I thought it might be nice to post an update on how I’m doing now, generally. The short answer is that I’m about the same. I have good days and bad days. My sleep is inconsistent. I will have a full night’s sleep one night, and then the next night, I might sleep three hours (that happened Sunday night. Yuck!) I’d say that right now, my average sleep duration is about 5.5 hours. Not great, but I can function. My other symptoms are being managed. I’m relying on cannabis more than I’d like to. (I lose a lot of productivity when I’m high, and I don’t like that.) Despite that, it does help with my pain and sleep, so I deal with it.
Mentally, I’m doing really well. My depression and anxiety are being quiet and mostly leaving me alone right now. I will have a depressive episode now and then, but it usually doesn’t last more than a day, and I’m always aware of what’s happening, so I can adjust my schedule and behavior accordingly. I have not had particularly bad anxiety since we went to the Cape this past Fall. (I had two panic attacks back to back when we rented bikes. It was nuts.) I know what my triggers are, so I’m able to avoid those most of the time.
I’m currently doing shadow work, which has been very good for me. I’ve done a lot of healing, and oddly enough, I’ve been enjoying the process. I know what kinds of things are too big for me to handle on my own, so if I come across those things, I will work with a therapist. I’m very fortunate, in that I do not have any major childhood trauma. That said, I haven’t been on this path for long, so I don’t know what could come up. I just know that I’ve lived a fairly safe life, which is both good and bad. I space out my sessions, and I’m using a workbook that makes the process fairly easy. There’s a lot that has come up around forgiveness (me forgiving others,) so I will be doing a forgiveness ritual later this week. It’s a way of forgiving people to whom I can no longer actually speak and releasing those energy patterns and old emotions. I’ve done one before, many years ago, and it is very healing.
Other aspects of my physical health are fine. My hypertension hasn’t changed, except that I was off my medication for several months, because my BP seemed to have normalized, but then in February, it spiked like crazy, so I’m back on that medication. I had some sort of infection (multiple,) but they did not appear to be serious and were treated. Whatever that was caused my BP to spike. Luckily, I didn’t have any kind of emergency. Other than that, I’m awaiting my appointment with the sleep specialist in August (unless there’s a cancellation sooner,) and I have my semi-annual (annual?) wellness check over the Summer.
Emotionally, other than my occasional depressive and anxious episodes, I’m doing really well. My husband and I are very social, so we’re always seeing people, and during his recovery, I’ve been more active in taking care of the farm. Last weekend, my friends and I did some cleanup up in the woods (clearing a path.) I paid for it the next day, but it was worth it! For a while, I was taking care of bringing firewood up to the house from the wood shed. I actually didn’t have any problem with that or end up paying for it.
I really can’t complain! Every day is still a big question mark, because fibro is like that, but I at least have a strategy for getting sleep on nights when I have to get up early or be able to function the next day. (Flexeril. It doesn’t work for me if I use it every night, but if I have a day coming up where I have appointments or something else going on, I take it, and nine times out of ten, it works really well.) So not only am I in a pretty good place right now, I’m learning how to work around my disability, and that is a win!
Sounds like you are in a pretty good place—I’m so glad. The push-me pull-you about “owning” disability is making space for acknowledging that it sucks while at the same time saying, “I am doing okay right now” and meaning it. ❤️