WTF is wrong with my muscles?

I lost my blog! Damn, it was so good,too. Very detailed information about last week's session. My brain remembers very little of it. Of course.

Hmmm, what did I want to say? This is a question that runs through my desperate brain very often.

Here's what did stick in my brain: PT explained to us that a new study indicates that Fibro patients' muscles need four to five times as long to relax as your average person (whoever that is.) She was using this study to illustrate why it is important to rest in between exercise sets because a muscle not at rest cannot fully engage, making the exercise far less effective. This study also explains a great deal about the omnipresent muscle pain and, often, the lack of muscle definition, that are some of the highlights of Fibromyalgia. She also spoke at length about the importance of doing exercises for only a few reps, maybe 5 or 6, because after that, muscles cannot hold their "grip" as well and you are not getting the benefit of the exercise, and may begin to overcompensate with other muscles that you could end up injuring. So much about which to think, but it does make me feel a bit better about the general state of disrepair into which my body has fallen.

I have tried, for decades, to stay in shape. Not to be a swimsuit model or to run a marathon, but just not to be stared at and pointed at as either too skinny or too "plump" (my five year old's word.) I have very close friends who are in absolutely incredible shape, even after having numerous babies and it is a constant self esteem battle to say, over and over, I can't go to your trainer, I can't hike three hours into Runyon with you, I can't wake up at 5 am and do Barry's Boot Camp with you (but I am so damn impressed that you guys do all that.)

I started doing yoga in the early 90s. When I started, I was very inflexible in some ways and over flexible in others. Teachers found this odd but told me I would become more flexible as I learned more. It is now 16 years later. Still exact same amount of inflexibility and flexibility.

One thing this Fibro Boot Camp has given me is more tools by which to express myself in these matters. Now I know I could hike Runyon again....if I take a 10 minute break every 20 minutes. Now let's see if I can muster the discipline to do that!

WTF

Last week in Bootcamp, in OT, we filled out time management evaluations and I had to narrow in on the four major things on which I need to work: making the most efficient work of my energy, making time for myself, committing myself to too many things and completing tasks even when I am tired. I have a terrible time management problem. I am constantly hounded by the "should" monster while the "guilt" fairy is sitting on my shoulder and I cannot stop moving even when it cause me great pain. I can never say no.

We were given a handout with some quotes and one hit home for me: from Stephen Covey: We are controlled by the clock and our compass. "Our compass represents vision, values, principles, mission, conscience and direction what we feel is important and how we lead our lives." Now, I am not one to quote people like Stephen Covey, but I did really find that this is what I am missing these days. I used to only be controlled by my compass, I like to believe, but certainly the clock takes up most of my life now.

Another important quote was from a fellow fibro sufferer: "Forget your pride." This is an extremely difficult one for me. Just writing this blog and putting all this out into the ether is humiliating on several levels, but I realize it is also cathartic for me and helpful for my loved ones at the same time. I started out life as the geeky, awkward, poor kid who had nothing but brains to recommend her and then I developed (literally) into a cute blond chick with big boobs who had to fight to remind people that she was intelligent. These days, my eidetic memory has more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese and my medications, age and my inability to exercise more than 20 minutes at a time has left my "cute girl" body in the dumpster. I can't remember what I read the night before and I have to wear "sensible" shoes and a "fanny pack" -god I hate that word. I am trying my hardest to come to terms with all these things, but, man, those sensible shoes are KILLING me.

Another important lesson: I cannot control most things and I have to stop trying. I am wasting energy trying to will other drivers into driving well; I am wasting energy being angry at my assistant for not knowing where to put the return address on an envelope; I am wasting energy being angry at myself for the person I have become. I need to use my energy in a productive manner-mainly, being there for my son and my husband, relaxing, meditating, painting, reading, you get the idea.

I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and, WTF, people like me.

So I did breathe my way into forty, wearing ridiculous but gorgeous Christian Louboutin heels that lasted about an hour on my feet. My husband threw me an amazing party with wonderful friends, great drinks and incredible food (thank you, Campanile.) Friends from high school, college, law school and my life in Los Angeles all came and we danced and laughed and I almost felt young-ish.

I felt like I had an important learning moment that weekend. We had been talking in Psych about how negative thoughts truly can affect your physical well being (raising cortisol, adrenaline, etc.) and how that is especially true in Fibro patients since we generally live in fight or flight mode anyway, with raised levels of all those hormones already. I realized that I have also often let negative thoughts run my life and a large reason for that had to do with my fear of not being thought of as intelligent. That doesn't automatically make sense does it? Well, in my twisted German, Goth mind, it did. I had come to believe that true intelligence is always distrusting and snarky and negative. Positive thinking, to me, was perky and fake and insincere and mindless. It seemed sad, actually, like the great Senator Al Franken's Stuart Smalley from SNL. I have also come to realize I have quite a problem with black and white thinking, so I cannot navigate the gray waters of life very well and am, therefore, trying to be more open to some of the ideas I have hated in the past, i.e., "positive thinking."

Positive thinking, I am starting to realize, does not require one to be skipping along mindlessly while giggling to oneself, not ready for the anvil to fall out of a clear blue sky. One can simply try to leave open the possibility that not all is evil and dark in the world. This has become both easier and more difficult since becoming a parent. But I have decided that, rather than anticipate the worst in every situation and look at everything through a lens clouded by pain and anger, I would give myself permission to just take things at face value.

I believe I have looked at the negative side of life because I have always wanted to be prepared for the worst. I like to play chess with catastrophe. I like to look eight moves ahead and see all the bad that is up ahead, so I believe I can prepare myself for it. Obviously, this is truly impossible. Saying it out loud or writing it down makes it seem even more ludicrous, but, in my twisted brain, it has always made sense. Besides making me a generally dark person, it seems it has also filled my brain and body with bad chemicals and hormones that may add to my pain.

So, my new plan is to take a situation and not just jump straight to the dark side. I will take a deep breath; I will look at both sides of the issue; I will tend to the "positive" side of the issue, because what is the harm in taking that side for once? Perhaps I will be unprepared for the worst because I haven't thought it all through to its horrible conclusion. But here's the truth, even though I was always preparing for the worst, when the bad things did happen, I was never really prepared. I wasn't steeled against the pain, physically or mentally or emotionally. In fact, it all seemed even worse because I had been expecting something bad to happen and, when it did, it just fueled my fury that the world was a bad place.

So now, I will take the sunny side of the street for a while and see what happens. It can't be worse than the stormy side.