Category: Fibro Fighting

I’ve been fighting it for a long time now, and there are times that i “forget” or ignore it. It has, is and will be big part of my life and I should always acknowledge that and deal with it. Here are the writings that are relate to my Fight with Fibro, some posts will be entirely about it & in some it may just be a passing matter.

Hurt


Good Morning everyone and a happy Sunday to you! Please enjoy this day, spend time with the family, have some fun and chillax. Unless you’re like me and work Sundays 🙂

A couple days back, I was talking to a friend about hurt. And that got me thinking.

So yea, in life we’re going to get hurt. It’s part and parcel of growing up and living life, and yes it sucks.

No one looks forward to getting hurt, I know. I’ve been physically broken, mentally broken and spiritually broken ever since mid 2009 and along the way, got my heart broken a couple of times… or more. If you’re a regular reader you’ll know that the last few years have been tough and that the last 5/6 weeks have been a Second Coming. Recovering from hurt isn’t easy, not at all, it takes a lot of work, determination and self-belief, and also having people that have your back doesn’t hurt. During the time before my Second Coming, as mentioned above, I was hurt in many ways. I was confused, i was clouded, i thought I had wasted all my potential, I was using them as excuses as to why I couldn’t do things or why I failed or why I shouldn’t try something. I was scared. Fear invaded and took control. I was so damn scared because no one wants to get hurt again.I didn’t know what the definition of happiness was to me.

My health wasn’t great, I stopped believing in myself and my heart had been scarred many times along the way, it was scary to see a doctor because I was afraid they would tell me that something else was wrong, I was scared to believe in myself because I was afraid I would fail again and I was afraid get back into the Game because I had been hurt so many times and didn’t want to experience the sight of the girl I liked walking away with someone else. So you know what, I stopped really trying… Sure I tried a couple of times last year to get out of this funk but every time things got sour I relapsed back behind the shield I built.

I did that for a while a long time, until 6 weeks ago when I went back to India and it seemed like India had decided to give me back the part of me it took back in 2009/2010. It was then that I woke up and saw the life I was living, or the life I wasn’t living. I wasn’t really living life. I was in a coma, sleep-walking thought life, letting it act on me instead of me acting on life…. I stopped putting living in my days…. I was basically as good as dead. I didn’t want to venture, I didn’t want to experience, i didnt want to make mistakes, I didn’t want to love, I didn’t want to learn, I didn’t want to believe in me, all because I was afraid. Why was I afraid, because I got hurting instead of being strong and facing it, I decided to hide.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m still scared, but now I’m willing to try, willing to live, willing to learn and willing to love because I know that no matter what happens, I’ll eventfully get through it. The most important lesson I learnt over the past few years is that the only thing between me and getting what I want… is me. The last 6 weeks have been great, I’ve discovered my niche, I’ve learned, I’ve made more relationships, I’ve strengthen old relationships, I’m happy again, and no, it hasn’t been perfect but it feels damn good to be alive. A rekindled spirit.

And yea, I’ll get back into the Game, and yes i’m scared. The memories and emotions of my previous ventures are still very much with me, but I guess i’ll try and learn from them instead of letting them stop me… And you know what, maybe the new-old me will find success in the Game this year, who knows, I certainly don’t… But you know what I do know…. That I will definitely be trying. Because the more I face my fear, the more power I will gain from it.

So please, take it from me, I know I haven’t lived and learned all that much, but please keep moving forward and take small steps daily, because over time these small steps will lead to results. you got to move on in order to live.

“The fears we resist will persist, what we befriend we will transcend.” Robin Sharma

So guys, have a great Sunday, take some time to think about life, what needs to be addressed and how can heal the hurt and move one. It won’t be instant, it won’t be easy but it’ll be worth it.

Straight from the Heart,

Arkay6

Keep Moving Forward

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I Will Keep Moving Foward


Good morning everyone! My Cafe Mocha and I are coming to you live from Starbucks Mid Valley.

It’s an interesting scene here, never been to MV this early…. Ever. I’m sitting outside and just observing all the people walking about, the people chilling at Starbucks. Most of them being working people, actually, I think all of them, and I will somewhat be one of them.

I’m doing good today, it could be better, not feeling as great as the last few days. Feeling a little more tired actually, no its not because of the job, I’m nervous yes, a little scared but also excited. It’s a whole jumble of feelings, like now I’m feeling all calm and cool. It’s just this university issue that’s been hanging over me. When I was really sick, like down in the dumps, wanting to give up, feeling like shit, which was in January, I had to drop out of summer school and unfortunately I couldn’t do it cleanly, it was either fail the course or defer the exam, so I deferred the exam but I lost the 30% of the course as that part is course work etc and I didn’t do any of that work, i wasn’t in any shape to. I went for about 3-4 weeks, but I couldn’t think, my mind was so clouded due to the damn brain fog, etc so yea, it was hell, now I’m trying to sort that out because it’s an important subject and will impact my entire major. So it’s stressing me out a little, I’m just worried that this sort of stress would screw up all the progress ive made in the past 5 weeks, that the stress of sitting for an exam in August about a difficult subject that has had some changes this semester would be detrimental, i know i’ll Be ready for uni again in july, but Not for an exam, and the stress that comes with it, that soon after re-starting. But whatever happens, i’ll deal with it, if I have to delay my education a little longer, so be it, but I want that Major in Accounting. Anyway, I can’t do anything about it now, we’ll see how things go. May the Force Be With Me.

I really hope that didn’t put a damper in your morning, me venting like that. It’s just a little coincidental that the day after I get this news about uni that I wake up more tired than usual etc. but if I’ve learnt anything over the past few weeks, actually the past few years, is that it’s not about what happens to you in life, it’s about what you do about it.

I won’t let this be a damper on my Second Coming, on my rekindled spirit and this revival of mine. I will stay strong , I will keep writing, keep reading, keep waking early, keep drinking Cafe Mocha, keep swimming and keep moving forward.

Turbulence is normal. Just fight though it.

I will Keep Moving Forward, one step at a time, no matter what.

Straight From The Heart

Arkay 6

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iClouded


I keep telling people about this Fibro Fog that i experience almost everyday, but do they actually understand what I’m going through? The fog is one of the worst symptoms, second only to the fatigue.

Why?

Well, for starters my head almost always feels clouded and disoriented, it’s quite a numbing experience that makes me feel isolated from the world at times. I’ll be listening to you but I’ll probably only absorb 30% of what you just told me. Back to the numbness and isolation, the fog takes a lot out of living, the small details pass me by, people get irritated at me because it seems that I’m not listening to them (my sister tends to jump on this tangent) and that I’m self absorbed. It’s not that, it’s just that, well, i’m blurred out, zoned out… even as i write this post the Fog is really making it hard to put together a proper paragraph… my word recollection is bad, i forget things so easily (and please don’t tell me everyone experiences this, i know the difference), sometimes i cane walking to do something and on the way forget what i wanted to do… and even math has become difficult, things like adding 37 & 55 (without visual aids) can get difficult at times. Reading is difficult, which make studying difficult and so on. So i hope you can see my frustration, frustration… that’s where it all leads doesn’t it. all the above cause me to be frustrated then i get irritated then i get angry and that’s put me in prime position to explode at the wrong person at the wrong time at the wrong place…I’m not sure whether I’ve explained everything but you get the picture, and it’s not a pretty picture to say the least.

One of the reasons I wanted to start blogging was to help fight the Fog. So hopefully, in time i’ll be able to break through the cloud and see more of the light…

May the Force be with you, so that you may Live Long and Prosper.

Straight from the Heart,

Arkay6

Two roads diverged in a wood.


The issue that has been using most of my brain power lately is whether i should take a break from university to focus and deal with the FM and CFS, Monash calls it an Intermission. There are days that i think i should and others where i feel that i can deal with the FM and CFS while going on with classes like  I did last semester.

Last semester I come out successful but since then things have changed, the FM has gotten worse and another thought, next semester will be harder. I found it hard to deal with my summer unit and had to drop out, and even dropping out of that has been giving me headaches and has been getting me anxious. On a side note, I took the summer unit optionally as a method of being productive during my break instead of just chilling with my friends and family, and instead of learning more about Financial Accounting, I learned that FM can be quite disruptive to say the least. After my previous exams my FM started getting worse so much so that I couldn’t focus during my summer classes (i sat and stared, i couldn’t absorb anything), waking up got harder, the fatigue, brain fog and muscle aches got worse, my moods made me seem bipolar and I just couldn’t handle the stress of knowing that I was bound to fail, I couldn’t do it… the only positive and most important point that came out from the summer unit is that I finally accepted that the FM needed to be dealt with and that I needed to bring my parents in 100%, before this I didn’t really let on how bad times would get. I guess i thought that if I ignored it, it didn’t exist… I guess i thought wrong.

Now, we are in the process of dealing with it, not me but we. I should have realized along time ago that I wasn’t alone in this, but why did it take me so long to admit that I needed help? A combination of my Ego mixed in with the fact that I’m used to doing things alone with a hint of “didn’t want to bother everyone else with my problems”.

So now, to the point. Should I take a break or not? How do i make a decision when my position on this matter changes day-to-day, (further elaborated in A Tale of Two Minds http://arkay6.com/2012/02/05/a-tale-of-two-minds/ ).

Why shouldn’t I take a break? Well first of all because I’m am so far behind, in terms of education, the people i graduated secondary school with, so much so that most of my new friends are about 2 years younger than me. Do I really want to be left back some more? Still be in university when friends my age start working?

But then again, I don’t want a repeat episode of Summer School Dec 2011 where I drop out because I haven’t dealt with the underlying issues and waste more of my father’s money which he works so hard for. I’m scared. Scared that I will let down my parents,  I’m scared that I will let myself down again…that I will fail next semester due to factors out of my control which will only further waste away confidence when I’m already using out my reserves. I don’t know how I would take it if I failed next semester, but I highly doubt that it will be good… as it is my moods are more bad than good, more depressed than happy, more cloudy than clear…

I guess…. i guess that I will have to see whether  have more good days than bad days in the next 2 weeks… and make a decision by my birthday… my birthday… what a depressing thought, 22 years old and still in my first year of university. It’s just so… so… upsetting… but before I go off on a tangent let me just finished this post up. based on what i just wrote it would seem a better option to take a break a deal with this goddamn FM and CFS and know how much of it I can cure and how much of it I will have to live with for the rest of my life.

But making this decision is so scary… what if I take a break and suddenly in less than a month im feeling better? what then? Would that mean that i just wasted another semester? It’s times like these… when i think about my future that i get depressed… that things get darker… that things just seem a little more hopeless…

It makes me think… is there a “correct” choice in this situation, or am I screwed either way?

Happiness


The past 3 years have been rocky,i’ve had to drop the pace to deal with my health issues that never seem to end. From weekly infections, to mycoplasma pneumonia to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and then Fibromylagia (FM), which was diagnosed about a year ago. So as for now, my problem is FM, which to be honest I’m still not sure what it is. Whatever it is, i’ve finally acknowledged that the FM or whatever it is, is a problem and i’m not going to be able to move on with my life if I don’t deal with this damn thing. So i finally told me family that i need help and for the next few months i’m going to focus on beating this so that i can finally go through university and have a life that isn’t regulated by the FM, but by me.

FM has taken things away from me. It pisses me off, frustrates me and depresses me. Not a great way to live. But then again those are the bad days, there are good days but the problem is that the bad days outnumber the good days, and not by a close margin. So my mission, should i choose to accept, will be to flip the ratio so that the good days outnumber the bad. But in order to do that, i’ll have to accept limitations to my life, things that i won’t be able to do, dreams that i won’t be able to reach, achievements that i will miss out on… which brings me to the title of this post, Happiness.

I’ve been so used to defining happiness in my achievements and successes that the mere fact that I have to re-evaluate my life, to lower my goals and expectations so that I don’t aggravate my health is something that i haven’t been able to process yet… actually, i guess i’m processing it now. I’ve been putting this off for some time now because it just depresses me. I’ve been so used to dreaming big and for a long time, I was on the path to achieving most of those dreams. I always envisioned myself as a Suit, a successful business person, living in luxury, living the Good Life and enjoying the work i was doing. That was what i thought Happiness would look like for me. So I guess “my ego was writing cheques that my body won’t be able cash.”

I have to be realistic, there are more hurdles in my life now, I just need to get to the next level of life.

I need re-evaluate my goals.

I need to deflate my ego.

I need to maintain a Work-Life Balance so that stress doesn’t drag me into a relapse in the future

I need to redefine Happiness.

(sorry if the post is…. screwy, started feeling really blur midway… damn Brain Fog)