that's my question

do you think, as a person, you do enough to support your physical and mental health?. if not, what do you feel you should be doing more of?

for me, I think that I have a long way to go to be doing " enough"

physically, it's difficult to do much because of all the pain I am in most of the time. with that said, I really need to do more exercise. I admit freely, that when it comes to exercise, mine would be something like picking up a cup or leaning down to turn on the computer- I'm deffenetly not training for the olympics anytime soon lol.

mentally the thing I struggle with is self-care (and I don't mean things like therapy and meds, I always do that) I mean positive self-talk, distractions, planning things to keep my mind focussed etc etc.

what about you. tell me how you think you are doing overall

[Yaowen]

Dear raging vortex,

Thanks for posting this. I hope many people see it and respond. As for myself, I think that basically I am doing pretty well supporting my physical and mental health. The SARS-COvid-19 pandemic has given me a greater fear of dying than I had before but I think I am handling it pretty well. I think one good thing about my current life is that I am exercising more and as a result have had better results on my medical tests. It is so awful that you are in pain so much of the time. It is just utterly heartbreaking. I can't even imagine having pain like that and no source of relief from it. My heart goes out to you!

Sincerely yours, Yao Wen

[Fuzzybear]

........



I try to avoid things that are poisonous to me and papa bear . It is not easy

I try to avoid toxicity both physically and psychically. Sometimes that means walking away from people and places that are harmful to me

[*Beth*]

I do my best to support myself. My biggest challenge is also chronic pain. I'm in that frustrating cycle of needing to lose weight, but being in too much pain to exercise to the degree I would like. Also, since achilles surgery in May I have to focus on healing. Yesterday was the furthest I've been able to walk since surgery. That was about 1/3 of a block (in addition to stairs). Progress, but it's fairly slow.

I have always made an effort to take care of my mental health, including my spiritual well-being.

[MuddyBoots]

No. I have a couple pretty bad habits that are detrimental to both my physical and mental health. I'm working on them though.

[Blue_Bird]

I try to. I take my meds consistently. I practice self care. Do yoga, meditate, stay connected with my faith, try to socialize when I feel up to it, etc. What I'm not good with is eating healthy and exercising. I need to work on that. But I am doing other things like getting my dental appointments taken care of so that's a good thing because my teeth have been in bad shape due to my years of bulimia. I haven't gone for a physical in a few years. I need to go though, not that I have anything bothering me it's just that my care manager thinks it would be a good idea to get one every so often. So I'm going to try to do that sometime this month. I also use plenty of coping skills when I'm struggling.

[Tryingtobehappy5]

No I unfortunately dont, the one good thing I do is exercise very regularly. I feel very lucky to be able to do this as it is the main thing I do that feels like it helps my physical and emotional health.

Not taking meds and drinking are things i do that are the opposite of supporting myself and they make it hard to do other things that would be healthy for me.

Originally Posted by Blue_Bird

I try to. I take my meds consistently. I practice self care. Do yoga, meditate, stay connected with my faith, try to socialize when I feel up to it, etc. What I'm not good with is eating healthy and exercising. I need to work on that. But I am doing other things like getting my dental appointments taken care of so that's a good thing because my teeth have been in bad shape due to my years of bulimia. I haven't gone for a physical in a few years. I need to go though, not that I have anything bothering me it's just that my care manager thinks it would be a good idea to get one every so often. So I'm going to try to do that sometime this month. I also use plenty of coping skills when I'm struggling.

eating healthy is something I suck at big time.

so I hear you on that one

I drink too much soda too

Originally Posted by Yaowen

Dear raging vortex,

Thanks for posting this. I hope many people see it and respond. As for myself, I think that basically I am doing pretty well supporting my physical and mental health. The SARS-COvid-19 pandemic has given me a greater fear of dying than I had before but I think I am handling it pretty well. I think one good thing about my current life is that I am exercising more and as a result have had better results on my medical tests. It is so awful that you are in pain so much of the time. It is just utterly heartbreaking. I can't even imagine having pain like that and no source of relief from it. My heart goes out to you!

Sincerely yours, Yao Wen

thanks

fibro deffenetly sucks

[bpcyclist]

I do my best. Writing myself emails and notes a lot, like this.

[fern46]

I do what I can. I assess my physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health each day. I look for trends or imbalances and seek to address any issues or potential future issues as they arise.

Everything is trial and error for me at this point. It is unclear exactly what triggers instability and what will prove to be successful. Generally speaking, I try to eat well and exercise regularly. I ground often and spend time in nature. I play.

Mentally, I am trying to find a balance between keeping things simple and stretching my mind for higher thought. I need both and I don't know how much of each is right for any given scenario. It is a learning process.

[Fuzzybear]

Originally Posted by fern46

I do what I can. I assess my physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health each day. I look for trends or imbalances and seek to address any issues or potential future issues as they arise.

Everything is trial and error for me at this point. It is unclear exactly what triggers instability and what will prove to be successful. Generally speaking, I try to eat well and exercise regularly. I ground often and spend time in nature. I play.

Mentally, I am trying to find a balance between keeping things simple and stretching my mind for higher thought. I need both and I don't know how much of each is right for any given scenario. It is a learning process.

Thanks for this helpful post

[Soupe du jour]

Enough? Well, what is "enough"? There's always room for improvement, but I have gotten to the point where I'm happy and proud of what I've done and AM doing. It took a long while to replace some unhealthy coping mechanisms with much healthier ones, but I did it. I do fall back on less healthy ones, on occasion. I try not to beat myself up about that, but at the same time I don't allow myself to persist with the unhealthy ones.

For a few months before my vacation/trip, I was eating very well and lost about 8 lbs. My cholesterol and triglycerides were lower, but not yet normal. It's tough to keep up healthy eating on vacations, because there are temptations, extra stress, "guest" meals, etc. No time to really meal track, either. I hope to get back to that asap, but I'm under a great deal of stress right now. Again, I could beat myself up about that, but I can also give myself big kudos for managing to the great level that I am.

I've written this before, but humor is so important for me. Even if it has to be a bit of a dark humor. It's a major coping tool that I use.

[*Beth*]

Originally Posted by Soupe du jour

Enough? Well, what is "enough"? There's always room for improvement, but I have gotten to the point where I'm happy and proud of what I've done and AM doing. It took a long while to replace some unhealthy coping mechanisms with much healthier ones, but I did it. I do fall back on less healthy ones, on occasion. I try not to beat myself up about that, but at the same time I don't allow myself to persist with the unhealthy ones.

For a few months before my vacation/trip, I was eating very well and lost about 8 lbs. My cholesterol and triglycerides were lower, but not yet normal. It's tough to keep up healthy eating on vacations, because there are temptations, extra stress, "guest" meals, etc. No time to really meal track, either. I hope to get back to that asap, but I'm under a great deal of stress right now. Again, I could beat myself up about that, but I can also give myself big kudos for managing to the great level that I am.

I've written this before, but humor is so important for me. Even if it has to be a bit of a dark humor. It's a major coping tool that I use.

Humor is so very important. It's something I tend to forget when I'm stressed. I'm glad you mentioned it.

[Fuzzybear]

Originally Posted by BethRags

Humor is so very important. It's something I tend to forget when I'm stressed. I'm glad you mentioned it.

I agree about humour

I also try to work on self talk when I remember, not just parotting what abusers (sometimes disguised as ''helpers'') have told me (eg I (apparently...) do ''not do enough to blah blah blah''), But that jarring internal critic can be hard to turn off. Again humour can help (including dark humour particularly about those abusers irl)

[xRavenx]

I should probably stop drinking as frequently, although most the time it is in moderation. But I think I rely on it a little too much to relax when I should be using other coping mechanisms. I indulge in sweets too often and look towards food for comfort, although I have my days where I'm able to eat healthier.

[Fuzzybear]

I used to often think how I should do this or should not do that. (for example I should work full time and clean all the windows in a large house regularly, should shop for all the food and cook all the meals and look perfect, (while never buying any new clothes) ..should please those family who would not be pleased or even accept me..) Should always put everyone elses needs above mine, including people I rarely spoke to....) (should be the same person as a Narcissist (''family'' member) or at least ...... them ''well enough'' with NO mistakes..) For me personally I usually didn't find that to be an effective motivator. I find a reward system to work more effectively than punishment