Self Care 101

I've been doing a lot of thinking and reading about self care lately. I came across this rather interesting checklist from a University of Michigan employee assistance site. How well do you fare when you answer the questions? My answers are italicized.

Self Care Checklist

Are you taking good care of yourself—body, mind, and spirit? Review the list below to see how well you're doing and how to do better.

How well do you care for your physical health?

• Eat a well-balanced diet. (Well, yes - if last night's Dilly Bar and tonight's Death by Chocolate ice cream cone each balance out all of the healthy food I've eaten this past two days.) 
• Get adequate sleep. (I am a night hawk - I could do better on this one.)
• Have periods of physical rest and relaxation. (Definitely, just figuring out this concept.)
• Get regular physical exercise. (If gardening counts as exercise, then yes.)
• Keep your weight at a healthy level. (Give or take ten pounds. Generally take.)
• Get regular mental exercise (e.g., reading, music, puzzles). (Yup, I read for hours every day.)
• Attend to your own health needs. (Well, I floss. That must count for something.)

How well do you care for your emotional health?

• Talk about your feelings, both positive and negative. (Ad Nauseum.)
• Use coping strategies for stress, anxiety, and frustration. (Leaning, learning, learning.)
• Remind yourself of the good things in your life. (Gratitude is my life's blood.)
• Laugh a lot. (With friends like mine, how could I not?)
• Practice being a positive, encouraging person. (I do practice, probably need to do more.)
• Find balance between your work and personal life. (Currently, yes. Of course being on stress leave for four months helps here.)
• Take time for rest and relaxation. (See above.)

How well do you care for your interpersonal well-being and friendships?

• Have close friends and confidants. (Blessed with what feels like billions of these.)
• Take time to enjoy activities with others. (Yup. We spend a lot of time doing food activities.)
• Give back to others. (Yes, but currently trying to hold on to a reasonable amount for myself rather than give it all away).

How well do you care for your spiritual health?

• Pay attention to your spiritual needs. (Prayer, meditation, faith in the Hockey Gods right now.)
• Spend time thinking about the things which bring peace, beauty and serenity to your life. (Amen.)
• Follow your own spiritual path (religious or not). (Yes to the Not part.)

My self care regimen looks pretty good on "paper." But I can probably do better. In fact, I think I will.

Charlie Sheen, Dr. Seuss, and Me

The last few days I have been thinking that it was easier to write this blog a month ago when I was the only one reading it. Although receiving a comment on one of my posts is my abolute greatest joy these days, I do find, as I see the reader stats climb, that I am somewhat more hesitant about writing my truth here. Maybe it's because I know some of the people who are reading this blog, but don't know them really well, and I am afraid that one of them (you) will find out something about me you don't wish to know. Perhaps I am worried that you will judge me.

What I believe with all of my heart and head is that I can't be scared to "be me," and "be honest," at the same time. So I need to just get over myself, and take the very good advice of Dr. Seuss (thanks Best Friend, for reminding me of this quote).

As Dr. Seuss says:

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

So here is what I want to say today. I kind of "get" what is going on with Charlie Sheen. He is a suffering addict, as much as he denies it. Twenty some years ago, I surrendered to the fact that I was an addict. I didn't come into recovery at the "height" of my craziest using, the crazy days for me were years earlier, before I had my girls. But I didn't have to be using like a crazy person in order to hit a bottom. When I stopped using drugs in 1989, it was because I believed with every ounce of my being that I had had enough. More than enough. I wanted a new reality, to find a new way to live. For my daughters, and for me. Charlie isn't there yet.

For the past 22 years, I have worked a program of recovery. My recovery run was interrupted with insanity just once, in 2000. For a couple of days, I took prescription narcotics to deal with some overwhelming grief that I just didn't think I could bear. I chose not to bear it, I guess. I took the narcotics as prescribed, unfortunately they were prescribed to my mother, who had just died. I did not, at that time, consider taking those pills a relapse. When I realized four years later that what happened in 2000 was indeed a relapse, I changed my recovery clean date and starting "counting" clean time again. I am okay with claiming 10 years clean and 22 years of recovery.

Today, I am struggling (in part) with that same overwhelming grief that I have been trying to hide from (drug-free) for nearly 11 years. I found every which way not to feel or process the grief, believe me. I thought that I was doing okay, for almost all of the last decade. Without going into more detail (yet), the truth is that there are various other grief and and loss issues messing me up right now, and those issues have been exacerbated by years of overwork and undercare. I wouldn't say that I am grieving the loss of my colon, but I know now that I haven't dealt with losing it to cancer nearly six years ago.

Not dealing with deep emotional, physical and spiritual issues can have very serious consequences for people like Charlie Sheen and I. We can keep on using drugs, or maybe start using drugs again. Charlie thinks he has beat addiction, and I wish only the best for him, but I'm not betting on his success in the short term. I think he will use drugs again. Soon.

I am not going to start using drugs. I have no desire to, whatsoever. But the result of my not dealing with some major life traumas in my life over the past nearly 11 years has landed me in a pretty uncomfortable place, too. I am not manic, like Charlie. But a few weeks ago it became very clear to me, my family, my physician and my friends, that not taking care of myself has resulted in a seemingly swift and serious deterioration of my health, both mental and physical. As I blogged about at the time, it felt like it happened all at once, but it had actually been a very long time coming. I was diagnosed with extreme anxiety and mild depression just two weeks ago, and I swing between those two realities on a daily basis. The depression is more prevalent than the anxiety, over the last week. Some days I am lucky and land smack dab in the middle, and that feels pretty damned good. I am trying to rest (a lot like Charlie though, I can't slow down easily). I am writing, seeing an excellent therapist, doing accupuncture, massage. I am feeling my emotions, which is the most time consuming task of them all, and the most debilitating. I am not taking drugs for my condition at the present time, but I have no judgment whatsoever of people who find medication is a good solution for them. I'm trying it my way, for now.

I don't know why I felt compelled today to put all of this out there. It's me, writing my truth and breaking through the fear of some of you finding out more information about me than you may care or need to know. So many of you have already been so kind, whether by leaving a comment or telling me in other ways. I appreciate the support, with all of my being.

I am not a broken person, not a failure or a loser. I am not weak, or crazy, or defective. I am just a human being, who is still sometimes uncertain about whether I am worthy of taking the time I need to heal from the life I have been leading. I have been very productive this past decade, don't get me wrong. It's been a wild ride with a lot of great things, I've just been going at too high a speed. I have not, like Charlie Sheen admits to, been "banging seven gram rocks." But I have very, very often worked 70 hour work weeks (I am paid to work 35). I know that my drug this past four years has been my work, and I have come close to overdosing on it. On the very rare occasion when I ran out of work, I found every other which way under the sun to busy myself.

I'm tired of doing. I want to "be" more, and "do" less, to live in the moment, to make the most of every moment. Twenty two years ago I wanted a better life for my daughters and I, and I sure have built a better life. I have more amazing people in my life than ever before, including my Soul Mate, who has watched my insanity for so long (two decades) that he thinks that I really am just wired to work that much. We have wonderful kids, and grandkids. I have great parents-in-law, and a beloved Dad. They matter.

I want to be here for another twenty years at least. Taking care of my health is the only chance I have of staying.

Well, that was me, being honest. I hope that Dr. Seuss is right.

Denial

Doctor:
I think you have exceeded the limits of your reserves.

Me:
Sounds ominous.

Doctor: 
Seriously, I think you need to take some time off of work and unwind, take care of yourself.

Me:       
I just took two mental health days and today is my fourth Friday off in a row.

Doctor:
When was the last time you took more than a couple of days away from work?

Me:       
Fourteen months ago, we went to Mexico for two weeks.

Doctor:
Did you do any work on that trip?

Me:       
Just on the plane there and home. And emails. I checked emails, but just once a day.

Doctor: 
And how many vacation days did you take in 2010?

Me:       
Three and a half.

Doctor: 
Are you ever able take a break from working or thinking about your job?

Me:       
Which one? I don't obsess over my teaching job because that is only one night a week. Plus class prep on weekends. But no, I always obsess over my full-time job.

Doctor: 
And you've had high job stress for the entire four years that you have worked there, according to your file? You've been in here for stress related issues six times. Although...it looks like the last time we saw you was seven months ago. Did things get better for a while?

Me:       
No. Worse. But I was too busy to take time off for doctor's appointments.

Doctor: 
What was happening just before you got this job?

Me:       
I had stage three colon cancer and spent a year undergoing chemotherapy. I got my job the week after I was told I didn't have cancer anymore.

Doctor:  
So you had a year off, but you were fighting cancer.

Me:       
Well, no.

Doctor:  
No what?

Me:        
I didn't have a year off. I was teaching while I did chemo.

Doctor:  
Full time?

Me:        
No! Not for the first semester. Just for the second.

Doctor:  
Okay. I am beginning to understand. What about...before cancer?

Me:        
Well we were raising our family so I only worked part-time while going to school. Thirteen years of university in a row, the last six of them were spent on my PhD.

Doctor:  
What was your thesis about?

Me:        
History of care of dying cancer patients early twentieth century in North America. Ironic, hey?

Doctor:  
So did you have any time off between finishing the doctorate and getting cancer?

Me:        
Not so much.

Doctor:  
As in?

Me:        
I defended my thesis ...in the hospital. One week after they yanked the cancerous colon.

Doctor:  
It didn't occur to you to pospone the defence?

Me:
No. I had to get it done because we were in the middle of a move to another province. I had to finish it and get out of the hospital so I could get our house ready to sell. It was fine. The nurses helped me figure out the timing of the pain control so I could make it through the two hours.

Doctor:  
I hate to ask...but before your final run at the PhD...any break from "working?"

Me:
Well, at the beginning of the PhD I kind of took it easy on the studying for sixteen months. So that was for all of 1999, first quarter of 2000.

Doctor: 
Great! And how did that feel?

Me:       
Not very good. I was taking care of my mother who was dying from leukemia.

Doctor: 
You really need a month off. To start.

Me:      
Now isn't the best time.

Doctor: 
You are crying in executive meetings at work. You aren't sleeping. You are having anxiety attacks and you think you have Alzheimer's disease because you keep forgetting words. Now is a really good time.

Me:
You don't think it's Alzheimer's? What do you think it is?

Doctor: 
You're going to need at least a month.

Me:      
Can I keep my blackberry?

More Life, Less Work

I am happily trying to recover from an addiction to working.  I don't work on weekends anymore, and rarely work in the evenings. Today is the second of four Fridays that I have booked myself off of work. I want to use the time to write, but it's also a training program for me and for my fourteen-person staff. We all need to learn that our business can actually survive without me for a twenty-four hour period every so often. Can't it?

I'm doing better than usual, but I have a long way to go. Today, I haven't turned on my tablet computer, but my Blackberry has rested closely beside me all day. I have already responded to twenty emails, and made one phone call. Two of the emails were responses to staff who sent emails with header warnings that said "Do Not Read Until Monday" and "Not, Not, Not Important." Have they met me? Not open an email? I would say that I am pathetic, but I try not to say things like that about myself anymore.

Several hours later...

Okay, I really am pathetic. I won't even say how many more phone calls I made and emails I sent this afternoon. There was clearly some denial happening during the crafting of the first two paragraphs of this post.

Fortunately, help is close at hand. A quick Google search reveals a neverending list of links that will help me figure out how to find more balance between work and...not work. According to Leo Babauto, author of the blog zenhabits: smile, breathe, and go slowly, regular self reflection is the key.

"Think about how your life is going, how you’re spending your time, and decide whether you need to make changes. Then schedule time to make those changes immediately — or make the changes right away if possible."

I've done the reflecting,  decided I want more time in my life to write, and scheduled four days off to get a good start on it.

Making changes right away is apparently not possible for me. But I'll do better next Friday.