Thursday, January 23, 2014
When I first began doing physical therapy last summer I had no idea what a long haul I was in for. I was angry much of the time because I felt my life had been totally derailed by my unexpected diagnosis of PTSD. But then new challenges kept appearing on my plate. Suddenly I found myself working with a litany of health care providers to get me back in shape. I had a therapist, a physical therapist, an acupuncturist, a chiropractor and so on. My daily planner began to look like that of an 85 year old. It was a sobering and overwhelming time.
Today my podiatrist put in an order for still more physical therapy. This time it is to target the calf muscles in my left leg. I could choose to become angry about the need for more therapy and then wallow in self pity. But I am not going to do that. I am going to channel the energy of my sadness, pain and irritation into the necessary work of improving my health. I have come this far and I will not back down now.
I do believe this previously unsuccessfully treated condition of PTSD has contributed to the difficulties I have had with my musculoskeletal system. I simply could not completely relax for years at a time. I was too anxious. My body was caught in a persistent low grade state of activation and tension. My fight or flight response was never completely not on alert. Because I could not relax my body had to start compensating by developing all these slightly distorted ways of moving. And thus I found myself inside the body I have all these years later a bit baffled as to how this all happened. How did I get here? But more importantly...how do I get back to the healthy person I know I can be?
One clear choice I made months ago was to excise all the dross out of my life. If you want to be truly healthy (and I mean glowing such that people notice it) you simply have to do a radical inventory of your life and approach your life with incredible honesty. You have to be willing to review what is and is not working and toss out the dreck that simply doesn't work. Is it painful? I would say 99.99% of the time there will be pain involved in such a clearing process. Will it prove worth it? I believe the answer is ABSOLUTELY.
Going back into physical therapy yet again has a way of reactivating my grief centered in my experience of feeling I have lost so much time. My journey of healing has been so lengthy (at least in my mind) that I occasionally have had those nagging, unpleasant thoughts in which I wonder when it will all be over. To sound like a child: 'Am I there yet?' And the answer is that I am not. But I am much, much closer than I have ever been. And it is also true that I am really the healthiest I have ever been in my life thus far. It's still a weird feeling. And who knows what that feeling will end!
I've put on more than fifteen pounds since I began being much more physically active last summer. I am now constantly weighing in close to the most I have ever weighed. I am literally growing! I should take some Before and After pictures.
When I first began doing physical therapy last summer I had no idea what a long haul I was in for. I was angry much of the time because I felt my life had been totally derailed by my unexpected diagnosis of PTSD. But then new challenges kept appearing on my plate. Suddenly I found myself working with a litany of health care providers to get me back in shape. I had a therapist, a physical therapist, an acupuncturist, a chiropractor and so on. My daily planner began to look like that of an 85 year old. It was a sobering and overwhelming time.
Today my podiatrist put in an order for still more physical therapy. This time it is to target the calf muscles in my left leg. I could choose to become angry about the need for more therapy and then wallow in self pity. But I am not going to do that. I am going to channel the energy of my sadness, pain and irritation into the necessary work of improving my health. I have come this far and I will not back down now.
I do believe this previously unsuccessfully treated condition of PTSD has contributed to the difficulties I have had with my musculoskeletal system. I simply could not completely relax for years at a time. I was too anxious. My body was caught in a persistent low grade state of activation and tension. My fight or flight response was never completely not on alert. Because I could not relax my body had to start compensating by developing all these slightly distorted ways of moving. And thus I found myself inside the body I have all these years later a bit baffled as to how this all happened. How did I get here? But more importantly...how do I get back to the healthy person I know I can be?
One clear choice I made months ago was to excise all the dross out of my life. If you want to be truly healthy (and I mean glowing such that people notice it) you simply have to do a radical inventory of your life and approach your life with incredible honesty. You have to be willing to review what is and is not working and toss out the dreck that simply doesn't work. Is it painful? I would say 99.99% of the time there will be pain involved in such a clearing process. Will it prove worth it? I believe the answer is ABSOLUTELY.
Going back into physical therapy yet again has a way of reactivating my grief centered in my experience of feeling I have lost so much time. My journey of healing has been so lengthy (at least in my mind) that I occasionally have had those nagging, unpleasant thoughts in which I wonder when it will all be over. To sound like a child: 'Am I there yet?' And the answer is that I am not. But I am much, much closer than I have ever been. And it is also true that I am really the healthiest I have ever been in my life thus far. It's still a weird feeling. And who knows what that feeling will end!
I've put on more than fifteen pounds since I began being much more physically active last summer. I am now constantly weighing in close to the most I have ever weighed. I am literally growing! I should take some Before and After pictures.
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