Today I am Wallowing. It is a good day to Wallow. It is a sunny winter day and the hope of Christmas is around the corner and I still can't stand up for more than 3 minutes without feeling dizzy and wanting to go back to sleep.
Today I went to see Chippy Tim, my cognitive behaviour therapist. Hello Tim, I said. Let me tell you my ironic little story. You remember how I started coming to see you at the beginning of the year for my health anxiety, how I couldn't stop worrying at the tiniest thing e.g. my little finger feeling a bit funny = I have a neurological disorder? And how in July I was doing so well that even the couple of times I went dizzy I thought, well really, what are the odds of me actually being ill? I was cured! Praise Be!
Well, guess what, Tim old chap. I am Ill with a big fat capital I. And those dizzy spells never did go away and now I have post-viral fatigue and haven't done a thing for three months and I miss my children and I miss my work and I miss standing up and I am scared I will never get my life back and - good god, do you have any tissues?
Well Tim didn't laugh. Which I would have done in his situation. And Tim says I should challenge myself which I think doesn't mean attempting to walk home from town and putting myself back to bed for a week, but actually means try to do little things and stop holding onto lampposts and kitchen worktops and my two-year-old's hand for heaven's sake and try to adopt a 'What if I did fall over? Would it be so bad?' mentality.
Oh and I am not allowed to think about if I will get better or not, and whether I will go back to work before the work goes away or whether I will get to look after my children and take them to the park on my own or swimming ever again before they get too old to be bothered wanting to go. These, the only things that I want to know more than anything else in the world, are Too Big and Far Too Much for me to take on now.
So today I have:
- put out the recycling
- stood up for about two minutes
- cried
- cried a bit more
- put on my relaxation podcast and cried again
So the positive thinking is going, well, well how the hell do you think it is going?
I have been there too. The ill lady with the tiny children. I've got that T-shirt. The only consolation is that the children are too young to remember and you have got so much time ahead of you to get better. Use that time to let your body get better at its own pace.
ReplyDeleteI can do other lectures too. My 'don't expect too much of yourself at Christmas' rant is a winner. I often get requests to give it at WI meetings.
Sorry to hear all this coffee lady. I've been there too; Not allowed to drive, while being a single parent in a rural area was the least of it. ( I might have blacked out at the wheel.) I'm much better now, although it didn't happen overnight. You will get through, although it is frustrating for you because you are intelligent and humorous and very creative. Alice C is right, time heals, but you have my cyber support, if it's any use to you! I love your book recommendations and your blog, so thanks.
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