I've always been a positive person. I know the last few weeks I haven't been, but for most of my life I look for the light in everything. My mom taught me this, and her mother taught her. It is a quality that I am proud to have. Even at my lowest I tried to laugh, to smile, to find someway to make myself feel that I've accomplished something. In the last few weeks I forgot how to laugh, to smile, to be okay. This happens, it is allowed to happen. I'm only human. The support of my husband, family and friends helped me to get out of that funk, or at least it started the process.
I was giving advice to my sister-in-law the other day and that's when I realized I wasn't following my own advice. I needed to start feeling accomplished again. I had been stuck in bed, stressed, nothing going right. I wasn't motivated to do anything. My sis-in-law has her own medical issues that make her bedridden a lot and I could see myself in her. I felt for her because that's how I used to feel when I was first diagnosed with my MdDS, and I was starting to feel that way again. The advice I gave her was some that my husband gave me when he gave me that infamous swift kick last August. I need to get back to basics. I need to start over.
So, how does one get back on track to positivity?
I wake up each morning and get out of bed, even if I'm dizzy, nauseated, sick. Even if I'm only moving to the couch, I get out of my bed, out of my room. This makes sure that I wake up and start to move my body around, it wakes up my brain. I stretch to wake up my muscles. Focused stretching actually helps clear some of my dizzy spells and even some of my nausea. I don't go all kinds of yoga & pilates because I'm not that balanced anymore, especially on my bad days. On my good days I'll pull out some old ballet steps, but usually I do floor stretching. If I'm on the floor, then I can't fall, right?
My next step is to come up with a goal. It can be small or big, one or multiple, just depending on how I'm feeling that morning. It could be doing one load of dishes, one load of laundry, clean a bathroom. It doesn't matter the goal, as long as I make sure to do it before I go to bed that night. If you do more than your goal you set, well good for you! However don't overwhelm yourself. If you wake up and feel good then set maybe 2 or 3 goals, but don't try to fix your world in one day. You'll go to bed feeling like you failed and this defeats the purpose.
It is hard to not be a Negative Nancy when you have this disorder, or any illness or disability, but you can't let it define who you are. You are not MdDS, I'm not MdDS. I am Sara and I happen to have MdDS, but I'm also funny, energetic, lovable, caring. I am more than my illness.
If you stay in bed every day. If you don't try to become more than someone who stays in bed. You are letting your illness win. It will consume you. It will make you hate yourself. It will make the people around you not want to be there anymore. Yes, its frustrating and sometimes you may be your only support system. So be the best system you can be for yourself. Have faith in yourself. Trust yourself. Make the life you want for yourself.
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