Health issues and stopping spiralling

I have fibromyalgia and ADHD. I have been managing my fibromyalgia for 5 years and was only diagnosed with ADHD in January 2022 and consequentially started medication. It helped my fibromyalgia exponentially as it didn’t take so much energy to concentrate and my fatigue became minimal. Last year, I believed I could never work a full time job but I have been successfully in a full time role from April this year. My health was stable, and somehow I was working, cooking, cleaning and keeping on top of my exercises (and yoga) to help with my fibro. It felt stable and manageable. Basically, I had been extra busy for a few weeks and my self care for my fibro slipped. When I am busy, I dream all night and wake not well rested, this accumulates quickly and effects my daytime routine and I feel behind on everything. Also I have had some other health issues interrupt my sleep so it feels like a snowball of effects. The health issues have increased my anxiety; all of this has increased my PMDD symptoms and I am just not sure where to start to get out of this loop. I walk everyday and am currently doing yoga once a week or fortnight. My thoughts seem all over the place at the moment like I can’t pin one down and can’t wind down, even though I am not crazy busy at the moment. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

 

Answer:

Thank you for bringing this to AAC. There is power in simply typing out what you’re going through and asking for help. When we are physically tired everything can suddenly seem so much more unmanageable. What we can do is separate the facts from the story. You then get to decide what you want to think about your current circumstances. In this way you can allow for the clean pain of illness and being tired and take care of you while letting go of any suffering you are creating by resisting your reality.

Some of these circumstances would be:

I slept x hours last night

I notice x symptoms in my body today.

I did yoga x times last week

You can make these circumstances mean you’ve slipped in your self care, it’s all a snowball effect, I don’t know where to start, I’m stuck in a loop and that this is all bad.

Or you can just accept what is. If you were able to have total compassion for yourself today, what would you think about your circumstances?

Be gentle and curious as you ponder this. Bring what comes up back  to AAC so we can support you.