Category: Mental Health

May you live in interesting times.

There’s a reason why this saying is considered both a blessing and a curse.

And the funniest thing about this post, is that I started writing it a year ago! I got as far as the title and first sentence. I honestly can’t remember what I had intended to write, but I certainly couldn’t have predicted the last 12 months!

What a year it has been. Like a lot of us, the events of 2020 threw me out of any sort of rhythm. In some ways enforced isolation was great! No worrying about whether I could make it to a function. I didn’t catch anywhere near the number of colds I usually do, and no flu. My day-to-day life didn’t really change much. Still mostly a hermit, only leaving the house for appointments.

The difference for me was that ‘normies’ now had a taste of what it was like to be me. Except that I don’t have the energy to spring clean the house or get the garden in order.

Please don’t misunderstand. I would never have wished anything like Covid-19 on the world. And I am not immune to it’s effects.

I started a Celebrancy business at the end of last year. For those of you outside Australia/New Zealand, a celebrant is a person who is not affiliated with any religion and can perform legal weddings and other ceremonies. It provides an alternative for people who don’t want to get married in a Church or by a minister and also don’t want a registry wedding.

Cue CV19. Severe restrictions on Weddings and suddenly no business. Luckily, the Knight-in-tarnished-armour is able to work from home, so we were fine in the regard, but it was quite the blow to my little fledgling business.

My beautiful surrogate grandfather passed away in March. Growing up in Australia, literally on the opposite side of the globe from my actual grandparents, meant that this wonderful person and his equally wonderful wife, filled that role in my life. Being interstate, I was unable to attend his funeral in person and watching it via zoom was not quite the same. A small bonus was, that I could bawl freely in the privacy of my house without being concerned about appropriateness. I can only hope that I can get down to visit his wife soon.

But here in Queensland we have been really lucky. No community acquired cases in ages -hopefully we can keep it that way.

This post is super dis-jointed and I have no idea where I planned on it ending up. I saw the title in my unpublished drafts and snorted. So here you go – a stream of consciousness in these interesting times.

Getting back into the swing of things.

I feel like I haven’t written anything in ages! Partly that’s true. I haven’t posted for over 2 months. But I have been writing a little.

There’s a host of reasons for why not. Some of them good, some of them…. not so much.

I’m battling yet another new health issue. It never seems to end. I’ve written a lot about gut health and dietary things, and until recently I had my IBS under control. At first I thought it was because of a little too much sugar and grains sneaking into my diet over Christmas, but getting strict again didn’t resolve it this time. So I think something else is going on, and it’s causing me a massive amount of gut pain and digestive issues.

Of course, all of my initial test results have come back normal, so now I’m booked in for a colonoscopy – fun times ahead – not! I guess you can all look forward to a blog about that!

I’ve also been battling the demons in my head again. It’s not unusual when a new health issue arises (or an old one just gets too much) for mental health to take a bit of a dive again.

I’m going to take a little detour around that and come back to it in a moment.

The ever tolerant Knight in Tarnished Armour and I have been renovating for what seems like forever. Some of the things we wanted to do got put on hold when I got sick. It simply didn’t make financial sense to borrow money for mostly aesthetics when we really didn’t know if I was ever going back to work.

We’ve diligently saved up and worked out cheaper ways to do things, and studiously ignored the unfinished and unpainted bits. But now we are getting some of the things done! Yay!

Part of the reason for this is that I got myself registered as a Marriage Celebrant and have been setting up my home office sorted and doing all the things associated with setting up a new small business. I’ve got a couple of weddings booked and I’m super excited about this new adventure.

Now I’m never going to make a massive amount of money doing this. But it’s a job I’m already loving – possibly as much as I loved being a vet! And it’s much more manageable energy wise.

But the renovations has included getting some painters in to finish painting the places that we started. Now I actually don’t mind painting. It’s a task I used to help with when I was a kid. My tiny kid hips would fit between the handles of a ladder so I could happily sit at the top, and monkey up and down painting the cornices of a room, while my vertigo affected mother tried not to watch!

As an adult, I can remember painting half a wall before work, heading off to do a full shift as a vet, then painting the other half when I got home. So getting people in to paint walls really triggered the FibroTroll to bring over all the mental health friends (co-morbid conditions) and along came all those feelings of guilt, inadequacy and depression. Combined with the new health issues. I’ve really been struggling.

So I’ve been back to my psychologist, who again has proved her worth. I’m in a much better frame of mind – and that’s probably the reason I’m back here.

We talked about a lot of things. I was reminded to get back into my meditation, yoga, writing – all the things that I know help, but then start to forget when things take a turn for the worse.

But the big thing we talked about was priorities. Everything we do in life requires an allocation of resources. It might be time, it might be energy (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual) and it might be money. And how we choose to prioritise those resources is up to us.

Back when I was well, the limited resource was usually time. As a university student, it was usually money. Now, it’s energy. I’ve got loads of time. I don’t have loads of money, but I’m super lucky that the Knight earns enough that we are comfortable. But energy – oh that precious, precious resource!

So now I’m sitting at my dining table with my laptop, while a very nice man is sanding and filling gaps and cleaning and prepping my front room. He’s going to paint it later today and tomorrow and then my new office will be freshly painted and looking lovely.

This is something that I can do. I have the knowledge and skills to perform this task. (Probably not as good as the painter’s skills.) But it would literally take me weeks or months. He’ll be finished tomorrow – and do a better job. And that energy that I would use on that task will simply not be there for anything else.

I won’t be able to cook, do the washing, write blogs, meet clients for weddings, do gardening or any of the other things that compete for my energy resources. My energy is already lower due to the new health issues and needs to be saved for looking after me and the Knight.

The Knight hates painting, so he doesn’t want to allocate his time and energy to that task. He also doesn’t much enjoy cooking and cleaning (although he does do those anyway) and very much does not like watching me in pain.

So instead of feeling guilty about this, I have re-framed it as a choice. Instead of allocating the resources of my time and energy into the painting task, I have chosen to allocate the resource of money – to pay someone else to do it. The priority for both the Knight and me is that I keep my energy for the other tasks, so that I don’t collapse in a heap and he has to take time off work to care for me. And the big break-through that I have had this week? – I’m ok with that choice.

Self sabotage vs self care

Today’s post is a bit disjointed. And I’m not happy with the title. I’ve been busy and I let the writing slide again. I don’t know why I do this, I enjoy writing and it helps my mental state.

I use excuses. I’ve been busy. I’ve been flaring. I’ve been doing other things. All of these are true. But I’ve found time to play games on my phone and watch TV, so I really don’t know why I often avoid the writing.

I’ve been reading a little about sub-conscious self sabotage. And maybe that’s what I’m doing. I find myself making excuses which seem perfectly reasonable to avoid doing things that I both enjoy and that help me.

Of course I can’t take the laptop into the bathroom while I’m having a soak in the tub. But I can take it into my HBO2 chamber. So I need to start doing that again.

If my hip is causing me pain when I sit cross legged, then I can just sit in a chair to meditate instead of deciding it’s too hard to find a comfortable position on the ground.

Yes, my emails need to be checked, but they’ll still be there tomorrow. Spending an hour checking emails is not as helpful for my health as writing even for 30 mins is.

I watched a webinar yesterday on how to be a successful writer. One big point that stood out to me, is that everything needs practice. I get so caught up on every post needing to be good, that I sometimes don’t write anything at all. So even though I’m not super happy with this particular post, it’s going out anyway. I’ve got to stop this cycle of self sabotage.

Do you notice any signs of self sabotage in your own life? And if so, what do you do about it? I’d love to know.

(Not so) fun times with Endometriosis. (Part Two- advice for pre-op.)

I started series of posts with Part One being a description of my experience with surgery. This part (and so far, I’m not sure how many parts it will be!) is going to be my tips for preparing yourself mentally and physically for surgery and for the post operative time. This is aimed towards surgery for endometriosis, but some of the tips will be useful for other surgeries too.

Obviously, not all of these tips are going to work for everyone. Some people have children, or work or have other health conditions that will change their needs. I really shouldn’t have to say this, but if any of your health care professionals tells you to do something different to this advice – FOLLOW THEIR ADVICE!! I don’t know your body or your other health conditions. I only know mine!

1. Pelvic floor exercises

You are about to undergo a surgery that is going to poke around in your pelvis. If you make that area as strong as you can, it will heal faster. There will be a healthier vascular system – this will both assist in controlling blood loss from incisions and improving blood flow to the area afterwards to assist healing and removal of toxins.

Don’t just do kegels though. Your pelvic floor is basically a big sling for your internal organs (a simplified explanation), and you need to work on all of it. Your body alignment, your pelvis, how you sit and stand all have an affect on your pelvic floor. I did the pelvic floor exercises from healthymoving.com, but I had already signed up for her coaching and challenge program so it didn’t cost me anything extra. Alternatively, an exercise physiologist or physiotherapist can give you specific exercises to help strengthen your pelvic floor.

The other great bonus to this, is that a strong pelvic floor can help with bladder or bowel incontinence, reduce the risk of prolapse and improve your sex life! There is basically no down side to improving your pelvic floor strength.

2. Good nutrition

Although today’s anaesthetic drugs are really quite safe in comparison to days gone by, they are still drugs that your body has to process and remove. For the most part, once you wake up and have breathed out the last of any gaseous anaesthetic you might have had, this will be done via your liver and kidneys and excreted via your bladder and bowel. (Don’t be surprised if your motions smell strange for a few days!)

Unless you have a liver or kidney dysfunction, removal of those drugs will happen no matter what you eat. However, your body is busy doing an awful lot post surgery. It has incisions to heal, hormones to regulate – especially if your ovaries were involved, pain to manage and pain relief medications to process.

If you give your body good nutrition in the weeks leading up to your surgery your organs will be in a better state to deal with this. You will use less ATP (the molecule that cells use for energy) and the process will be easier. Good nutrition is vital for managing the FibroTroll, and is especially important both pre- and post- surgery. I’ve written quite a lot about this, you can find some of those posts here, here, here and here.

If you can, make food for the freezer. If you have a couple of weeks, this can be done by doubling your normal recipes and then putting half in the freezer. If you don’t have that sort of time, see if you can get a friend or family member to help you and spend a day or afternoon making meals for the freezer.

Make sure you have high fibre appealing snacks available. It is not unusual for anaesthetic and pain relief drugs to make you nauseated and/or constipated. You might not feel like eating, so making sure there is something tasty to eat will help. The high fibre will help prevent constipation. Trust me on this, constipation following pelvic surgery is not something you want to try if you can avoid it.

3. Prepare post surgery entertainment.

If you are like me, you will get bored when you can’t get up and move around easily. I tend to think I’m better than I am, and do things too soon and delay my healing. To avoid this, it is good to find some things to do that you will enjoy and that will stop you doing other things.

Find some good books, re-read old favourites or try new titles from authors you already know you like.

If you like to knit or crochet, find a simple but appealing pattern to try. Get the yarn and needles or hooks together, put them in a bag or basket or box with some scissors, the pattern, stitch markers, darning needle and anything else you might need.

Indulge in a game on your phone or tablet if you enjoy that sort of thing. Remember that blue light will interfere with your sleep, and you need sleep to heal, so try to avoid doing that in the evenings.

Watch a new series, or re-watch an old favourite. This is a perfect excuse to binge on Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Dr Who or something similar. Again, remember not to do this in the evenings.

4. Do a spring clean.

I know it’s hard to keep on top of housework when you have a chronic illness. But it is going to be worse post surgery. So doing as much as you can now, will save on things to do afterwards.

Make sure you have plenty of clean pyjamas and loose fitting pants. If the weather is cold, make sure there’s plenty of clean warm clothing. If the weather is warm then loose fitting dresses can me your friend. Anything that avoids putting pressure across your abdomen is good.

Change the linen on the bed, so you have lovely clean sheets post surgery.

5. Pack an overnight bag.

My surgeries have always been day surgery. Meaning I have been discharged the same day and not had to stay overnight. But it pays to be prepared. If there is a complication or your surgery gets delayed due to someone else’s emergency, then there is a chance that the surgeon will want you to stay overnight.

I keep it simple. Clean underwear, change of clothes – I choose something that I am also comfortable sleeping in. Toothbrush and toothpaste, body wash and moisturiser. I find my skin gets very dry in air-conditioning, so I do like to pack a moisturiser. Sanitary pads. I don’t like the ones that hospitals supply, so I bring my own. A book or a crochet project.

Bring your own food if you have lots of dietary restrictions like I do. The last thing you want post surgery is an IBS attack to deal with as well!

6. Organise transport.

This is super important. It is simply not safe for you or the other drivers on the road to drive yourself home from hospital. If you live alone, try to organise someone to be with you for the first 24 hours at least. If this isn’t possible, discuss this with your doctor. They might be able to keep you overnight in hospital or put you on to a service provider that can help.

7. Make arrangements for important commitments.

A few days after I had booked my surgery, a federal election was called and the date scheduled for the day after my surgery. There was absolutely no way I was going to walk down and back up the stairs of my high-set house, let alone think about something like voting the day after surgery.

So, I organised a postal vote, which was great as I could sit in front of my laptop with the voting card and actually research the policies of every candidate in my electorate.

8. Mindfulness

Meditation and mindfulness can go a long way in helping your healing. If you are at all anxious about surgery, I strongly suggest talking to a psychologist if possible and practising mindfulness. Anxiety increases cortisol which can reduce or delay healing. It can also interfere with anaesthetic drugs, meaning you need more drugs to achieve the same result.

Deep breathing techniques where your exhalation (out breath) is longer than you inhalation (in breath) helps to calm the nervous system and activate the parasympathetic nervous system (the calming side of your nervous system). If you can, practice this when you are in the pre-op room. It gives you something to do when no-one is poking at you, and will make the anaesthetic smoother and easier on you (and your anaesthetist!)

But don’t just start in the hospital. Start now. Really. Even just taking a couple of moments to focus on your breathing will make a difference in the long run. I challenge you when you finish reading this, don’t just go on to the next thing you were going to do. Take a deep breath, count slowly to 5 while you do, then slowly let it out again, try and make the exhale twice as long – i. e. count to 10. You might need to purse your lips or do something else to slow your exhale down.

Then do it again. Do it 10 times. Then do it again tomorrow. You don’t have to sit for 20 minutes and meditate (although it’s awesome if you can), start with the breathing and go from there.

Good luck!

Go back to Part 1 or forward to Part 3 or skip to Part 4 and the addendum.

Perfectionism and Procrastination

I started a series of posts about my endometriosis surgery. I had great intentions of posting 3 parts, 3 weeks in a row.

I got very excited about it. I wrote the first one in about a day and a half, then I started the second one. And it has mostly sat there untouched since. See, I wanted it to be perfect. I wanted it to be this wonderful guide for FibroWarriors (or other people about to undergo surgery.) And I ended up putting far too much pressure on myself.

The end result of this, was avoidance. It’s something I find myself doing from time to time. It used to be a very common occurrence and it’s something I work on with my psychologist. I was doing all the “other things” that were much more important that my blog.

The funny thing is, while one of my motivators for starting this blog in the first place was to help other people. The reason I write is to help myself. Depression, anxiety and chronic health conditions don’t just go away. The symptoms can be managed, and sometimes you can lead what looks like a normal life on the outside. But you really have to work at it. You need to do the dietary things, and the meditation and the exercises and yes, the writing if that is one of the things that work for you.

So by procrastinating from writing because I wanted perfection, I was really just sabotaging myself. And I found the other things were slipping too. I hadn’t been back to Tai Chi since surgery. I was only meditating intermittently, I haven’t been doing my yoga and sugar has been slipping it’s way back into my diet.

So I’m back to writing. I will finish my series on Endometriosis, but in the meantime, I’m giving myself the much smaller challenge of just writing something every week. I’ve meditated today, and done some of my exercises from my physio. So already this week is looking up!

So while this post is all about me, I do hope that someone out there needs to hear that sometimes that’s okay. If you need to do a thing just because it’s good for YOU, then do it. (Within reason of course!)

Self care comes in many forms, and it is not selfish, it’s essential.

Seven tips for holidaying with Fibromyalgia

At the start of this month, the Knight and I went away for a few days. We had tickets to see Tim Minchin – a hilariously funny, intelligent, gifted musician, who plays piano, does a lot of political and religious satire, and swears a lot. The Knight and I are both big fans.

We missed out on tickets for his Brisbane show, so when Gold Coast tickets were released, I jumped straight at them, and decided I would figure out the logistics of travelling and hour and a half later. It worked out well, because it’s the Knight’s birthday this month, and he was very happy to have a weekend away and tickets to one of his favourite comedians as an early birthday present!

Functions and events are hard when you have Fibromyalgia. There’s the noise and lights and seats and lots of people and massive amounts of sensory input that drains your energy very quickly. Add to that, evenings are my worst time of day, and I have to make sure I plan to do nothing the next day, to try and avoid a flare.

But you cannot live your life in a bubble. It’s boring and makes your depression worse. So here are my tips for weekend getaways or travelling for functions:

1. Book a self contained apartment

I found a lovely little one-bedroom apartment, with a small but fully equipped kitchen, some comfy couches, a dining table and 2 small balconies over looking the water.
There was a place to play board games, and separate places to eat, so we didn’t have to pack up mid-game. It also meant I could go and nap, and the knight had some comfy couches to relax on without having to sneak around to avoid waking me.

2. Bring your own food

Catering for yourself, not only saves money, but keeps the IBS under control. If you do go out to eat, do your research in advance. If you have dietary intolerances, it is unfair to expect a restaurant to cater for you without any advance warning.

3. Take some extra days

We headed down on the Thursday afternoon before the show on Saturday. This gave me a full day to recover from travelling and to relax and enjoy the time away. We stayed until Monday, so that Sunday could be spent doing as little as possible to hopefully avoid the dreaded DOPEM (Delayed-Onset Post-Exertional Malaise).

4. Bring low energy entertainment

We brought a few board and card games with us, our favourite at the moment is Hero Realms. We also brought Carcassonne and Ticket To Ride (India/Switzerland) as they are both good with only 2 players. This allows us to do something we both enjoy together, and interact. So much better for our relationship than just watching hours of movies sitting on separate couches! (No judgement for those who do this, we do it too sometimes, it’s just not our favourite thing to do together.)

5. Bring your Yoga mat

View of the ocean and surf and a park with green grass and pine trees. Blue sky and fluffy white clouds.
View from one of the balconies.

Unfortunately the FibroTroll doesn’t take holidays. I find yoga and stretching to be very helpful for reducing the overall pain I have each day. The exercises might hurt a bit sometimes, but generally not as much as I hurt when I haven’t done any of them for a few days.

On the plus side, this is the view I had each day as I was doing my exercises.

I also meditated on the balcony each morning. Having the sun come up over the water and shine straight in your face is a wonderful way to wake up!

6. Pace Yourself!

As much as I get frustrated with pacing, it really is extra important to do it when you are on holidays too. Taking the time to relax and not push yourself to do “All The Things!” means that you will enjoy your break and not come home more exhausted than before you left.

7. Do a load of washing

I know this sounds boring and not at all like it belongs in a what to do on holidays list. However, if you are going away for more than just a weekend, there is going to be a lot of washing to do when you get home. If you can, do a small load of washing on your second last day. This means when you get home, you can just put all the clothes back in the cupboard. It will save a surprising amount of energy when you get home.

So those are my tips. They worked fairly well and I didn’t have too much of a flare afterwards. Unfortunately, other health issues have flared up instead, (the FibroTroll has many friends) but at least I managed to keep the FibroTroll mostly under his bridge.

Sunrise over the ocean, with pine trees in the foreground.
Sunrise from the other balcony.

The last morning, when I couldn’t sleep, the picture to the right was my view as I sipped my coffee and the Knight had a little bit of a sleep-in. Not too much of a hardship!

In the end, I can say for certain that it was worth all the effort. I laughed so hard I cried, and the Knight and I have been singing random bits of Tim’s songs to each other for a week!

Food for health

A common theme in many of my support groups, is people asking about diet. Which diet is best for Fibromyalgia? Has anyone tried keto, vegan, gluten and/or dairy free, this diet, that diet, the only breathe air diet? Okay, maybe not the last one, but it feels like it sometimes!

And the answers people give to those sort of questions is always varied. Some people swear by vegetarian/vegan diets, LCHF (Low Carb, Healthy Fat), low fat diets, carnivore diets, low salicylate diets, low FODMAPs, GAPs, Wahls – there are as many answers as there are questions.

I’ve tried a lot of them. Some made me worse, (like vegan and low salicylate diets), some made no appreciable difference (like FODMAPs and the blood type diet) and some helped me – Like GAPs, the Wahls protocol and metabolic balance.

I often write about diet, and I do this because I honestly feel it is a super important part of managing the FibroTroll. But I want to make one very important point:

There is no one-size-fits-all diet for Fibromyalgia.

What works for me, might be okay for someone else. But in all likelihood, they will need to tweak some foods to suit them.

It has been a long experiment, and it’s not over yet. I did many elimination diets, blood tests and stool tests. The GAPs diet made a huge difference to my IBS issues and helped resolve a few (unfortunately not all) of my food intolerances. The Wahls protocol helped a little with pain, but I gained weight, when I was already carrying a few extra kilos and that didn’t help the fatigue. Metabolic balance got me back to my ideal weight and helped me isolate some more foods that were causing issues.

Right now, I find I do best on a low carb, but not quite ketogenic diet. I don’t eat cow dairy (except for ghee) or grains. I avoid added sugar – I do have a little 85% chocolate as a treat from time to time, but as a general rule I avoid sugar. I have recently worked out that nightshades are not my friend, and I avoid the random foods that don’t fit into a category but that cause me problems – like pork and almonds and most, but not all legumes. I continue to mostly follow my metabolic balance plan, using principles from both Wahls and GAPs.

Most of my food is organic, with a few foods from the Environmental Working Group’s clean fifteen list included if the organic version is super expensive. The EWG is based in the USA, but its Clean 15 and dirty dozen lists are a good guide if you can’t afford all organic food. I also try as much as I can to stick to foods that are in season. I get most of my fruit and vegetables from Food Connect in Brisbane. Luckily, I can usually find a box that only has a couple of things that I can’t eat – which my wonderful Knight then consumes!

Due to this, I mostly bring my own food to functions. While I love to have people at my home and to feed them, bringing my own food to everything gets a little tiresome. While it is significantly better than having an IBS attack or migraine from the wrong food, it wears you down after a while.

I recently caught up with a friend for lunch for her birthday. I made an almost compliant (a bit higher in sugar than I would normally eat) chocolate tart in lieu of cake and she insisted on feeding me lunch. It was such a wonderful feeling, to leave the house not having to bring my own food. We had roast chicken and vegetables and it was delicious!

I had significantly underestimated the mental benefits of someone offering to feed me and taking my dietary needs seriously and making a meal that included me.

So to that end I have given myself a new challenge. Let people feed me. If they ask, give them a simpler version of what I can’t eat, let things be non-organic, and so long as it’s gluten free, don’t worry too much about contamination. I’ll always let them know that it’s okay to back out and say it’s too hard.

It’s a bit outside my comfort zone, but I think (and hope) it will be good for me. It touches a little on the mental health care that is the other thing I write a lot about.

Wish me luck!

Infinite Possibility

I was completely without inspiration for this post today. So I flicked through my affirmation cards and came across this quote:

In this moment, there is infinite possibility.

Victoria Moran

It seemed appropriate for today as without inspiration, this post could have gone anywhere. I ended up writing quite a bit and finished with a recipe for meatballs and gravy and then accidentally deleted it!

I was super frustrated, as usually something written on the fly is almost impossible to replicate if you lose it. But then I realised that the quote still applied. There was infinite possibility – including the possibility that I would accidentally lose what I had written!

Which lead to a bit of an A-hah! moment. Right now, there is still infinite possibility. Sure I could have spent an hour or two trying to remember what I had written, or I could just start again and see what happens. And amazingly, I immediately felt better. Sometimes, letting go of something is the best option. My psychologist would be proud!

I’ve had enough stress lately, that obsessing over a blog post is really not going to be at all helpful. Most of the stress I talked about in my last post has resolved, and now I have a new one. This stress is not really my stress, it’s a thing I have taken on to try and reduce the stress on a loved one. And to be honest, I’m going to enjoy it – not the reason for it, but the activity of it.

My new challenge is cooking dairy free meals for a 3-4 year old. Now the dairy free bit is easy, it’s the feeding a child bit that is a new challenge for me. Normally when I feed this child, it’s a special occasion or just a morning afternoon tea where if they only chicken nuggets and watermelon it’s not a big deal because it’s a once off. But as a daily meal, that’s not terribly balanced!

Hence why I ended up with a meatballs and gravy recipe. Now I have a lot to do today, including making dairy free “cheese” sauce for pasta and a bunch of little pies that I can hide veggies in, so I’m not going to re-write the recipe now. I’ll save that for another day.

However, if anyone has suggestions for tasty, healthy meals for a 3-4 year old that are dairy free and easily frozen and re-heated by a stressed, time-poor, and/or convalescing parent then I would love to hear from you!

Another post on the importance of mental health and chronic illness.

I just realised that I completely missed March. I did a lot of writing, just not here.

I’ve been dealing with some personal issues and because it affects way more than just me, I’m not going to go into detail on a public page. I also had to do a witness statement to police (I’m fine, just saw a thing and my statement will hopefully help lock up a person who very much deserves it.) And again I have extra health issues on top of my usual ones – once again gynaecological on top of my usual dysmenorrhoea, so I’ll be off for more surgery in May.

So this last month, my cortisol (stress hormone) levels have probably been through the roof.

I tried all the things my psychologist recommends, I tried to meditate, which didn’t go so well. I tried to exercise, but because cortisol elevates pain levels, that also didn’t go well. I wrote – A LOT about the issues. Mostly just to myself, but also to the other people involved. And none of it was helping.

I am very much a person who needs to close boxes. Closing some of the boxes helped a bit. Getting the witness statement done and signed, closed that box. Seeing my gynaecologist and booking surgery closed that box. It might seem strange that I consider that box closed, but having someone willing to investigate and having a plan in place is enough for me to close that box. Surgery itself will be a box I open in May and I’m okay with that.

Open boxes cause me distress. The personal issue was most definitely an open box and it didn’t seem like there was going to be a way to close it. Lack of response to an issue causes me more distress. Even someone being angry at me is better than the feeling that I am not even worth the time to respond. Which may not be what they were thinking, but logic doesn’t always get a look in when you are on a downward spiral. So I spiralled faster and further downhill. I ruminated and stewed and argued with myself and stressed myself into a flare.

Thankfully, not a full on “can’t get out of bed because I’m too wobbly and weak and sore” level flare, but a milder version, where I can basically take care of myself for most of the day, but anything more than that and the FibroTroll starts playing with his clubs.

Elevated cortisol levels also weaken your immune system, so I’ve been fighting a cold as well, which has meant I couldn’t get into my HBO2 chamber because my sinuses were blocked.

So I made an appointment with my psychologist. As I’ve mentioned before, mental health concerns like anxiety and depression are common co-morbid conditions with Fibromyalgia. Any flare ups with those conditions, and/or increased stress levels will make the FibroTroll come running to the party.

Yesterday, I spent a very productive session with my psychologist and now I have a new set of tools in my toolbox for dealing with this. While the issue is not yet resolved, and may not get resolved in a way that makes me happy, I am now much more ready to deal with it. We worked out a way for me to close a smaller box regarding the issue, and she gave me tools to help me be okay with the bigger box not being closed and possibly not ever getting to close it. I’m sorry for being so vague, but I hope that vagueness will actually help others to apply the idea to their own issues.

I guess the point of today’s post is that it is okay to get professional help. It’s okay to not be coping even if it seems like it should be a minor issue. Psychologists are highly trained, caring people and they have the tools to help you cope. While psychology has not cured my Fibromyalgia, it has absolutely improved my quality of life.

So if you are struggling – with anything at all, no matter how “minor” you might think it is, reach out for help. You do not have to do this on your own.

Exercise and Fibromyalgia

Exercise is such an important aspect of health. Our bodies are designed to move, and to do it regularly. Aside from the obvious fitness aspect of exercise, it has many other benefits. Exercise helps keep our muscles and joints strong, it assists digestion, heart and lung function, blood flow, lymphatic drainage, liver and kidney function and even mental health! Basically every part of the body benefits from moving our bodies.

But what happens when we have a chronic illness? One that zaps energy and causes increased pain? I can tell you. It makes exercise exceedingly hard to do.

Before I was diagnosed, before I had any idea what was wrong with me – that the FibroTroll was coming to stay – and long before I had any idea how long that visit would be (spoiler alert – probably forever), I thought I was just unfit.

I decided to fix this by playing indoor beach volleyball. I enjoyed playing volleyball – I won’t pretend that I’m particularly good at it, but I enjoyed it. I also took up indoor rock climbing. Both of these activities are a lot of fun – and a lot of hard work. Even just walking through sand is harder than walking on a flat surface, so playing a sport on it, is significantly harder.

This turned out to be a bad idea. Fibromyalgia is not the sort of disease that you can force to get better. Until you learn some level of pacing, it is very common to have a push-and-crash cycle. This would happen to me. I would keep pushing until I ended up bedridden. Then as soon as I was able to get out of bed, I would try and do all the chores that I felt guilty for leaving to the knight in tarnished armour, and then relapse.

This sort of cycle continued until I basically became too afraid to push at all. Every activity or function became a source of stress. I would pretty much always flare afterwards. This was a contributing factor for my battle with depression and anxiety.

About 18 months ago, I started seeing both my psychologist and my physiotherapist. With their help I have made small but significant improvements. I have continued working with my naturopath – with her help, and metabolic balance I am back to my ideal weight! I just need to develop some more muscle and still stay the same weight and to do that, I need more exercise.

I joined up to Healthy Moving‘s Coaching and Challenge program – which if you can afford it, I strongly recommend it. If not, just sign up for her free emails and you’ll get some helpful tips anyway.

But the pinnacle for me in terms of improvement in pretty much every aspect of my life- fatigue, pain, confidence, independence, mental health – is that this morning, I went back to Tai Chi.

Tai Chi is one form of exercise that has been actually been studied in randomised control studies and has shown to be beneficial in the treatment of Fibromyalgia. Here’s the link to one such study. I used to go when I was first diagnosed, but haven’t been for a couple of years. It is gentle, can be altered for restricted movement, or even done in a chair! It also focuses on mindful movement, and is sometimes referred to as moving meditation.

This morning, the long suffering knight rode his bicycle to work and left me the car. I was quite determined that I wanted to drive myself. It’s not a long way and I feel I need to get some of my independence back.

I got myself ready – I chose not to do a full yoga session this morning, and made sure to give myself plenty of time. I fed the chickens, breakfasted, showered and meditated, then drove our little manual car to the lesson. I was pleased to recognise one of the instructors cars in the car park when I arrived. Not having to explain myself to a new person was very welcome. I got up the stairs and walked into the room, not realising how much I had missed it until that exact moment.

I managed the entire lesson. I sat down for a lot of it, but I very quickly started to remember the moves. My balance isn’t what it was, but that will come with time. I felt welcomed and valued. I met new people and caught up with old friends. And while I am definitely tired, I don’t have that bone weary exhaustion that comes when the FibroTroll has had enough.

So if you are at a place where you want to try some gentle exercise, or struggle with meditation and need a form of movement mindfulness, then I strongly recommend Tai Chi. If you are in Australia, then try the Taoist Tai Chi Society of Australia. The Brisbane branch has a health recovery class and I can vouch that it is well worth the trip up the stairs!