Spent some of the past few days literally in fetal ball posture - tiredness and migraine just got the better of me. Really hard for me to acknowledge when I need to give in - it's so hard to accept that I'm not as resilient as some people and that this cannot be changed by the exercise of will. It was the right thing, I think, and am on a slightly more even keel now. Back to a decent period of meditation this morning after several days of going through the motions but feeling very wandery and unfocused and physically tense every time I sat. Lots of love to all of you. Reading Pema Chodron, who has never appealed to me but now does - maybe now is the right time.
Ditto on the posture :) And yes - I'm so with you on the desire to think / force / will myself out of illness and into action ... and how impossible it is to accept that it can't be done.
I think you'd find though that very few people can do anything else when faced with a migraine. It is completely debilitating, and it's not just a headache or tiredness - it's a seriously painful disorienting thing. I'm lucky that I've only had one in the last ten years, after having them regularly in my teens. I never ever want to have another. Major huge sympathy for you because it sucks.
My personal battle over the last couple of years is with this annoying (but benign) ovarian tumour. There. I've said it. I've had it removed once and it just came back. When it's bad, it's really awful. It takes me hours though to accept that there is no option but to be fetal, under a duvet, round a hot water bottle, and take tramadol or morphine, and codeine and diclofenac. I don't want to do it. I want to grit my teeth and carry on and be cheerful and brave. But I have to remind myself that doctors don't prescribe these drugs unless you need them. And needing them isn't a weakness in my personality. And being unable to function once I've taken them isn't a weakness either.
I don't believe you're less resilient than others at all. But I can see why you think it, because I think it of myself. The reality is though that people just don't confess to their bad days that readily. We play things down. We don't tell people how much we hurt, how long we cried for, how desperately we wished someone would look after us. We say things like "just got the better of me", as if being overwhelmed by pain and exhaustion is a minor thing, a 'just', an 'only'.
I'm glad that you're feeling on a more even keel now - don't forget to be gentle with yourself.
Stray, I'm sorry you know so well what severe and chronic pain is like. Yes, giving in to that is not weak - it's mad and self-destructive not to, really.
Have you explored any complementary therapies? eg herbal medicine or homeopathy for the condition itself and/or acupuncture or craniosacral therapy for the pain? I think that Western allopathic medicine, though wonderful for many things, is least good at treating conditions that are unpredictable, cause varying amounts of pain in different individuals, and are not going to kill you (though 'benign' is often a painfully ironic description).
The reason I feel I'm not as resilient as most people is that stress and insufficient rest GIVE me migraine, ie the normal rhythm of modern life makes me ill. Why aren't I like other people? But then, which of us is? A hard thing to accept, but pretty suicidal to refuse to do so.
In case anyone thinks this is off-topic - what is meditation, breathing silently into the moment, but acceptance of whatever is?
I can relate so well to what you are both saying here. I'm just coming out of a period of feeling really unwell.The striking thing about it is that it is only now I feel better that I am realising how bad it was. Seems I had glandular fever at the end of the summer and I never knew - thought I was lacking in resilience, wasn't treating myself well enough, working too hard ...and in the cloud of self blame and condemnation (I struggle so with that too) I completely lost any ability to tell whether I was well or not. I only had one day off sick and that was because of a combination of mild fever and administrative problems. Even with the fever I was debating ways of managing to continue ...
Jean when I hear you say that the 'normal' pace of living is what gives you migraine - I want to say that it isn't normal this pace we live at, these hours we work, these things we demand of ourselves in the name of courage, strength, value in the workplace ...my experience is that it takes a lot of courage on my part to admit to feeling off colour, to take time off, to even allow my body to tell me what it needs. We can dowplay stuff in the name of resilience (when did resilience get to be such a desirable quality??)until we can no longer hear what our bodies are trying to tell us - that is until they start to shout ...and leaving it 'til then could be suicidal, couldn't it??
I hope you are both feeling better and that everyone else is having a good day ...
I kind of don't think it's off topic at all ... well, not for me anyway, because my primary motivation for learning to meditate was (and is) to cope with the physical stuff. And it has worked to a degree - I definitely take fewer strong pain killers than I used to. I'm more able to relax and concentrate on my breathing when I'm being tested and poked in hospital. I'm more ready to observe my feelings, physical and emotional, and thus feel less controlled by them.
I did have shiatsu for a while - that really helped. I agree, western medicine isn't always the answer. I haven't gone down the homeopathy route yet as I've been wary of mixing the conventional drugs with the herbal remedies. I've had acupuncture twice, both times I did feel more relaxed, but I'm not sure how much that was just down to having time set aside for just breathing and being still!
Simple meditation works better than anything else. Well, morphine is still pretty effective, but even then, I find myself meditating to cope with the side effects. And withdrawal cravings!
I know yoga helps. Diet, exercise, posture, all make a difference.
But mostly, just not trying to do things I'm not fit for is the key. I forget, almost daily, that I cannot lift heavy things. I can walk for miles, but I need to go slowly going down stairs (up is fine). I book things into my diary knowing full well that there is almost no chance that I will be well enough to do them, and then get cross with myself when I'm not!
I agree with Barbara that 'normal life' has become pretty twisted up. And that 'resilience' is something we should look for in a perennial plant, not a human being :) And, yes, it's so easy to find ourselves trying to manage, trying to negotiate, when our bodies are clearly saying "stop".
Hugs to Jean & Stray...I can't begin to imagine what it's like to be literally laid low with the distinctly different kinds of pain you each face.
I think it says something about our culture's backwards priorities that Jean thinks there's something wrong with HER that she can't withstand a "normally" stressful lifestyle. Maybe there's something wrong with a society that sees stress as a normal default!
6 Comments:
Spent some of the past few days literally in fetal ball posture - tiredness and migraine just got the better of me. Really hard for me to acknowledge when I need to give in - it's so hard to accept that I'm not as resilient as some people and that this cannot be changed by the exercise of will. It was the right thing, I think, and am on a slightly more even keel now. Back to a decent period of meditation this morning after several days of going through the motions but feeling very wandery and unfocused and physically tense every time I sat. Lots of love to all of you. Reading Pema Chodron, who has never appealed to me but now does - maybe now is the right time.
((Jean))
Ditto on the posture :) And yes - I'm so with you on the desire to think / force / will myself out of illness and into action ... and how impossible it is to accept that it can't be done.
I think you'd find though that very few people can do anything else when faced with a migraine. It is completely debilitating, and it's not just a headache or tiredness - it's a seriously painful disorienting thing. I'm lucky that I've only had one in the last ten years, after having them regularly in my teens. I never ever want to have another. Major huge sympathy for you because it sucks.
My personal battle over the last couple of years is with this annoying (but benign) ovarian tumour. There. I've said it. I've had it removed once and it just came back. When it's bad, it's really awful. It takes me hours though to accept that there is no option but to be fetal, under a duvet, round a hot water bottle, and take tramadol or morphine, and codeine and diclofenac. I don't want to do it. I want to grit my teeth and carry on and be cheerful and brave. But I have to remind myself that doctors don't prescribe these drugs unless you need them. And needing them isn't a weakness in my personality. And being unable to function once I've taken them isn't a weakness either.
I don't believe you're less resilient than others at all. But I can see why you think it, because I think it of myself. The reality is though that people just don't confess to their bad days that readily. We play things down. We don't tell people how much we hurt, how long we cried for, how desperately we wished someone would look after us. We say things like "just got the better of me", as if being overwhelmed by pain and exhaustion is a minor thing, a 'just', an 'only'.
I'm glad that you're feeling on a more even keel now - don't forget to be gentle with yourself.
xx
Stray, I'm sorry you know so well what severe and chronic pain is like. Yes, giving in to that is not weak - it's mad and self-destructive not to, really.
Have you explored any complementary therapies? eg herbal medicine or homeopathy for the condition itself and/or acupuncture or craniosacral therapy for the pain? I think that Western allopathic medicine, though wonderful for many things, is least good at treating conditions that are unpredictable, cause varying amounts of pain in different individuals, and are not going to kill you (though 'benign' is often a painfully ironic description).
The reason I feel I'm not as resilient as most people is that stress and insufficient rest GIVE me migraine, ie the normal rhythm of modern life makes me ill. Why aren't I like other people? But then, which of us is? A hard thing to accept, but pretty suicidal to refuse to do so.
In case anyone thinks this is off-topic - what is meditation, breathing silently into the moment, but acceptance of whatever is?
{{Jean}} and {{Stray}}
I can relate so well to what you are both saying here. I'm just coming out of a period of feeling really unwell.The striking thing about it is that it is only now I feel better that I am realising how bad it was. Seems I had glandular fever at the end of the summer and I never knew - thought I was lacking in resilience, wasn't treating myself well enough, working too hard ...and in the cloud of self blame and condemnation (I struggle so with that too) I completely lost any ability to tell whether I was well or not. I only had one day off sick and that was because of a combination of mild fever and administrative problems. Even with the fever I was debating ways of managing to continue ...
Jean when I hear you say that the 'normal' pace of living is what gives you migraine - I want to say that it isn't normal this pace we live at, these hours we work, these things we demand of ourselves in the name of courage, strength, value in the workplace ...my experience is that it takes a lot of courage on my part to admit to feeling off colour, to take time off, to even allow my body to tell me what it needs. We can dowplay stuff in the name of resilience (when did resilience get to be such a desirable quality??)until we can no longer hear what our bodies are trying to tell us - that is until they start to shout ...and leaving it 'til then could be suicidal, couldn't it??
I hope you are both feeling better and that everyone else is having a good day ...
Thanks Jean and Barbara,
I kind of don't think it's off topic at all ... well, not for me anyway, because my primary motivation for learning to meditate was (and is) to cope with the physical stuff. And it has worked to a degree - I definitely take fewer strong pain killers than I used to. I'm more able to relax and concentrate on my breathing when I'm being tested and poked in hospital. I'm more ready to observe my feelings, physical and emotional, and thus feel less controlled by them.
I did have shiatsu for a while - that really helped. I agree, western medicine isn't always the answer. I haven't gone down the homeopathy route yet as I've been wary of mixing the conventional drugs with the herbal remedies. I've had acupuncture twice, both times I did feel more relaxed, but I'm not sure how much that was just down to having time set aside for just breathing and being still!
Simple meditation works better than anything else. Well, morphine is still pretty effective, but even then, I find myself meditating to cope with the side effects. And withdrawal cravings!
I know yoga helps. Diet, exercise, posture, all make a difference.
But mostly, just not trying to do things I'm not fit for is the key. I forget, almost daily, that I cannot lift heavy things. I can walk for miles, but I need to go slowly going down stairs (up is fine). I book things into my diary knowing full well that there is almost no chance that I will be well enough to do them, and then get cross with myself when I'm not!
I agree with Barbara that 'normal life' has become pretty twisted up. And that 'resilience' is something we should look for in a perennial plant, not a human being :) And, yes, it's so easy to find ourselves trying to manage, trying to negotiate, when our bodies are clearly saying "stop".
Right now, mine is saying "make a cup of tea" :)
Hugs to Jean & Stray...I can't begin to imagine what it's like to be literally laid low with the distinctly different kinds of pain you each face.
I think it says something about our culture's backwards priorities that Jean thinks there's something wrong with HER that she can't withstand a "normally" stressful lifestyle. Maybe there's something wrong with a society that sees stress as a normal default!
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