Self care when ill..

Old 09-12-2018, 11:11 AM
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Self care when ill..

Just a quick one. Came down with a head cold/chest infection overnight. I'm due to go to alanon tonight and hate missing it, but my head is all fuzzy and I'm irritable.

When we're feeling under weather, is it an excuse to not go or should I go anyway. Fear of missing out, but also just want to go to bed.
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Old 09-12-2018, 11:18 AM
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LOL.....for most people, I would say to soldier on....but, for YOU, I would say that, due to your obsessiveness about perfectionism....I would encourage you to snuggle in a warm nest, tonight...…
Sort of like a self granted "snow day"......
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Old 09-12-2018, 11:18 AM
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Not an excuse at all, stay home and look after yourself ("look after yourself - do you see a theme here )

I hope you feel a lot better as the day goes on!
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Old 09-12-2018, 11:29 AM
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Originally Posted by trailmix View Post
Not an excuse at all, stay home and look after yourself ("look after yourself - do you see a theme here )

I hope you feel a lot better as the day goes on!
Thanks, usually going to Al Anon is my message to myself to look after myself but I'm sure one week will be fine to miss
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Old 09-12-2018, 11:30 AM
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Stay home. Take care of yourself, and no need to share your cold with others.
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Old 09-12-2018, 11:30 AM
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(((hugs)))

My sponsor showed me illness is an opportunity to self-care in really goofy ways. Trust your gut. Trust your healthy instincts. Sometimes for me it is "push through". Often now it's "slow down, rest".

Two of the most important questions when ill can be:

1. What type of tea?

2. Which blanket for my nap?
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Old 09-12-2018, 11:36 AM
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Originally Posted by Mango212 View Post
(((hugs)))

My sponsor showed me illness is an opportunity to self-care in really goofy ways. Trust your gut. Trust your healthy instincts. Sometimes for me it is "push through". Often now it's "slow down, rest".

Two of the most important questions when ill can be:

1. What type of tea?

2. Which blanket for my nap?
Good idea on both counts.
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Old 09-12-2018, 11:46 AM
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Originally Posted by Glenjo99 View Post
Thanks, usually going to Al Anon is my message to myself to look after myself but I'm sure one week will be fine to miss
Yes. You know, self-care isn't all about meetings and self awareness, it's also about being nice to yourself.

Are you? Are you nice to yourself? Do you speak nicely to yourself, do you do nice things for yourself like spend a day on the sofa reading a good book or binge watch a netflix series or buy yourself a piece of cake for dessert?

When is the last time you took a holiday for yourself, planned some sightseeing, even in your own town/city? Ever done a tour?

What do you do for fun?
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Old 09-12-2018, 11:56 AM
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Originally Posted by trailmix View Post
Yes. You know, self-care isn't all about meetings and self awareness, it's also about being nice to yourself.

Are you? Are you nice to yourself? Do you speak nicely to yourself, do you do nice things for yourself like spend a day on the sofa reading a good book or binge watch a netflix series or buy yourself a piece of cake for dessert?

When is the last time you took a holiday for yourself, planned some sightseeing, even in your own town/city? Ever done a tour?

What do you do for fun?
Al-anon is where I found a new balance in all these things.

I came to having a new awareness of how often I did things for fun with other people in mind vs. purely for me.

One day I took a float tube out on the river before an Al-anon meeting, all by myself. I found a lot of feelings, awareness and acceptance of taking care of myself. It was from both the time alone & the meeting, very much connected to each other.
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Old 09-12-2018, 12:01 PM
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Originally Posted by trailmix View Post
Yes. You know, self-care isn't all about meetings and self awareness, it's also about being nice to yourself.

Are you? Are you nice to yourself? Do you speak nicely to yourself, do you do nice things for yourself like spend a day on the sofa reading a good book or binge watch a netflix series or buy yourself a piece of cake for dessert?

When is the last time you took a holiday for yourself, planned some sightseeing, even in your own town/city? Ever done a tour?

What do you do for fun?
You know what I've been better at being nice to myself the last couple of weeks because of all I'm learning about self love and self care. I buy cake a lot, I've a real chocolate sweet tooth. However this week I've been a bit stressed and feel like I'm regressing a bit. I'm ruminating a lot, doing my spiritual prayers and meditating but not having quite same affect, this head cold probably isn't helping either. I plan on watching some TV with junk food in bed early tonight as it's all I'm able for.

I know I'm being hard on myself, codependent self abuse, it's not going away without a fight, many fights it seems. I expect it's normal in recovery to have weeks that aren't as good as others.
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Old 09-12-2018, 12:04 PM
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Originally Posted by Mango212 View Post
Al-anon is where I found a new balance in all these things.

I came to having a new awareness of how often I did things for fun with other people in mind vs. purely for me.

One day I took a float tube out on the river before an Al-anon meeting, all by myself. I found a lot of feelings, awareness and acceptance of taking care of myself. It was from both the time alone & the meeting, very much connected to each other.
Just when I decided not to go lol.......now I feel I should go. Indecisiveness (another codependent trait).
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Old 09-12-2018, 12:14 PM
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Have fun, as much as is possible when under the weather. Trust your gut and your Higher Power that you'll make a good, healthy choice for yourself about going to the meeting or skipping this one.

There's really no wrong path.

And nothing needs to be decided right now.

I've gone to meetings with germs and found something I needed to hear, and understanding for others who do the same.

I've skipped meetings for other kinds of self care, like sleeping when ill, and if the God of my understanding has a message to get to me, other signs/readings/a phone call or something will help, too.
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Old 09-12-2018, 12:20 PM
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Yesterday's reading at todays-hope:

Waiting
Wait. If the time is not right, the way is not clear, the answer or decision not consistent, wait.

We may feel a sense of urgency. We may want to resolve the issue by doing something - anything now, but that action is not in our best interest.

Living with confusion or unsolved problems is difficult. It is easier to resolve things. But making a decision too soon, doing something before it's time, means we may have to go back and redo it.

If the time is not right, wait. If the way is not clear, do not plunge forward. If the answer or decision feels muddy, wait.

In this new way of life, there is a Guiding Force. We do not ever have to move too soon or move out of harmony. Waiting is an action - a positive, forceful action.

Often, waiting is a God-guided action, one with as much power as a decision, and more power than an urgent, ill-timed decision.

We do not have to pressure ourselves by insisting that we do or know something before it's time. When it is time, we will know. We will move into that time naturally and harmoniously. We will have peace and consistency. We will feel empowered in a way we do not feel today.

Deal with the panic, the urgency, and the fear; do not let them control or dictate decisions.

Waiting isn't easy. It isn't fun. But waiting is often necessary to get what we want. It is not dead time; it is not downtime. The answer will come. The power will come. The time will come. And it will be right.

Today, I will wait, if waiting is the action I need in order to take care of myself. I will know that I am taking a positive, forceful action by waiting until the time is right. God, help me let go of my fear, urgency, and panic. Help me learn the art of waiting until the time is right. Help me learn timing.
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Old 09-12-2018, 12:58 PM
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Originally Posted by Glenjo99 View Post
Just when I decided not to go lol.......now I feel I should go. Indecisiveness (another codependent trait).
lol - how fun (not fun!)

You know, some things are just not important. If you were trying to decide the color of your roofing material for the house that will cost you 8000.00 and you will have to look at it for 25 years - well yes, take a few days to ponder.

For little things like this - let it go. Make a decision and go with it, no matter what (unless the codie bus drives by to take you to the meeting, don't want to miss out on that).



When you start to second guess - tell yourself no - I have made my decision, that's done (now what kind of tea will I make myself).
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Old 09-12-2018, 01:06 PM
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Originally Posted by trailmix View Post
lol - how fun (not fun!)

You know, some things are just not important. If you were trying to decide the color of your roofing material for the house that will cost you 8000.00 and you will have to look at it for 25 years - well yes, take a few days to ponder.

For little things like this - let it go. Make a decision and go with it, no matter what (unless the codie bus drives by to take you to the meeting, don't want to miss out on that).



When you start to second guess - tell yourself no - I have made my decision, that's done (now what kind of tea will I make myself).
Codie bus? I want to get on that.
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Old 09-12-2018, 05:14 PM
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Hey Glenjo, hope you decided to stay in and rest and enjoy your you time. I'd definitely take feeling unwell as a sign to lay low.

I haven't been to an al-anon meeting yet. I almost went to one last night but decided to stay in and netflix binge on Queen of the South instead. The way I see it is that I'm already doing a lot of work on myself just by seeing a therapist, journalling, researching, and reading this forum. And the amount of work we are all doing in our heads post break-up (subconsciously as well as consciously) is pretty exhausting.... so from my point of view, you're absolutely spot on to stay at home! Tonight and any other night ! x
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Old 09-12-2018, 11:48 PM
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Originally Posted by Surfbee View Post
Hey Glenjo, hope you decided to stay in and rest and enjoy your you time. I'd definitely take feeling unwell as a sign to lay low.

I haven't been to an al-anon meeting yet. I almost went to one last night but decided to stay in and netflix binge on Queen of the South instead. The way I see it is that I'm already doing a lot of work on myself just by seeing a therapist, journalling, researching, and reading this forum. And the amount of work we are all doing in our heads post break-up (subconsciously as well as consciously) is pretty exhausting.... so from my point of view, you're absolutely spot on to stay at home! Tonight and any other night ! x
Hi surfbee

I did decide to stay at home, can go to Anon next week. Early to bed with Netflix and some treats. My body is obviously trying to tell me to slow down, am am doing a lot especially the reading, journaling etc, my house looks like a library. Gets overwhelming at times, the perfectionist part of me trying to do recovery "right", which I'm aware of there is no right. Need to relax
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Old 09-13-2018, 05:03 AM
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You're spot on, there is no right. I do understand the perfectionism thing though...

My old flatmate would shower three times a day listening to self help podcasts. And quoted verbatim from self help books every single day. I thought all that was cool and refreshing at first to see someone so into self actualisation... But it got a bit too much. As he really didn't have much empathy for people I noticed. He was just living that kind of lifestyle putting immense pressure on himself to be this perfect person in order to meet the perfect woman. A very charismatic guy but could sense there was a lot of repressed anger there and turns out he wasn't really taking the time to relax... Even although he'd always preach to people about the importance of relaxation. He'd go to gym twice a day, obsessively count calories. His room was full of self help books. A new book delivery from amazon each day. I think his life was built on a foundation of books (of other people's opinions) to help him navigate through his own life. I'm all for self improvement but sometimes you just have to take a break, and live and make mistakes. Listen to your voice. And not rely on some one else telling you how to live. You should congratulate yourself for loving someone so much! That takes courage. You should congratulate yourself for being so empathic. And caring of someone with mental health issues. That shows that you are a really caring person and beautifully imperfect.

My flatmate was kinda sociopathic (or at the very best, emotionally disconnected) he was seeing a therapist though so fair enough he was trying to work stuff out ... But it was worrying that he'd label every single one of his exes as "mental". Turns out he used to be very overweight, hates his mum, and his dad died when he was 18. I think he was so angry he didn't really know how to feel it and let it go... And this is why he strived for this perfection... His favourite movie was also American Psycho! He said he related to Christian Bale's character. Safe to say he's gone now.

He is an extreme example of perfectionost.
But he would never admit to that. Whereas you are aware of your perfectionist habits... And you want to be more gentle on yourself.

I think some people just go through these extreme phases of striving for perfection based on traumatic experiences they've had, conciously or unconciously. Personally I want to be healed right now and get out there and be the best person I can be. I'm impatient! But it's daft to race for that because there will always be more loss and pain to experience, more knocks, therefore more to heal from...maybe the secret is to practice patience,, resilience, be gentle on yourself.

Anyway I went well off topic I think with all that flatmate chat (he moved out a few weeks ago so it's still an intense chapter I'm recovering from lol)

Point is, perfectionism is impossible in regards to humans. We can have perfectly working bridges and trains but we can't have perfect humans.

Maybe start a class where the point is to be really loose... Maybe some art therapy! Or a wacky dance class. Have you ever seen the film Housesitter starring Goldie Hawn and Steve Martin? It's one of my all time favourite films. There's a scene where Goldie Hawn is taking a dance class and she does this really funny tribal dancing, it's hilarious. I love how loose she is. Her whole character is just very free and it's beautiful to see ! :-) maybe join a class like that if there's any around. Or some kind of tribal drumming class. I was at an Xavier Rudd gig last night... Felt like he was this very primal lion being lol... It was too much! Just so amazing! I'm a filmmaker and I've always loved working with people who just let loose... Imperfection and vulnerability is what I want to see because it is most authentic and beautiful. And the most riskiest thing to do is to expose yourself. You're exposing yourself here so again, that is vulnerability, imperfect and great.

Hope I made some sense, it is good to explore this subject ...!
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Old 09-13-2018, 05:25 AM
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Originally Posted by Surfbee View Post
You're spot on, there is no right. I do understand the perfectionism thing though...

My old flatmate would shower three times a day listening to self help podcasts. And quoted verbatim from self help books every single day. I thought all that was cool and refreshing at first to see someone so into self actualisation... But it got a bit too much. As he really didn't have much empathy for people I noticed. He was just living that kind of lifestyle putting immense pressure on himself to be this perfect person in order to meet the perfect woman. A very charismatic guy but could sense there was a lot of repressed anger there and turns out he wasn't really taking the time to relax... Even although he'd always preach to people about the importance of relaxation. He'd go to gym twice a day, obsessively count calories. His room was full of self help books. A new book delivery from amazon each day. I think his life was built on a foundation of books (of other people's opinions) to help him navigate through his own life. I'm all for self improvement but sometimes you just have to take a break, and live and make mistakes. Listen to your voice. And not rely on some one else telling you how to live. You should congratulate yourself for loving someone so much! That takes courage. You should congratulate yourself for being so empathic. And caring of someone with mental health issues. That shows that you are a really caring person and beautifully imperfect.

My flatmate was kinda sociopathic (or at the very best, emotionally disconnected) he was seeing a therapist though so fair enough he was trying to work stuff out ... But it was worrying that he'd label every single one of his exes as "mental". Turns out he used to be very overweight, hates his mum, and his dad died when he was 18. I think he was so angry he didn't really know how to feel it and let it go... And this is why he strived for this perfection... His favourite movie was also American Psycho! He said he related to Christian Bale's character. Safe to say he's gone now.

He is an extreme example of perfectionost.
But he would never admit to that. Whereas you are aware of your perfectionist habits... And you want to be more gentle on yourself.

I think some people just go through these extreme phases of striving for perfection based on traumatic experiences they've had, conciously or unconciously. Personally I want to be healed right now and get out there and be the best person I can be. I'm impatient! But it's daft to race for that because there will always be more loss and pain to experience, more knocks, therefore more to heal from...maybe the secret is to practice patience,, resilience, be gentle on yourself.

Anyway I went well off topic I think with all that flatmate chat (he moved out a few weeks ago so it's still an intense chapter I'm recovering from lol)

Point is, perfectionism is impossible in regards to humans. We can have perfectly working bridges and trains but we can't have perfect humans.

Maybe start a class where the point is to be really loose... Maybe some art therapy! Or a wacky dance class. Have you ever seen the film Housesitter starring Goldie Hawn and Steve Martin? It's one of my all time favourite films. There's a scene where Goldie Hawn is taking a dance class and she does this really funny tribal dancing, it's hilarious. I love how loose she is. Her whole character is just very free and it's beautiful to see ! :-) maybe join a class like that if there's any around. Or some kind of tribal drumming class. I was at an Xavier Rudd gig last night... Felt like he was this very primal lion being lol... It was too much! Just so amazing! I'm a filmmaker and I've always loved working with people who just let loose... Imperfection and vulnerability is what I want to see because it is most authentic and beautiful. And the most riskiest thing to do is to expose yourself. You're exposing yourself here so again, that is vulnerability, imperfect and great.

Hope I made some sense, it is good to explore this subject ...!
Thanks you've made perfect sense. Especially "have to take a break, and live and make mistakes. Listen to your voice. And not rely on some one else telling you how to live". Can get a bit like that at times, almost fearful of doing anything that isn't in a book, on my path which keeps me isolated then.

Going out there making mistakes is where the learning is. I guess what has happened was so traumatic for me that I'm trying to do recovery properly which is unrealistic. I'm going to try do something fun this weekend to relax. Been feeling progressive lately in parts, but feeling but off this week so making me think more about him this week again and what might have been.

Impatience is definately coming up for me, want to be sorted whatever that means now! The perfectionism though I'll have to relax on. I'm doing enough, I'm going at a good pace. Been for a couple of walks this week with a friend and all we've talked about is codependency (her partner is an addict recovered 10 years), but I feel drained after it. It's enough reading journaling etc then talking on walks.

One good thing I noticed was that a guy contacted me last weekend, who wanted to meet up. Said he really like me and wanted to come to mine for "a session" as he put it, meaning drinks and more. I told him that I thought he was a nice person, but because of what I've been through with my other guy, I really have no tolerance for meeting a guy who wants to party and need to focus on myself now. Maybe baby progress
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Old 09-13-2018, 05:59 AM
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That is great you declined his offer, well done. You're setting a high standard for yourself.

And really good that you expressed that what you're doing is enough. If you did less than half of what you're doing it would still be enough because you've had your heart broken so you need a lot of time to get your emotional energy back.

I can imagine the walk and talk about codependency with your friend would be draining! For me even hearing the word "codependency" is draining! I think a lot of people on here are attaching themselves too much to that label. Everyone gets codependent in a relationship, hence it's a relationship. Sometimes the balance is heavily uneven and that's when you get driven mad. But we never asked to fall in love with people with mental health issues. I see it as a spiritual lesson about growth. If you can learn from it, great, but lose the label. You're only a codendoent when you're actively being one. Right now you're not!

And you won't be again! Because you've learned all this new stuff.

Funny how clearly I see now in regards to "codependency". Upon observation of pretty much everyone I know, turns out all they all do codependent things! Lol... I think it's pandemic in society. And we really ought to laugh about it. At least we know how to deal with it now when we get that "I want to fix him" feeling... We can say, "oh, I've been here before... Maybe now is a good time to get centred". And voila we just broke a pattern! And we will continue to be 'work-in-progresses' as we navigate through life since life always throw challenges and curve balls. Life is one big lesson!

I didn't even finish the book "codepdencey no more" as it was too harsh I felt. And my heart didn't need that right after a break up.
But I took what I needed from it. I. E. Detach and take care of myself when I feel myself getting anxious over someone else's problems.

I think the fesrfulness you feel of not following guidelines, is an indication of anxiety. Which is a fearfulness of uncertainty... All very natural since you just broke up with someone who really hurt you and scared you. And the rejection hurts majorly I get that complete and relate. Your threat system was attacked, you no longer felt safe in your own decisions, so it's no wonder your anxiety is high. That'll all relax soon though. The more soothing things you do for yourself the nicer you're going to feel... Simple soothing things. And rejecting that guy who asked you out showed self respect and self confidence.. You're doing better than you know Glenjo!

Also in regards to the guy you were with... If you feel like writing him a letter, you should just follow your heart. Worst case scenario is that he ignores and rejects you but at least you'll have a chance to speak to him from a place of calm and love. And you'll be better equipped to handle how he responds or doesn't respond. Maybe your soul will want that at some point. I also believe that what's for you won't pass you.
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