I have to fight the constant need to be or feel productive. Overcompensating for the times I felt like I wasn’t, or for the times I failed. I feel like for years I was trying to prove myself. I’ve learned to let go of the idea of perfection. Recovery is a non-linear process, but every day I am further along than I was the day before. How much I have grown and changed as a person. The resiliency I have developed over 25 years of living with this disorder. How I have managed to have a successful career. Sometimes I blow my own mind with what I have been able to accomplish. I would rather my life be interesting and exciting than dull. I would rather be a little crazy than boring. This helps me care more about my work and the important people in my life. I feel things very deeply and intensely at times. I get huge sparks of creativity and passion. There is a fine line between genius and madness and maybe I’m a little of both and that’s okay. Not only did I start to really live, but I learned to thrive. Over the years, rather than focusing on knowing that I had something wrong with me and viewing it as something to be ashamed of or feel less than for, I learned to live in spite of it. Whatever you give your attention to is what you give power to. Everyone has something, and this demon just happens to be my thing. I cannot change it and the fact that it is a lifelong chronic condition. It doesn’t define who I fundamentally am as a person. I came to terms with the fact that I had hormone problems many years ago. Saying my body doesn’t like or tolerate progesterone is an understatement. I have an incredibly abnormal response to normal hormones and the fluctuations of these hormones in my body. The way I describe PMDD to those that might not understand it is that it is an autoimmune disease where my brain literally attacks itself. I don’t think I was ever scared to die, but I was scared to keep living this way. There were many instances in my life where I felt like I was barely surviving. Like I have been in a coma and on life support on two different occasions because of the damage I have done to myself PMDD. Like I have been locked in a psych ward against my will PMDD. Like I have overdosed and tried to kill myself seven times PMDD. Like my brain, at times, is trying to kill me PMDD. And no, not just minor, unpleasant premenstrual type symptoms that happen once a month. And this is coming from a person that is terrified of heights! It was always a goal of mine to climb Angel’s Landing, and now I can happily cross it off my list. It is day 6 of our hiking trip through southern Utah, and I just completed one of the most challenging hikes I have ever attempted and proved to myself once again what I am capable of. Today, I am 6 months post-op from a total hysterectomy and bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy, and here I am on top of a mountain.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |