I was feeling tired and fed up last week. I felt that my world was getting smaller all the time because of this stupid RA, and I was sick of it. Then I read this post by Rheumatoid Arthritis Warrior, and I could really, really relate. I would have loved to just press that eject button RA Warrior described – just quit the whole damn thing – but, of course, I couldn’t do that. Still, I needed a break, and badly.
So I started thinking about what kind of break I could take. I’ve done the Denial Experiment before – the one where I decide that for a week, I will just act as if I don’t have RA and live life like a normal person. Well, that one never lasts long – by about the third day (often even sooner), my body lets me know that it just ain’t gonna happen. So what could I do instead? And exactly what kind of break did I need?
I thought about the things that were bothering me most, and the main thing that jumped out at me was this: RA had become the central fact of my life. When I wrote about my world getting smaller, one of the things I said was that I no longer had anything to talk about with friends except illness, and that illness just isn’t that interesting a topic to most people. Also, I know someone who talks about nothing except her aches, pains, and health problems, and I can’t stand to listen to her. She’s never happy, never positive, and never interesting. I don’t want to be her. But lately I have become exactly that person. (My husband kindly points out that no, I haven’t – the person I’m describing complains but never does anything to try to make it better, and keeps putting off surgery she’s needed for about three years now. So okay, I’m not EXACTLY the same as her… but still.)
So I decided that RA was just plain getting too much airtime in my life. My husband agreed that we seemed to spend most of our time talking about it and almost nothing else. I was getting tired of listening to myself sound whiny. I was spending too much time every day reading RA blogs and discussion boards. I was feeling exhausted and burned out and didn’t want to post on my own blog. I just needed a mental break from the subject of RA.
Here’s what I decided to do:
If denial didn’t work, maybe acceptance would. Just for a week, I would behave as if I had already reached the acceptance point, and RA had become an integrated part of my life. I would take my meds every day, do the things I need to do to take care of my health, not push myself too hard or pretend I didn’t have RA. But I would also stop talking about it. If I had a bad flare, I would tell my husband that I wasn’t doing well and would ask for help, but then I would stop complaining. If I talked to a friend and they asked how I was doing, I would give a very short, honest answer like “About the same” and then talk about something else. I would also stop reading RA blogs and boards, just for a week. It would be, I hoped, like hitting a reset button.
So how did it go?
First, I learned that I really do complain a LOT. Complaining words were on the tip of my tongue way too often. So I think it was good for my marriage and my friendships to cut back on this.
But it was hard, too. Really hard. Three days in, I had a day when I was in a lot of pain, and I didn’t say anything. By nighttime, I ended up crying. (I rarely cry.) My husband gently reminded me that the idea of the experiment was not to pretend I was fine – it was okay to say that I was in pain and needed help. So I did, and found that saying it once was enough to get what I needed.
I learned that I really DON’T have enough other things in my life. It was hard to find things to talk about. It also felt good when I actually did find topics, and my husband and I had better conversations this week than we have in awhile. We both really needed to talk about something else, and I think we still do.
Another discovery was that I really, really, REALLY missed the RA blogs and boards. They have become a big part of my life, and cutting them off left me feeling isolated and sad. I do think that I’m on the computer too much, and that I need to cut back, so I really shouldn’t be checking them as often as I do. But they serve an important function in my life.
I’m still not sure exactly what I learned. I felt both better and worse this week as a result of pushing RA to the background. I guess the main lesson was one of moderation. I need the RA online community, but I don’t need to check for new posts several times a day. I need to vent, but not all the time. I need to be honest and speak up when I am having trouble, but I don’t need to repeat it over and over. And when I’m burned out and need a break from the whole thing, the Acceptance Experiment seems to be a better choice than the Denial Experiment.
