Happiness Habits

I came across this article today on the habits of supremely happy people.  Friends and acquaintances have asked me on a number of occasions how I stay so positive in the face of a nasty illness like chronic lyme.  I am honest and tell them I am truly not so positive every minute of every day and that there are days where I cry and cry.  Days where I am in a rage.  Moments where I am fine and then the next I am in a rage.  It's lyme, right?  Extremely unpredictable emotionally as well as physically. Yay! ;)

Nevertheless, since day one from diagnosis... well, okay... maybe month two or three or five after a whole lot of major freaking out :) ...  I decided that literally the only way for me to survive this experience was to be as positive as I could.  I was scared to lose my life, but the more immediate fear was to first lose my mind. So I promised myself to constantly look for the good.  This was extremely, crazy, psycho-difficult at first.  No kidding, right?! Especially considering that the first 18 months or so of treatment I spent primarily in bed, in pain (from quite uncomfortable to agonizing) and exhaustion.  Barely sleeping from the lyme symptoms and the herxing.  And herxing non-stop.  (Detox schmetox - why wouldn't it work!?) Plus scared of the symptoms.  Scared for my life.  Scared for my family.  And so on...

People would ask me how I was doing during that time and I would always answer 'Oh, a little tiny bit better - it's coming along'.  And I could not tell if it was.  I had no idea if it was.  It terrified me that it might not be.  But that's what I answered.  Because I had to.  Something in me had to.

I clearly remember being frightened to fall asleep each night, yet at the same time desperate for a break from the exhaustion and agony.  I would keep the phone beside me and make my husband promise, yes promise, to check on me every 20 minutes in case I died.  And I was well aware that that was sort of a stupid plan - i.e. why check to see if someone is dead?  If they are dead, they are dead! But I needed the reassurance that maybe he would somehow save me in time and I could stay alive.  The phone would be right beside me to call 911.  I was really that scared.  For many months.  Ugh.

The other part of night time that frightened me was to have myself actually fall asleep, but then wake up in an even worse state of agony and have no choice but to call 911.  I got to the point where I would rather stay awake and watch the progression of worsening symptoms and then decide to go to the hospital versus falling asleep and waking up into an emergency situation. Apparently I'm not big on surprises. ;)

Ah the fun of it all!

But through all of that, I kept holding on to the positives.  The sunshine in my window.  My dogs furry bodies cuddled up next to me.  The hot water bottle.  My cuddly socks. The fact that my sweet husband would actually promise me over and over again to check on me.  And would listen to me freaking out repeatedly.  What about the toll on him?  What about the toll on the kids?  What about the toll on all my family and friends?  What a mess.  As anyone who has or is going through this or similar knows all too well.

Anyhow, I can't say that things are easy-peasy now because I am still struggling on a daily basis.  We, as a family, are hence still struggling on a daily basis. And there are still too many times where I am scared.  But way way less than before.  For the healing that has occurred, I am so deeply and incredibly grateful.  Of course I also continue to regularly lose my sh@t due to fear, depression, guilt, anger... all those dark emotions.   I like to try to honour their course - I am human after all!  But then I pull myself out again - bring on the gratitude. Settle back into faith that this all makes sense and is okay somehow. 

Do I think I can say I am a completely 100% happy person?  No, not at all.  I wish I could.  I wish I could get to that point of faith and trust.  But there is still too much fear.  I know there are sayings like 'The only thing to fear is fear itself' but I don't buy it.  (I want to buy it!  Puhleeeeassse!) I fear pain.  I have been in such pain that I wished I was dead even though I didn't want to be dead.  I have not wanted to fall asleep at night because I don't want to wake up and have to face another day of this hellish existence.  Nevertheless... I'm still pretty happy all things considered.  Traumatized, yes.  Scared of the future?  Sometimes.  Sometimes a lot.  But I'm going to keep going - moment to moment, doing the best I can, enjoying as much as I can.  Because this is my life!

So... back to the article.  Here are the items it lists as keys to happiness:

1. Surround yourself with happy people
2. Smile when you mean it
3. Cultivate resilience: "Fall seven times, stand up eight" (Love this!)
4. Try to be happy
5. Be mindful of the good
6. appreciate simple pleasures
7. devote some of your time to giving
8. let yourself lose track of time
9. Nix the small talk for deeper conversation
10. Spend money on other people
11. Make a point to listen
12. Uphold in-person connections
13. Look on the bright side
14. Listen to uplifting music
15. Unplug from all the technology
16. Get spiritual
17. Make exercise a priority
18. Go outside
19. Rest
20. Laugh
21. Walk the walk - i.e. hold your posture in a more positive way than depressed way

This list helps me see why I am managing to be happy!  How exciting to see it written out like that! ;)

The strongest ones for me are #s: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 12, 13, 16, 18, and 19 (ha!!!!!).

Of course, a lot of these are modified for me due to the lyme - for example, exercise may mean stretching my body one day, a short, slow, painful walk the next.  But exercise is on the table - I value it and I try.  Sometimes I have a nice walk where I sort of can pretend I'm a regular person too.  WOW.

In-person connections can be difficult to uphold when you can't leave your bed.  But I've always kept my connections as best as I can.  Emails, phone calls, friends sitting in bed to visit me.  Don't get me wrong - when I was at my sickest I was extremely lonely because there gets to be very little to say and people maybe don't want to be around when someone is that sick.  But I still held on as best as I was able.  And so, thank goodness, did my family and some of my friends. I also can't listen to music due to noise sensitivity, etc, etc... but for the most part - I see me in this list.

Cool.

progress and pauses...

Well, I've hit the threshold of my 'go slow' idea with the Cowden Support Protocol.  I just hit 26 drops on my most recent Cumanda and Mora rotation and I have been herxing for 2 days now.  Red face, swollen glands and throat, wicked headache, body aches, not sleeping well, fatigue, irritability.  Up until now though - up to 25 drops - I was doing pretty well!  As well as I ever do.  I was increasing drops about every 2.5 to 3 days.  Versus every 1.5 to 2 days like I normally try to do.

So...  will the theory still work?  Do I just need to slow down?  Maybe go from 25 to 30 drops by increasing by 1 drop every 3 or 4 days?  I don't know... I will continue to experiment.  I'm not going to drop down to 25 drops to get through this herx though.  I'll wait it out.  Lots of detoxing.  Water, smoothies, green juice, fewer grains, rest.  Grains really seem to trip me up.  Especially at dinner. 

Half an hour after dinner the last 2 nights and I feel terrible.  I don't know if it's from eating - and the extra energy my body must use to digest the food.  Or whether it would happen regardless of eating - as I tend to have symptoms worsen as the day progresses anyhow. 

Doesn't matter.  I'll keep trekking along and see if I can play with this to reduce the herxing.

After mentioning some of this to a friend yesterday, I had her ask me how I do this.  How I get through each day living with chronic lyme disease.  Trying to live while feeling like I have a horrible flu most days.  And just a mild flu on the few and far between excellent days.  I deeply understand the question - the suicide rate for chronic lyme is very high.  It's a hard disease to face day after day, year after year.

And I'm not entirely sure how I do it.  Or if I'm getting better at it. I hope so. There is less panic than during the time I was misdiagnosed, and also less than during the first brutal six months to a year after diagnosis and starting treatment. But I am better physically now than I was then too.  Which makes it easier to keep it together emotionally.

I take things a day at a time.  Because thinking about the future and the past can both freak me out if I am not careful.  There is so much grief, and there are so many unknowns for the future. I do know that I like life and I don't want to give up.  I'm not ready to be done yet.  It's the hardest thing I have ever had to do - facing what feels like endless days (and often endless nights) with symptoms that are very uncomfortable at best and terrifying at their worst.  And of course you never know, one day to the next, what you'll be facing symptom-wise.   Sometimes I can give an educated guess.  But generally they continue to surprise me.

After plenty of thought, I finally realized that this is really no different than what anyone has to face being in a human body here on earth.  None of us know what tomorrow will bring.  Most of us have had difficult times in the past. Most of us are dealing with daily challenges of some sort.

Chronic illness is a unique challenge of course.  And I expect there are both similarities and differences in how all those going through it handle it emotionally.  For me, to get through and not go absolutely cuckoo bananas, I constantly bring my mind back to positives.  To gratitude for what I DO have.  Versus being non-stop upset about the losses.  The losses are constant of course.  From not being able to travel to an important family event, to losing your temper with your kids, gaining control, and losing it again within a span of 3 minutes. Over and over and over.  Thank you lyme rage!

I can't compare myself or my life with anyone else if I want to stay in a good place emotionally - who I used to be, what I want to be, how my friends or neighbours are, how my family is.  It is too hard and makes me feel bad.  So I stay as much as I can in the now and in gratitude.

Today, gratitude includes that my fingers are mostly cooperating to type.  Gratitude that I can share these thoughts in hope that they may ease someone else's journey - just knowing we're not alone - there are others out there going through hard stuff.  Impossible to comprehend hard stuff.  Gratitude that while I can't take my children out to do something today (it's a school PD day), that I can at least sit here in the house with them.  Gratitude they have a mom.  Gratitude for looking out the window at the vibrant colours of the grass, trees and plants in my yard. 

The little stuff that is really the huge stuff.

This is my life right now.  And it's amazing when I choose to let go of the fear and focus directly on the wonder and sheer fun of it. So a lot of the time I do. 

My family's patience

I got mad this evening. Really stupid angry. Ranted and raved and was not an example of the patient, wise mother that I strive to be. My little one did something I asked her not to, but in a sneaky way. She didn't actually break the rules but still did exactly what I had asked her not to do. Normal kid stuff. But it enraged me in a way it didn't need to.

I finally gave up on calming down and headed up to bed, closed the door, and am now taking a long (very long!) mommy time out. 'Space' is what we call it in our family. "Mommy needs some space". No $!&@ing kidding she does.

I can still feel lingering anger. It's crazy train. I hate this about the lyme. I don't know if it is 'Lyme rage', or simply the fact that my buttons can be pushed more easily when I'm worn down from fighting this illness, stuck in the house too much, and grumpy from symptoms and herxing.

I can be so nasty! I am sure the illness is a big part of it but that doesn't really make me feel any better about myself. In the months I was super duper insane in the membrane sick (vs the somewhat less sick but still ridiculous state I'm at now) my temper was so short. Outrageously short. I apologized a lot. In between the ranting. Yikes. Lately it's been better. Which is perhaps why it bothers me so much when I lose it in a situation that I know the normal me wouldn't be losing it in? Funny how things are harder when you're a bit better. Harder when there is farther back to fall.

So I am incredibly grateful for my family's never ending patience with me. With my moods. Still able to see the real me underneath and between it all. I am one lucky, lucky mama.