I often feel like I am in the earthly equivalent of limbo. I'm not so sick anymore (thank goodness) where nothing else seems to matter, where your world exists only in your body and the few feet around it as you fight for your life and health with everything you have, and everything else is trivial and will be there when you get back. However, I'm not well enough to feel like the old self that I know, to endure the knocks of the daily grind in all of their simultaneous frustrations and pleasures. I don't feel spunky, in charge, or confident anymore. (This is a metaphor, although I do still have a limpy walk), I almost walk with a slumped shoulder rather than a bouncy stride, kind of like I have to save the bounce for when I'm all better, like I don't deserve it just yet. It's like the physical weakness seeps into your personality and chutzpah, and steals strength from that too. (I am a Libra, who are pleasers by nature), but I feel like I have become more meek, because it seems strange to try to assert myself when there is no physical strength to back it up. I have always been so sure of myself physically, and when this leg of the table is removed, the entire structure suffers. How do people presented with a physical or emotional setback make their comeback, not just with the issue at hand, but with the ripple effects that overtake your other dimensions?
I hate feeling like I am wasting daylight waiting to get "all better". Sometimes I am so relieved to cross days off of the calendar, like all I want is for time to go by so that I can get on the other side of this canyon. But there is alot of life to be lived even when it's not perfect. What am I waiting for?
1. You mentioned in an earlier post 10mg of Prednisone is where people get stuck. That's true.
ReplyDeleteA normal human body naturally makes the equivalent of about 7.5mg of Prednisone in cortisol a day, and I think that is part of the issue.
The other thing is that going from 100 to 90 is a 10% drop. Likewise going from 10 to 9 is a 10% drop.
2. I have found the lack of physical strength has definitely made me a more meek, not so much with friends and family, but with strangers and acquaintances.
I think it is just natural. If you don't have muscle, you don't want to remotely risk getting into a situation where you can't fight or flee.
I also get tired easily, even just talking. I don't have the stamina to debate the way I used to.
I am hopeful that if I ever get into remission, and as my body regains its strength and endurance, I'll return to my old self.
The personality change is due to a physical body change. That body change needs to be at least partly reversed for the personality change to reverse.