The next right step
Back in May, my knee popped. As someone who boasts of lifting weights and pride in working out, it was devastating to hear that my ACL tore completely and my thunder thighs will atrophy. But by July, I was back to doing ass-to-grass overhead barbell squats. In August, I performed full CrossFit workouts, just like anyone else in the gym.
Unfortunately, by now, I’ve received some other world-changing and earth-shattering clinical diagnoses throughout my life: cancer when I was 15, depression ft. anxiety when I was 24, and most recently ADHD.
Recovering from cancer and ACL reconstruction is more predictable. There is a clearly defined, well-established plan that runs for a couple of months. Work with your clinicians, and your chances of recovery are high at the end of that bulletproof plan.
However mental health diagnoses are more difficult to tackle because triggers are uncontrollable, and symptoms can worsen due to lifestyle choices like sleep, diet, and exercise. And they are lifelong, which means constant management even as different life challenges present themselves.
The amount of work that goes into being productive and not collapsing into a puddle is exhausting. For me to be a pleasant, contributing individual to be around, I need at least 9 hours of sleep and a workout every day. And that’s just the basic lifestyle aspect.
The real pieces of work come from paying attention to my moods and thoughts, noticing stressors and actively managing my responses, keeping up with my 3 planners, harnessing my distractibility through smaller bite-size tasks, making a deliberate effort to slow down every time an impulsive obsession comes up, fighting through anything I find boring, worrying that I’m too energetic, trying to sleep when I’m on overdrive… I can go on…….. and on…….
The only way out is through
‘Not everyone gets to live such an eventful life and in that way, I’m lucky.’ Perhaps this is an adaptive attitude that I’ve adopted along the way so that I’m still here. If living life to the fullest and experiencing everything possible is the goal, having it extended to some tough shit is one way to achieve that too!
But the most memorable bits about every one of these diagnoses are not the cinematic time-stopping moment in the doctor’s office or the countless follow-up appointments. The biggest impacts are actually the strengthened relationships with my loved ones and the healthy adaptations I’ve adopted to show up for the people around me.
I cannot tell you how easy it is to escape accountability and action by quoting from a doctor. We all have taken non-sick sick leave before. But what I can tell you is how easy it is for you to let a diagnosis be your whole identity. It sounds like ‘I can’t do this because the doctor said I have this’ repeated a couple of times every day until it becomes the standard operating mode in the face of any task or new challenge.
What I can tell you is that we have more autonomy than we believe. I’m not saying that diagnoses shouldn’t be taken seriously, or brushed off. I’m saying they shouldn’t be the core of your universe and have the absolute authority on what you can do, before even testing. I’m saying it can sound more like ‘I might not be able to do this well because I have a few more hurdles, but let’s figure out how I can get there.’
Trying, with some creative problem-solving, is the most important thing you can do for your recovery and the least you can do for the people who are rooting for you. Baby steps may feel humbling, but they are way more powerful than we think. Challenges often leave us feeling like we are out of control. But remembering that there is always one thing that we can control- our reactions- gifts us the next right step.
Note: You don’t need a doctor to tell you something is wrong for your struggles to be real! A struggle is a struggle, but as long as we focus on the small things we can do, we are okay.
