Monday, August 24, 2015

Selfless, Selfish or Self-Loving? I Have more Good News and Bad News

Who or what decides what a person really is?  

When is one classified as being selfish?
 

What may seem selfish to one person may actually be loving and honoring oneself to another. Sometimes, an epiphany can lead to that, and at other times certain forced circumstances lead to it .

These are the definitions as I see them:
A selfish person is one who thinks of no one else but him/herself.
A selfless person is a person who always puts others before him or herself.
A self-loving person is one who honors his or her needs while continuing to love others and do what he can, when and if he can.


Just because a person makes his choices to get on with his or her life rather than be weighed down by guilt, shame and regret that leads to the carrying of excess baggage caused by hate and/or disappointment by being let down by loved ones, does not mean that he/she is selfish.
 
I completely relate.
Growing up, I was constantly told not to complain, not to put my needs before anybody else’s, not to speak up or stand up for myself, not to argue, not to talk back, and never to demand anything, as these were all traits of a  selfish, self-centered person.  I was also told never to confront anything or anyone, but simply accept things as they came, even if they were wrong.

I have carried some of those wrongfully ingrained traits from my childhood to my adulthood, and I call it being a ‘victim of my conditioning’.

Most people experience this in one form or another.  

Now in my fifties, I finally want to stand up and shout, ‘Enough is enough!’

I am not being selfish by wanting to honor my own needs. I am not being selfish, as my first and foremost responsibility is to myself.

This is definitely not a selfish need.
  


I was diagnosed with Secondary Multiple Sclerosis in 2006. Since then,  I have had to give up a lot of things I enjoyed and cherished, like family visits, going for walks, running, swimming, reading, teaching and other things that I took for granted like being spontaneous and just being able to get up and go somewhere and doing something new on the spur of the moment.

I will admit that I was much more selfless (maybe a little too selfless) before I was diagnosed, but I still tried to do what I could, when I could. 
Now, I  cannot do as much I would like to. That is not being selfish, but simply adapting to my new circumstance.

MS brings with it limitations on the body and the mind, which in turn affect the spirit.
Everything has to be planned... Every minute of every hour of every day, and even that may change depending upon my energy levels, stress levels and/or how my body decides to behave that day.

I cannot travel on a plane or make long car journeys without having to stop to stretch or rest and just because I decide that I need to take care of these needs, does not make me a selfish person.

I cannot just decide to do something without considering its effects on my body.
This means that I am unable to devote attention to family matters, unable to attend to day-to-day household matters or chores, as well as simple things like getting groceries, going to the bank or to the post office, and just because I choose not to do the things that harm me or cause me strain or stress does not mean that I am selfish.

If tending to my health and to the demands my illness makes on me, makes me a selfish person, then I wear that selfish label proudly.

If fighting for my survival is going to make me selfish, (and I choose to fight with all my might), then yes, I am selfish.
 
Those who know me know that I have never put myself first. Had it not been for the MS, things would never have changed.  But, things did change. My whole life changed and my priorities changed.
Am I going to sit here and be a victim of my illness or am I going to take the bull by its horns and move on as best as I can?
Am I going to sit here and refuse to recognize what is causing me harm and therefore keep away from it, or am I going to willingly walk into a fire that I know will burn me?
 
I have always looked at my life from a good news/bad news point of view - hence the title of my last book, ‘I Have Good News and Bad News’. Even though it is half empty, my glass is always half full. Even though there is bad, I will find the good.


This is no different, and I do have good news and bad news - The bad news is that I have Multiple Sclerosis and have become unable to do the things I like to do and really enjoyed doing. I also cannot and will not devote time to situations that cause me stress and things that exacerbate my illness.


The good news is that I finally found myself and the purpose of my life, I learned to work with and around the limitations that MS brought by listening to my body and help it heal it, rather than succumb to its effects.

 

In the process, I may be considered selfish, self-centered and self-absorbed after all, lots of people have illnesses. They do not ignore their duties to focus on healing themselves!! 
I choose otherwise.
Forgive me if I choose to put the people who actually care for my needs, my disability, my occasional inability to dress, bathe, drive or tend to myself on a day to day basis, and those who actually understand and appreciate what I go through, first.
Forgive me if I choose not to attend funerals or family functions or to prance around solving problems when I have more than enough problems of my own simply by getting out of bed (some that I cannot even solve).
Forgive me of I forget birthdays, anniversaries or to update my Facebook page daily.
Forgive me for putting myself, my healing, my learning to cope with my illness and my treatments first.
Forgive me for focusing my energies on my healing and ignoring and keeping away from things, people and situations that cause me to get worse, so that I do not become completely disabled and/or  bedridden.
Forgive me for fighting for my own survival and for giving in to my own inherent God-given survival instinct
Most of all, forgive me for being ill. I did not choose to be so, but I am, and I am trying to cope to the best of my ability and to fight with all my might using the limited resources and the only support I have.

If all of this is considered being selfish, then I am very proud to be selfish.
If all this is considered making the wrong choices, then I am guilty as charged.

If the people in my life do not care to understand what my illness really is, what it really does and how it affects me, and continue to cause me stress (which only makes my condition worse), then they have no place being in my life.
Just as I purge myself of all toxicity to make my life better, I will purge myself of all toxic relationships including the people I love the most and those whom I thought loved me, if they cause me emotional harm.

I’ve spent more than half my life living by other people’s standards and terms. I think it is about time I lived life on my own.

I have even better news:
Getting Multiple Sclerosis helped create this awareness (which I rather like) in me. It finally made me look at my own needs for the very first time.

If this makes me selfish, then so be it.

I’d rather be considered selfish than dead.


But wait.............there's more:
I have Secondary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis, and it taught me to prioritize my life to finally give myself the importance I deserve. 

Thank God for my illness!!!

Sunday, May 31, 2015

I Have Good News and Bad News

Forgive me Father, it’s been several months since my last post.  
The minutes turn to hours, days, weeks, and before you know it, months have gone by, bringing me to this moment when I decided that it was time to write something.

I just got the results of my last MRI. I was afraid that things had become worse.
My walking is not quite as it used to be. I hug furniture and hold on to walls more than I ever have and my right foot is not as flexible as it used to be. I can only lift it while I am seated for 10 seconds tops and then, it just drops.
I was sure things had become worse and that the MS had begun its progressive course.

However, I was pleasantly surprised and relieved when I was told that there were no new lesions as compared to the previous MRI done seven years ago, in 2008 (there were no new lesions then either).
There are a few minor things but nothing major that the Secondary Progressive MS is supposed to bring.
I did not know whether to laugh or cry so, as usual, I did both.

I noticed that somehow, my posture affects the strength in my legs as well as my gait. I no longer use the Lazy Boy Recliner and have changed to an upright chair.
I also discovered that my driving posture somehow affects my gait.
I drive 147km, which takes me around 1 hour 45 minutes, each way, to go to the mosque in Halifax. The day after my drive, my walking is fine. Now this either has to do with my posture or the fact that I use both my right and left foot on the pedals, as well as having to be focused on the road, hands on the steering wheel, spine upright, etc or, the combination of all of these, which makes my walking better the next day - so much so, that I walk without the use of my cane!!!

I have somehow tried to replicate my driving posture when I am sitting watching television or even when reading or writing but, I have not quite got a grasp on it... yet...
Maybe I need to start a cab service!!
I will somehow figure this out. It cannot be a coincidence that every time I drive to Halifax and back, my walking is fine the next day.

I am still gluten-free, dairy-free and sugar-free and extremely conscious of what I eat – nothing processed, no chemicals, no preservatives, and I consume organic produce as much as I can. If I do not find organic produce, I scrub the produce with soap and warm water and/or peel the skin.

Now I even noticed that recently I developed some skin irritations.
All of the previous times this has happened, it has been caused by foods that I am sensitive to.
I am a creature of habit. Once I eat something, I want to eat it every day, even though I know that I am not supposed to repeat foods within four days.
I used to be sensitive to tomatoes and avoided them for years until my last Food Sensitivity Test determined that I was no longer sensitive to tomatoes.

I went a little crazy because I love tomatoes and ate them almost every single day – either in curry, in salad, a new bruschetta salsa I invented, or in some form or another. I went a little overboard.
The irritation started a few weeks ago, and every day, my skin got worse.

Now, I already know from experience, that any symptom is simply a cause and effect. 
Something told me that I should stop tomatoes.
Miraculously, my irritation stopped. This cannot be a coincidence!

The biggest problem that we as patients have is that we do not take personal responsibility for our own healing. We do not closely monitor to learn from what  brings us to a place of dis-ease  or what brings us relief and what works or doesn’t work.
If I get a headache, I ask myself what  I have done or consumed to get the headache.
Most just take a pain killer and be done with it.
The headache is my body speaking to me, telling me that something is wrong.
We need to take responsibility for our own health, habits and lifestyles by having a dialogues with our bodies and recognizing when our bodies tell us that something is wrong.
Ever since I have been diagnosed with MS, I have tried to do this as much as possible and this last MRI result is proof that my approach is working.
I still have Secondary Progressive MS.

It just has not progressed like the Medicos and their journals say it should!
Rather than be a scapegoat for the Medical Profession and their ‘one size fits all’ treatments, which most of the time do not work, we need to take the reins in our own hands if we want to feel better.

Just listen to what your body is telling you and change your habits accordingly.

I do and hope that you, my readers will do so as well.
 
Happy Listening, and Good Luck!