you have really entered into my world… Danger! Danger! Warning! Get out as fast as you can!! Once you enter this crazy ass place, I’m not sure if there’s a way out. At least I haven’t found a way out yet.

I keep looking at myself and thinking, when am I going to grow up? I have so much growing to do mentally… although I am pretty confident I way overachieved on the growing physically so maybe that’s why my mental side is so far behind. I used to be so independent and able. With all this medical bullshit, I have lost my way. The last few months have been really hard for me. Sidebar, how many times do I say that? I feel like I say that all the time… “The last few months have been really hard for me.” It’s as if I want to believe that it really has only been the last few months, when in fact it’s been so flippin’ long I can’t remember what feeling good feels like. If you ask me how I’m doing, I will give you the standard, “I’m good” or “I’m alright” or “I’m fine”. I’m not. I’m not any of those things, I’m feeling like shit… a lot… end of sidebar. Anyway, I have not only lost my way in general, I also got completely caught up with that sidebar. (I did warn you in the first paragraph that my brain was a scary place.)

Well… maybe I should start taking my own advice. OUCH! Damn! That really hurts to say that. I mean, I’m great at giving advice, but taking it? Crazy talk. I recently advised my daughter what she should do to sleep better. On another day I advised her on keeping a food journal so she can get a picture of what she’s putting into her body. I am always telling her what she should do when she’s stressed or angry… do I do any of those things? Welllllllll, I definitely do some of them, but for the most part… Not really. It’s hard! It’s really hard to make healthy choices. This is a typical conversation I have with myself…

Smart brain: “You should exercise today.“

Emotional Me: “Hmmmmmm, I am in a lot of pain, I’m thinking maybe later… how about some coffee?“

Smart brain: “Caffeine is not good for you and that shit you put in it to make it taste good is really not good for you.” (although the word good shows up a lot in that sentence, we all know there’s nothing good about this train of thought)

Emotional Me: “Just this once… last time, seriously, this will be the last time. I really want to be healthy” (followed by a cup of coffee and a carb)

A couple of hours later…Emotional Me, “I’m hungry.” (followed by me standing in front of the open refrigerator or cupboard)

Smart brain: “You should eat something healthy… and before you pick something to eat… take a moment to answer this question, are you hungry or are you bored?“

Emotional Me: “Screw you, I deserve to eat whatever I want.”

It’s basically all downhill from there. Sentences that start with “I deserve… ” come up a lot in my mind when it comes to food. Well, trust me, I have “DESERVED” (she says with a very sarcastic tone) a whole lot because as I said earlier, I way overachieved on the physical side of growing up! I need to come up with a better reward system in my mind. (Preferably one that doesn’t involve spending money or else I just open myself up to a different problem!)

I am a pre-diabetic 50-year-old woman with Fibromyalgia, Depression, ADD, Essential Tremor, GERD, Anxiety, IBS… shit I’m stopping there, that’s enough disclosure for one blog post. Why was I saying that? Oh yeah, I said all that because with all that going on, if today is not a good day to start getting healthy, what will it take? Do I really want to go to the doctor and be told I am diabetic? No.. no I don’t.  I definitely don’t want to hear that come out of my doctor’s mouth. I think I have heard her say enough already.

Today… right now, this very moment. This needs to be the moment I start taking better care of myself. I have a goal of 5,000 steps a day. (Don’t judge, I barely hit that once a week.) How about if I challenge myself to hit that 3 x a week? It’s not much, but it’s a good start. I actually went the entire month of April without any desserts/ sweets… then May hit and let’s just say, I didn’t just fall off the wagon, I think I fell off and have been getting dragged behind it for weeks. I’m telling you… as I write this, right this second, my emotional side has already started the fight. It’s telling me to go cut a slice of that chocolate cake in the fridge and eat it… it’s basically screaming at me to go do it. Bitch. Why do I have chocolate cake in my fridge you say? Because the other night I craved it so bad, my husband went out and surprised me with it. I will overcome that stupid Emotional Me and make better choices. I should not let my emotions influence my decisions. It never ends well when I do that.

I will choose to eat healthier. I will choose to move more during the day. I will choose to live in the moment and not worry about tomorrow. I will have faith that tomorrow will work itself out. I’m not in control of it anyway. I will think positive  thoughts. I will meditate to calm my brain. I will believe in myself. I will be healthy. I have to believe that with hard work the outcome will be less pain, less depression, less digestive issues.

My moment starts right now. I can do this. And now that I’ve said it out loud (or written it for all to see), I hope I can come back with some results in a future post.

Before I go, I want to say a huge thanks to Healthline for including me in the Best Fibromyalgia Blogs of the Year for the 6th year in a row!! It’s an amazing honor to receive this recognition. Take a moment to go check out the other blogs on the list.

Thank you so much for stopping by today. I wish you a pain-free day and feel free to join me in this quest for better health.

Gentle hugz.

Tamiko

PS. My girlfriend gave me a beautiful bouquet of flowers for my birthday. In the bouquet were these ginormous peonies. When these flowers start to open up and bloom, you really have to pay attention because it all happens in a day or two and once the flower opens up, the period of time to enjoy it is very short. This is what I mean by living in the moment. I put the bouquet right next to my desk so I could enjoy the beauty of these amazing flowers. Now you can enjoy them too!

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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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The View From My Room

I can’t believe it… it’s really been since May that I wrote my last post. Hmmmm…. Well, there goes another goal for the year that I’ll miss! Although I must say, I actually have a good reason behind all this. Since my last post it’s been non-stop crazy… whether we are getting ready for graduation or preparing for college, this weekend is the first time I really feel like I have been able to sit back and relax.

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View from her dorm room!

Where has the time gone? First we had high school graduation and all the stuff that goes along with it. Except this time, with my new found sewing skills… I decided to make laundry bags and book bags and towel wraps for Kiyomi and her friends for college. It was a lot of fun, don’t get me wrong – but also a lot of work with defined dates everything had to be done by! The best part of all this was the time spent with friends while sewing. It was a learning experience, but one filled with laughter, great conversation and, of course, good food! The end result was I learned a lot and had some nice hand made gifts for some wonderful kids.

The college preparation experience entailed finding the perfect comfortor set (which took many, many weeks), the rain boots we promised her if she decided to go to Eugene… and all sorts of required dorm decorations, clothes, etc. We atttended orientation… or IntroDucktion as they call it at the University of Oregon… a great experience, but really brought home how much closer we were getting to her leaving… and then over the summer as her friends were leaving (or preparing for leaving) for school – each day and night became “the last XXX…” get together. So we saw her less than any other time of her life. I think I started missing her  the day she graduated.

img_6043All this to get to this weekend. We drove up on Tuesday and moved her into her dorm room on Wednesday. The move-in process was more work than I thought it would be… it wasn’t bad, just took a lot out of me. Times like this always remind me of all the crap I have. The pain, the digestive issues, the mental bullshit… it all just hits me at once. I go into these events thinking… “I got this!!” and halfway through my pain starts rearing its ugly head. I told my husband my body was basically saying, “what the hell do you think YOU’RE doing??”… and then proceeded to remind me whose boss – and apparently it’s not my desire to get shit done that’s boss. Although I did fight it for many hours before finally giving in.

We had lunch on Thursday, she jumped out of the car and Ray and I drove over to the coast. We are staying in the most awesome hotel (the Fireside Motel in Yachats). We have an oceanfront room (something we have never done before) and have just stayed in the room all day watching the waves or listening to the waves while we read/ write. It’s a little slice of heaven. I had no idea how exhausted I was until we got here and sat down to watch the sunset. We had all these plans to sightsee… and then… we both decided to just do nothing. We have gone out for some yummy dinners – but stayed in our room and just had snacks during the day. I am having the time of my life!

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View from our room!

What have I learned? Okay i didn’t “learn” this… I was reminded (very loudly) to listen to my body. In times like this, how about if I don’t self sabotage and eat all bad shit… treat my body with respect. I feel like I was on a mission to spiral down in anticipation of letting Kiyomi go. Stupid.

It’s a privilege to be healthy enough to travel to this place. We drove up to our room and walked the 15 feet from the car through our room to the outside deck. The first thought that came to mind was… “This place is perfect for my mom!!”, but she isn’t feeling well enough to travel like this anymore. I need to be on a mission to feel good! I’m on my way… this place we are staying at, the sound of the ocean, surrounded by this beauty – it’s time to move to the next phase in our lives. Healthy is a good place to be and it’s my new goal!! I should go for a walk on the beach now… hmmmmm… maybe in an hour. One step at a time. :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Tamiko

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Happy Fibromyalgia Awareness Day!

Today is Fibromyalgia Awareness Day. For me, it’s a reminder of how far I have come since I was diagnosed. From that day (let’s call it D-Day) many years ago to today the amount of resources and information available at your fingertips is infinitely better. I remember going to the bookstore every month or two and literally purchasing every book there was available on Fibromyalgia… I couldn’t get enough information. These days I am not such a voracious reader of the subject. I just live my life to the best of my ability… it’s a part of me. I realize I will have this for the rest of my life and for the most part I have accepted it.

There have been days (like yesterday) where I get so frustrated I want to walk away from this life and just keep walking into the sunset never to return. Seriously?? How far would I get? After about 1000 steps I’d have to call someone to come pick me up and ask them to drive me into the sunset… which defeats the purpose… and takes away all the dramatic effect. But you get it. It’s like Day 90 of feeling like shit every other day.

Disney-Pixar-Inside-OutHmmmmm… could it be the stress? There is a lot of that to go around. I know what I should (and shouldn’t) be doing. I have all the information and tools at my fingertips but I am struggling with the motivation. I have no energy… did you see that movie Inside Out? Sadness has taken over… Anger and Fear are fighting to take over. Where the hell is Joy?? She needs to find her strength and come out of hiding.

There’s so much going on in my head all the time I can’t remember having a moment of quiet. I know part of my frustration these day is the constant high pitch tone that never goes away. I lie down at night and there it is. I wake up in the morning and it’s like “Good MornEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE…” and it never gets to the ‘NG’.  I’m like, JUST FINISH THE DAMN WORD! How hard is it? Good MornING, say it with me… GOOD MORN-ING!!! And then I realize I am yelling at myself… in my head… and I have only just woke up. Wow. And for a few moments Disgust walks in and just shakes her head. But this high pitch sound… it’s stuck, like a needle skipping on a record player (remember those? God I miss my old stereo with a record player and tape deck!). If I could just pick up the damn needle and stop the madness… andddddd let’s give a warm welcome to the latest diagnosis to join my life… Tinnitus!! (I really tried to slam the door in the face of this most recent guest, but Tinnitus just planted themselves on the doorstep and wouldn’t leave… RUDE!)

When I got out of bed this morning… that’s the other thing, when did 5am become my normal wake up time? Geez how easily am I distracted this morning!! Anyway… when I got out of bed this morning I thought about how it’s Fibromyalgia Awareness Day and I thought it’d be a great day to remind folks of the Tools and Resources out there. There are a lot and I quite honestly haven’t searched for new sites lately… but here’s a reminder to check out what I have found and feel free to share what your favorites are. I also have some tools that I have created that you are welcome to use:

It is a day of celebration! Fibromyalgia can be overcome… it’s frustrating and obviously very painful, but it’s not a death sentence. Do better than me! Eat right, exercise your body and mind and most important… laugh, smile… find your blessings throughout your day and be grateful. Today I am grateful that the medical field is more accepting that Fibromyalgia should be treated by a medical doctor, not a psychiatrist. It’s not in your head people, this is real. I am grateful for my family, my friends and the wonderful weather. I am grateful for those of you that have taken the time to read my post today.

I wish you all a pain free day. Be blessed!

Gentle hug,

Tamiko