Showing posts with label Job. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Job. Show all posts

Friday, November 17, 2023

Changing Our Perspectives to Better Our Well-Being


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Living with chronic illness can easily lead to feeling like life has become mundane, perpetual routine of medical appointments, treatments, and feeling generally stuck in a rut. If we aren’t careful, we can spiral into depression that further negatively impacts our health and well-being.  


While we are not always able to change life's situations, we do still have control of our thoughts and actions which ultimately impacts our perspective on life and our well-being as well. Below are some ways to aid with just that – changing perspectives to better our well-being. 


Prioritize Self-Care 


I’ve previously shared about my own journey of learning what I needed for self-care and how to maintain it. I had been stuck in a survival mode for decades between my own physical and mental health – I didn’t have the chance to properly learn even what self-care meant or looked like. Self-care looks different for everyone – it truly is a highly personalized practice. At a self-connection retreat, I attended in 2022, I learned many different self-care rituals that I had never thought of before. I absolutely loved the retreat; it was refreshing to my worn-down spirit and gave me new ideas for how I can care for myself. When we are in the depths of chronic illness, we can so easily forget that at times the basic necessities for our well-being are truly just that – necessities. Eating healthy, exercise, and sleep are vital for our bodies and mind for the bare minimum of functioning. Without adequate, balanced nutrition and sleep, our bodies will struggle to functionwe need adequate calories just for daily survival, proper nutrients to maintain our electrolyte balance, and sleep for our body to repair itself. Without these keys, our immunity lowers, and our chronic illnesses can worsen. Exercise, of any kind for any amount of time, aids physical and mental health as well. Chronic illness can make exercise difficult for many of us. However, some is always better than none. For some, stretching may be the best and most appropriate form of exercise while others are able to perform more rigorous exercise such as running. The key is to keep our bodies moving as without movement, our muscles atrophy and are less able to support our bodies and pain can worsen significantly. 

In the midst of surviving and managing all that comes with chronic illness, remember you are important and you deserve self-care.


Reconsidering Work Options


Not everyone with chronic illness is able to work and some may find it difficult to continue in their current career field. For example, I absolutely loved working hospice, however, my body is unable to tolerate the stress of traveling all day long, every workday. I need a job with minimal travel. I had to reconsider what I wanted to do and what my body could tolerate because of this.  

Sometimes though, when faced with chronic illness our passions and expertise change. That’s why I started my rare disease advocacy with Life’s a Polyp, which has opened advocacy opportunities I never imagined or expected. For others, it may be a complete career change though. For example, a friend of mine decided she wanted to add to her own personal medical experience and expertise by becoming a nurse to help others with her same conditions. What an incredible way to apply one’s own learned expertise to be able to apply it daily to others going through the same experiences! For those with the same passion, travel nursing can be an opportunity to afford one not only the chance to help others but also allow for seeing the world, which may not have been possible previously due to financial constraints often experienced with chronic illness.  


Finding Balance 


Balance is a key part to self-care, something we often forget. Often times, we will dedicate the majority of our time to other pursuits – whether it’s work or simply daily survival. Either way, when our focus and activities do not allow for self-care, we are at risk of burning out, we become more exhausted physically and mentally. In learning what self-care meant for me, I had to learn what boundaries I needed and how to maintain those boundaries. Part of that was establishing a better work-life balance. I know that I need two days off in a row from work and I started taking at least one day off every month for myself and taking at least two weeks of vacation each year. At home, I set boundaries for my activities on the weekends to allow a continued activity-rest balance. Knowing our limits and learning to say no without feeling guilty helps us to preserve the energy that we need for self-care and recovery. That way, we can continue on. 


Establishing New Friendships 


Friendships and community make a world of difference, especially when it comes to rare diseases. I felt completely isolated and lost growing up not having access to community with others outside of my family with my rare diseases. I’ve found also that it can be hard to make new friends as an adult, being out of school and even making friends outside of work – where, let’s face it, most of us spend our time if we’re able to work. Thinking outside of the box of different ways to meet new people can be helpful in building new friendships to help us decrease isolation, grow our support network, and ultimately, also add to our self-care. Sometimes it can be difficult to let others in, we often guard ourselves due to our chronic illness in fear of rejection or lack of understanding from others – but leaving our comfort zone can absolutely be worthwhile and rewarding in ways we previously hadn’t imagined.

 

Living with chronic illness isn’t easy by any means, but we also don’t have to be fully consumed by it. Sometimes, we just need to think outside the box to change our perspective and allow new opportunities for self-fulfillment to occur so that we may shift from surviving to thriving with chronic illness.  

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Taking the Personal Non-Personally

taking personal nonpersonally life's a polyp

I think we've all had encounters with others that really peeved us off and even hurt our feelings, even though that likely wasn't the other person's intention. We take what seem like everyday normal comments personally, because for us they aren't everyday normal things.

For example, I work in the medical field with very ill patients who don't realize I have my own health issues that can be life threatening. So on a regular basis I hear about how I don't understand what it's like to be chronically ill and the difficulties in life a life threatening chronic illness brings. But only I do, I just look healthy.
Another common encounter is when I have to take time off work or leave work early because I'm sick. Others make comments about how nice it must be to leave early or take a day off, even asking if I'm just saying I'm sick in order to leave. Again, I look healthy and they're probably just trying to be funny.

But it's not always funny. Sometimes I just want to scream "You have no idea just how ill I am, how much I struggle." But I don't, usually I just shrug it off but sometimes it's really hard to make that shrug. Sometimes it's painful. And after I've vented to a trusted friend about how others shouldn't make assumptions about others, I feel better. And I remember that others don't always know nor are they usually meaning to offend. They may even be going through their own struggles I'm not aware of so I shouldn't make assumptions others.

Perhaps it's asking too much of society to place more thought into what they say because they don't know what others struggle with. It's certainly frustrating listening to others make non-personal, personal comments with no clue that they're talking about us. We have a choice at that moment. I choose to pick my battles, not everyone needs to know my health details and other battles are more deserving of my energy and focus.

 Try to shrug off the little ones, let's focus on the big battles that can be life changing. Lean on trusted friends for support when we need a shoulder and perhaps even band together for change.

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Job Stress

job stress life's a polyp

It's been awhile again, I know. I apologize. The drains of work at times, more frequent than not, are overwhelming. With changes and added responsibilities requiring later nights periodically and the fear of increased frequency has been wearing on me.

I remember my health struggle just to work. My doctor told my parents when I was a child I could apply for social security disability and I'd have a good chance of approval. My parents never did, they wanted to see what I could handle first and knew even if I had to one day, I may still require their assistance throughout life. And so that's what we did. I tried my best and they helped me along the way. And with the help of my schools I made it through that struggle. Sometimes having to be homeschooled others home study with the public school. But I made it through. And I made it through college in spite of a minimum of two hospitalizations a year. My next challenge was a full time job. Would I be as fortunate?

I worked for six months, that's all my body would allow after school as it threatened to send me back to the dreaded hospital. I was so scared for my health and if the future. The stress caused severe SBS, reminiscent of the SBS struggles in high school when my life was nothing but restrooms, pain, and ever looming death. The time when I felt death's hands on my shoulders and I felt urged to prepare my parents they were losing their little girl. I could see all this once again on the horizon. My parents agreed I had to stop, they would help me. Just after a few weeks away from that first time employer, I felt my health returning. I wanted to try again. Maybe it was the job, the employer or that it was my first full time job and I had yet to develop the right coping for this arena. I'm not sure, maybe it was all of it. But I tried again and I did better the second time. I didn't have to travel anymore and for awhile my employer was supportive and helpful. Even when it became hostile and I was overwhelmed with depression, my body withstood all the stress being thrown at it. I was amazed and relieved! Maybe I do have a fighting chance after all.

And so I've been with my current employer a few years now. I still have bad days that my body warns me to take easy and so far I've been supported. But that fear always remains. What exactly is the limit, when will I be pushed too far, when will my body rebel and force me to that dreaded hospital again? I don't know, I don't want to know and so I keep my guard up and I try to protect myself from myself.