One of the hardest things to live with in life and even more so when we struggle with mental illness is the Moment….living with the Moment with the moment plain and simple sucks!!  I try and be mindful of something within that moment, try to talk myself through that moment, or just try and let the waves of “yuck” go by.  I am not having much luck right now.

I know some of you go through these exact same feelings. I wish you could help me right now!!

So what’s going on?  Well, I have Restless Leg Syndrome. I get so frustrated when I hear people say , “Oh I do too, my leg shakes or sometimes it’s hard to sleep….”  Well, I am sorry for you, but you know what?  I have RLS Like almost nobody does. I have read medical journals only to find out that I have most severe form which affects, my toes my legs, my hips, my torso, my shoulders, my neck , my fingers. UGH!!!!! I have had this since I was a little girl and usually medication keeps it somewhat calm….except when it doesn’t. I can barely type right now because of the massive amount of discomfort…not too much pain…just this horrible uncontrollable need to stretch and move and stretch some more.

I’m sorry to complain…are we allowed to do that on blogs? I’m really not sure.

So along with the disgusting RLS tonight I am still dealing with this hip replacement recovery. I know I am doing better, but I am discouraged because I have a really painful muscle (piriformis) that is causing me to not be able to walk very well. I feel no better than before all of this surgery nightmare. I feel like I am going to have this damn cane forever and I just want to give up.

That’s where I think those of us with mental illness struggle soooo much harder to stay positive than other people with more a more typical response pattern. Everyone is trying to boost me up and I just don’t want to hear it.  Is that rude? I hope not, but it is what IS in my mind. It’s easy to fall into a pit and I think that is what everyone is afraid of. I just need to understand where my mind is in regards to my healing for ME. I need to understand how important it is to continue doing the excercises and I need to maintain HOPE that I will continue to improve so I can walk again without a walker. I have to do this within ME. This is hard work as many of you know, but an important part of my healing to come from within rather than counting on what others may say. Accepting what is going on for our own selves in our own lives is critical.

How might you feel about what I have written? What kind of struggles have you had to deal with “in the moment” when the moment seems rather awful?  Have you read about Dialectical Behavior Therapy?  Today’s frustrations would an ideal practice under Radical Acceptance – and yes, my most challenging part of therapy. I would’nt even let my therapist use those words for years!!!! I would get so angry!! Haha, little by little he inched his way there so I so understand the theory or Radical Acceptance, even though often it still irritates me!!  But a lot of DBT really IS about living in the moment.  Maybe I will share with you more about the DBT therapy in a future blog.

Thanks for reading- it helped to get this awfulness out of mind and on to paper. I actually feel a bit calmer.

Take Care

Jenny

feature Photo by Mike Alonzo on Unsplash

black and white image Photo by Robert Collins on Unsplash