Today’s Prompt: Word Cloud. Make a word cloud or tree with a list of words that come to mind when you think about your blog, health, or interests.
Today is the last day of the WEGO Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge. I did it! As the final post, I have created this tree in answer to the prompt… enjoy!
Today’s Prompt: Health tagline. Give yourself, your blog, your condition, or some aspect of your health a tagline. Make sure it’s catchy!
My life with Fibromyalgia, Depression and ADD.
I am participating in the Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge. Please visit WEGO Health’s blog and the WEGO Facebook page to find other writers tackling the same topics—or sign up for the challenge yourself!
Writing about my health has helped me in so many ways. When I first started this blog, I was at a very low point. I had been in pain for a very long time and just recently received confirmation that I had Fibromyalgia. I had been living with ADD and depression for a long time and the news was pretty devastating for me. Writing was very cathartic. I felt so empowered when I hit the “publish” button. Whenever I received (and I feel this way today) comments I was over the moon! There were people out there that could actually relate to what I was saying… and all of a sudden I wasn’t so alone. I have gone through some really f’ed up times. When you get down to it, those of us who have been diagnosed with any type of illness that does not have a cure or one that flares up unexpectedly (or if you have depression drops you to an all time low unexpectedly)… you have moments where you feel there is no hope.
I have sat down and written at those low moments. It gives me perspective. I know if I post a blog, there are specific folks who are always there to hold me up with their comments. When I write when I have made it through a rough patch and talk about my experience and how I got through it – I feel awesome knowing that it has helped someone. I have uplifted someone else. There really is no better feeling.
I write for myself and I write for others. Any one of you who know someone who is living with pain (physical or emotional) or if it is yourself… you know how hard it is to make it through each day. I have found with writing I may start a post with a really negative vibe. As I read and re-read it, I realize that is not the message I want to convey. I don’t want to spread negativity. The process of writing makes me realize that things are not as bad as I thought fifteen minutes ago. It’s a type of kick in the butt that I need to get out of a funk. Self-realization through writing. Wow. Crazy, but it works for me.
Thanks so much for stopping by, please leave me a comment and let me know how you are doing today.
Stay cool and hope you all are having a pain-free day!
Tamiko
So I’m sure many of you have had those hours, days or even weeks where you have the “Why Me?” syndrome. You know what I’m talking about. You are in a flare, you are depressed, you are having major foggy brain… you are just doing what you can to function and get through the day. People around do not really get what this feels like, we look normal – yet we are suffering (God I hate that word, “suffering” – don’t feel sorry for me, I just can’t think of another word). You start to question what the hell did I do to deserve this f’d up thing called Fibromyalgia? For starters… you probably worked your body and mind for years to the point where everything finally just crashed and burned. I have to believe that’s what happened to me. No, I don’t deserve it. Living with it is not fun… it’s never fun. It’s a struggle to keep my emotions in control. I challenge myself every day with staying positive, smiling and not falling down that deep dark hole of depression. Most days I win, some days I lose.
Working full-time is honestly about all I can do these days. It sucks. Every week I start working on Monday, I get to Thursday and I’m struggling by the afternoon… on Friday I’m struggling all day. Saturday I try to get up and out of the house and do something fun, sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t… Sunday ends up being a day of forced rest. It’s a cycle that I have come to know very well. I’m pretty sure I’ve written this in my blog once or twice (maybe even three times) before. I appreciate that I have a job that allows me to work from home. I don’t know what I’d do if I had to commute everyday. I am thankful for the job that I have, it’s not the job as much as it is working in general. I get resentful that it takes all my good energy. What’s left at the end of the day is like the warning message you get when your laptop/phone is about to die “Warning! 10% remaining…”. Lately I’ve had to just “shut it down” and go to bed and try again the next day. I am a professional TV viewer. Well, maybe not professional, if you ask me what I just watched I can probably tell you the name of the show, but not what happened IN the show. I’m too anxious to read, no energy to go out and a lot of the time I sit and think “what should I be doing right now?”, yet as many times as I ask myself this question, I hardly ever get an answer. It’s crazy. I should know what I want to do and how I want to spend my time, yet each day it’s the same thing.
How am I doing this week… The dreaded question… or better yet, “What’s wrong with you?”, “What’s going on with you?”, “Is something wrong?”, you get the drift. Hmmmmm, so many ways to answer that question. Yet, I can’t come up with any new material. I’ve used up all the standard answers… and yes, I’m in pain all the time… and yes, most days I am depressed and I totally get that I’m not always that responsive. I really am doing my best. My best isn’t always good enough, I get that. Thus, the “Why Me?” syndrome. I really don’t want to live like this, it’s not a choice. I’m well aware of my mental and physical state… all the time.
What does it mean to live with pain? Well, the obvious answer, to those of us living this dream life, is I need help (I apologize for the sarcasm, but this damn “Why Me?” syndrome really brings out the worst in me). I need a lot of help. I need help washing my hair, doing the laundry, cleaning the house, cooking the food, shopping, walking the dog, worst of all – driving… the list is endless. It’d be easier to answer what I don’t need help with. I need help thinking, processing information, remembering. When I’m feeling like this, I can’t remember my name sometimes. Don’t look at me like I’m crazy because I can’t remember something… I already feel crazy. It means, what takes a healthy person 30 seconds to do will sometimes take me ten times that… hell 50 times that on a really bad day.
This past week-end I decided I wanted to do some things around the house. I thought I’d surprise my husband, who was gone for the day, and do some laundry, wash the sheets and the duvet thingy. Well, I got up and did some cleaning, took all the sheets off the bed and the duvet thingy off the comforter. Did I mention I have the easiest bed to make? I did two loads of laundry and I started to make the bed when WHAM! My body was like “OHHHHH, HELL NO!! You are not going to do that!!” Awesome. The fitted sheet is on 1/2 the bed. I’m laying on top of the bed in excruciating pain. So! Now it just looks like I made a mess and I’m too lazy to make the bed (and the real topper is you can’t even tell the sheets were washed). The best intentions… I did manage to finish making the bed, but not before my husband came home. Surprise! What a fail. I was exhausted, in pain and frustrated that I couldn’t finish what I started (I did mention I have the easiest bed to make, right?). Ever had one of those days?
Annnnyyyyyhoooooo, as you can see, I’m having one of those weeks. I don’t want people to feel sorry for me. I just want to express what I’m going through. I want to know my normal is normal to others with Fibromyalgia and Depression. I want people who are in relationships with people like us to understand… you know, really get that we appreciate the help but most of all we need you to support us by understanding. Plain and simple. Understand life with FMS/Depression is what it is. We have to accept it, we want you to as well. There are no miracle cures. We may feel good today and not be able to get out of bed tomorrow. Don’t act surprised or wonder why… we have no answers. Trust me, we want answers. We want a cure. We want our independence and freedom back.
Please let me know how you are doing. Share your experiences with me. Most of all, relax.
Thanks for reading.
Stay cool!
Tamiko
2012… Damn, how did it become 2012 so fast? Aren’t cars flying in the air now? Doesn’t everyone have robots that do everything? Do we all live in space? Oh wait, that’s the Jetsons. When I was growing up I really thought that stuff would come true in my lifetime. I gotta tell you, I’m glad it didn’t! Remember how people thought the world was going to end in 20
00 and again in 2012? I’m very happy those predictions didn’t come true!
Life brings many interesting changes… smart phones and the quality of the picture in HDTV‘s much less these new fangled tv’s that are 3d? It is just insane! I watched Rise of the Planet of the Apes last night and I must say… it was really good. I also thought the first one years ago was pretty good at the time I watched it… I don’t necessarily believe re-makes are a good thing, but this movie, this change was good. Remember how you had to actually talk on the phone? Oh yeah, and the phone was connected to a wall so you also had to stand in the kitchen in most homes, unless you were lucky enough to have one in your room. I do wish many times that my children had to use those phones instead of the mobile phones… but I can’t complain about that, those mobile phones have saved me many times.
Where am I going with this? Well… like the world, like technology, like life… my conditions change. Sometimes it’s not so good, but these days I am doing okey dokey. I started back on an anti-depressant (I think I already told you), some things I have to accept. One of those is my depression is not something I am able to manage very well naturally. I felt GREAT being off all the drugs, but I started to feel really depressed. I know you all know what I mean. I talked to my doctor and we agreed it was time to get medical… I mean medicinal… you know…. back on a drug. Taking a drug, the simple fact I had to flippin’ take a drug, depressed me – but I had to accept it’s okay. It’s okay to take something to help make me not have those crazy ass thoughts that we all run away from. Okay we don’t run, most of us, because running is a bit challenging :). We all walk quickly away from (some of us have our own version of a quick walk which for perfectly fit folks may be considered a slow walk – but hey! We gotta be proud of what we can do). Let’s be real… if you have depression you just sink into these thoughts and they grow like a fog around you and it just gets thicker and thicker until you are completed consumed and you can no longer see blue skies and feel the laughter anymore. So! This is why I am taking an anti-depressant. I am taking the short life Wellbutrin and it’s all going okay. It wasn’t great when I first made this decision, I started by taking Prozac and that just made me feel like a slug with no obsessive thoughts. I switched and now I’m feeling alright. It’s all about managing and accepting change.
If you have Fibromyalgia, ADD, and/or Major Depression like I do, you should be a professional at managing change. Certainly doesn’t mean we enjoy or want change – it’s just a part of our daily lives. If we have plans and we wake up feeling like shit… well? We have to make the best of staying at home and enjoying some down time. We have tried every medical and natural cure, or better said, “fix all” out there. Each time we go through the expectations of taking something new and the outcome and reality that there is no cure today (notice I said “today”). This is managing change at its best (or worst as the glass is half full goes). Everyone with a medical condition faces these types of challenges.
I take each day as it comes and I do my best to appreciate my good days, be thankful for the awesome things in my life and accept change. This is certainly not easy. One of the awesome things I am most thankful for is my support from family (including the 4-legged ones) and friends. I have the most amazing group of folks in my life!! They are all going through their own trials, whether medical or emotional, and I only hope I can be as good to them as they are to me.
2012 is going to be another year of change. It’s going to be awesome because I am going to make it awesome. I hope you do the same.
Please let me know how you are doing, I love hearing from you!
Keep on reading and stay super cool. :)
Tamiko
We have a son in college and a daughter in middle school. Both of our kids are amazing. I thank God every day for keeping them safe and healthy. I know that there is only so much I can do in the short time I have with them before they go off on their own, only so much advice I can attempt to give.
My life as a parent is challenging living with the illnesses I have. The best I am able to do is to share my experience living with depression and ADD and try not to feel guilty for the disabilities I have with my pain (both physical and mental).
Guilt is like stress – it’s a killer. I have a lot of it when it comes to being a parent.
B.F. (Before FMS), I was a serious work-a-holic. I worked 14 sometimes 16 hour days, 7 days a week. I would literally roll out of bed and start working, drive to the office and work until late at night and drive home, check my email again and then just barely make it in the bed… sleep a few hours and do it all over again. I did this until my body broke. I went from crazy, insane drive myself to exhaustion on a daily basis to never being able to recover again because I was broken. Years later to be diagnosed with Fibromyalgia.
My children have… suffered is a strong word, but they have had to adapt to me being unavailable due to my work and then unavailable due to my pain. When I say there is guilt there, that’s an understatement. There are a lot of times when I feel like a failure simply because I can’t drive. Those people who complain about “taxi’ing” their children around have no idea what I’d do to provide that service. I see that time as a good opportunity to have 1:1 time with the kids, my husband has learned a lot in the times he has driven the kids around.
It takes a lot to work full-time and manage this crazy illness. I know a lot of people do it, this definitely helps me to have hope. But, I’m telling you – by the time Wednesday rolls around I’m starting to get very tired. Thursday? Counting the hours and on Friday! Just forget it! By late morning I can barely hang on. The week-ends are about trying to relax and not over-do it so I can start all over on Monday.
How does this work with parenting?
It’s definitely about teamwork. Although sometimes I get very jealous. My husband does it all… he cooks for the family, he transports, he does the shopping, he is the “go to” guy in the house. I know I shouldn’t be jealous, but I want to be that person… I want to be the “go to” gal. The problem is, I’m in no condition to do what he does. I’m unreliable. I’m inconsistent. At the end of the day, literally, my husband really IS the guy. If it wasn’t for him this family wouldn’t function.
Reconciling these emotions that I have is tough. How can I be upset when everyone is being taken care of? I should not be complaining, I should be happy. It’s a blessing. At the root of all this, I want to contribute. Practically and emotionally. Not being physically or mentally able to do this kills me. I feel guilty that I am not able to do more, that I didn’t make the choice to do more when I was working all those hours. Like I said… guilt is a killer. I can’t let it win.
I know, in my heart, that my children love me. I know that my working provides for the family. I know that I can’t do it all or, a lot of the times, even more than what I do. It’s up to me to accept who I am today and constantly strive to be a better and good person. I know God has a defined plan for all of us. All of this, I know. But still, I struggle with the constant roller coaster of feeling okay, feeling great, feeling okay, feeling like shit, feeling okay, feeling great! That roller coaster creates a lot of frustrating emotions and wreaks havoc on any kind of planning in my life. This makes it tough to be an active participant in the family, hell it makes it tough to be an active participant in LIFE.
The pain, mental and physical, is not a small issue in parenting. I can’t expect my kids to know what I’m going through and how it affects my behaviour and communication. It’s not their responsibility to figure it out, they have their own lives to lead. It’s up to me to do a better job of communicating and work on patience and mastering mindfulness thoughts.
Don’t let the pain win, right? Mindful meditation, prayer, yoga… all these things are helping me make it through. We have all had and will continue to have challenges that we face, it’s all in how we face them to get to the other side.
As always, I’d love to hear your comments. Thanks for stopping by!
Stay super cool!
Tamiko
my foggy brain 