Blogiversary!

January 16th marked five years from when I started this blog. FIVE YEARS! I didn't expect anything to come of it. I just needed to write one day, so I did. And then I went against every fear and shared what I wrote. I'm not sure if it comes across that I'm this bold, fearless warrior... (you know, like Mulan or something like that)... but I'm certainly not. After all this time you'd think it would be easier to be vulnerable and put myself out there, but it's not. I'm just getting better at pushing the button really fast and then running away so I don't delete it. You wouldn't believe the number of times I've thought about wiping out this entire blog. Or deleting all my insta and tik tok posts. Gosh, there's so much vulnerability out there from me. I have some moments of complete confidence and then later on I panic about it. It's fine. Everything is fine. And then people have the audacity to say nice things to me about it! Unreal. My therapist and I were recently discussing trusting instinct. I often relapse in my recovery of ignoring my instincts. I told her that it's so hard, because I just want to know WHY! Why do I want that person in my life. Is there a purpose? Is it just for a short time? How much energy should I put into it? Why does that person want to be my friend? It's been a month, why are they still interested in talking to me? And gasp! It's been over three years and we're still friends. Why haven't they left yet? Why am I expecting them to leave? And why am I questioning this at all? 🤦

The good news is that I do know why I keep writing. I keep writing because along the way people have actually taken the time to read what I have to say. And some of those people found value in it. There are a few of those that even took the time to reach out and share their appreciation for it. I'm a total sucker for helping people. So if I've impacted even one life, it's worth it to set my fears aside and be real. It's hard to be real. It's a lot easier to say "I'm fine" than it is to say "Things have been hard". Because if you say fine, then we can carry on. If you admit that it's hard, you will at minimum be met with a different facial expression. And if they actually take the time to process what you just said and ask for more detail, you have to be prepared to say something. I personally find it challenging to give more detail. Should we go into the spiral of thoughts that occurs... Does this person actually care? If so, how much detail should I go into? Or should we just gloss over this and say, "but it will be fine"? or question why in the world you were just so honest! They didn't need to know that. It's not any of their business. Now they're going to think differently of me. Or they're going to worry that I'm not going to focus on my work and so on. Do other people do this, or just me?! I've mentioned I have social anxiety, right? Should we just circle back to the point I made about how I should just trust my instinct... then we could maybe just avoid this mental babble of questioning, eh?! haha. Easier said than done, folks. BUT, next time someone talks to me I'll try my darndest to just respond on instinct and see what happens. 

Would it be fair to say that my last two posts came off pretty positive? I think so. Should I stop composing this blog post with questions? Maybe. Life has been really challenging for me lately. I just think that I'm not fully ready to discuss it. Partly because I don't know how to. I could maybe just word vomit and let it be a bit messy I suppose. I find it easier to talk about things after the fact rather than in the moment when it's hard. I'm coming off of a string of really bad days. I was actually starting to wonder if I was going to get some reprieve. The interesting thing is that after awhile you start to wonder if you're just really lazy or if what you're feeling isn't real or if you're simply just not as strong as everyone else. I mean surely other people must be better at life or something. And then you have a span of time where the pain is calmer and the mind is clearer and you discover you weren't making it up and you're not lazy. You were in fact in a flare and your body struggled to function. The key is to not focus too much on the part where you feel like you just lost precious time in your life suffering. I can acknowledge it and then I have to divert myself to the present and embrace it. The bad part is that I get so starved that when I get a bit of energy I want to do ALLLLL the things! It's a race against time because I don't know how long it's going to last. So I have to choose very wisely and I must not get too distracted. Because then I've started 25 things and not a single one of them gets completed before time runs out and then I feel like a complete failure and the spiral continues. bad, bad, bad. I've had to learn to spend my spoons wisely. And I've misspent a gazillion times. But I just have to keep picking myself back up and trying again. And I also have to let things go. Because at the end of the day it's more important that I'm still here and present with my friends and family. It sounds so grim because IT IS! The other day when Ben went back to work after his lunch break he paused for a moment and just looked at me. I had this unspoken dialogue with him that said, "You're right, I'm having a hard day and I want to disappear". I don't know if he actually received that message. And we haven't seen each other much this week so I also didn't talk to him about it. Though I did have a good ugly cry session after therapy the other night telling him about all my aha moments. 

I have to try really hard to not compare myself to other people. But occasionally I get so jealous that other people can just do things without much thought about it. They go to work, then go to happy hour, and then they stop at the store to grab some groceries, stopped and fill up with gas, make a meal that has more than a few ingredients, work some more or do a project or who knows what. They probably did a workout somewhere in there too. And that’s just a basic day with very normal things. I mentally prep to go to the store… and then I feel too wiped out to go. So I put it off for another day. And then maybe after a few days I finally decide to just order online and do pick up. And now we are all wondering how I sustain a job and ever make it to the office. I’m wondering the same thing. But I do in fact make it happen. Probably because if I didn’t I’d disappoint someone and I can’t have that. I’m not even working right now since I’m still on maternity leave. So I literally mean… just going to the store. Thankfully I do get myself to my appointments ;)

This past week I had an upright MRI and gastric emptying test. I meet with my EDS doctor at the end of February to discuss that. I’m doing physical therapy, which I will share more about another time. I still have a glucose sensor and have been working to keep my glucose balanced. I meet with endocrinology at the end of February as well. I’ll be starting a parasite protocol in another week or so. If it sounds like a lot, it’s because it is. But idk, what would you do if you struggled to function on a regular basis and had three kids, a husband, a job, etc.?! You’d likely try anything you could to find a better balance. I’m never going to be ‘healed’. But I believe there’s a ‘better than this’. I’ll break some of these things down in more detail in future posts for anyone who wants to read about it. Hopefully in another month I will know more about what’s going on with my body.

TTFN

Ash