A few years ago, my friend’s therapist told her to “stop shoulding all over yourself.” We laughed delightedly, letting the words roll off our tongues over and over.
I think I mostly stopped shoulding myself into exercise after my big two month relapse, after reading into ME/CFS and basically scaring myself sh*tless into resting properly.
However, I am a constant and habitual shoulder, both in what I should do and how I should be. I was speaking to a CFS suffererer a couple of months ago who told me that there seems to be a trend for perfectionism among people who develop CFS/ME. I think there’s something in it, maybe about disallowing yourself from fully relaxing and letting go, which your body needs sometimes, almost like it needs sleep. I blamed myself early on for getting so ill, thinking that it stemmed from my base state being one of constant stress and worry and nitpickery, which isn’t conducive to having a happy, healthy immune system (though I don't stand by that, since long-covid seems to have affected a full spectrum of people). But all my shoulding had meant I took a job at the beginning of the year knowing it was a bad fit for my then-circumstances, being an additional stress load I really didn’t need after a rough couple of years. But it seemed the thing I “should” do because it came with a nice pay check and the responsibility I “should” be wanting to take on as someone still in the early stages of their career. Bad idea. Going into covid while already feeling completely depleted just made things harder, I think.
Funnily enough after this illness I seem to have developed what is basically a physiological intolerance to any kind of stress. My fire alarm battery started intermittently chirping yesterday to remind me to change it, and my heart rate shot up till I worked out how to deal with it (the answer: accidentally bash the whole thing off the ceiling and figure out how to deal with it tomorrow). Emotional stress has been laying me up with PEM the same as physical exertion. Maybe this means I really won’t be able to ignore the stuff I know is “true” underneath all the shouldiness any more, and will have to start pursuing things that feed my sense of wellbeing and wellness rather than my self-esteem and the projected image of how I used to think I should be.
I'm glad you got over your exercise 'shoulds'! I thought I had, but obviously I still have more work to do. I share your experience of a sudden and extreme physiological intolerance to stress of any kind. I've had a resurgence of shortness of breath off and on over the past couple weeks (brought on initially by too much exercise), and it's so interesting to notice that it gets predictably worse when I'm reading political news! Unfortunately, the bashing technique doesn't work as well with politics as it does with fire alarms. Like you, I've been thinking that there is an opportunity in this: I can't ignore how I feel. I can't ignore that quiet underlying stress if suddenly my head starts throbbing and my chest is tight. Oprah says we should listen when life whispers to us so that it isn't forced to scream. I haven't been great at listening to my internal whispers over the years. Now my body is teaching me! For me, I think this will have to mean more limited and intentional media consumption AND finding ways to make a difference in the world that feel nourishing to me rather than just draining.
Yes, if only we could accidentally bash all the newsy badness off the face of the earth and have some peace and quiet for a while. I like the Oprah quote. I always figured if things were only a whisper I could override them and do what I thought was otherwise best - head over heart kind of thing, until that same shouldiness convinced me my head *was* my heart. I like your solution - usually I ban myself from reading the news for the two weeks of Wimbledon so I can live in a happy bubble of green grass and crisp tennis whites, and it's a lovely mental break every year that refreshes and resets. But with so little stimulation day to day now my brain is grasping at any kind of input no matter how detrimental, like being ravenous for junk food even though it makes us feel rotten afterwards.
"Bash all the newsy badness off the face of the earth," lololol. Are you a writer? You should be. (There I go, introducing new 'shoulds'!) Really, though, your comments are wonderful. I've been thinking a lot lately about my own trigger finger, clicking away at the news or social media, even when I know it's not helping me. Junk food is a perfect analogy for it. It's hard to fight the munchies when you're stuck at home! Maybe there's a future newsletter in this . . .
Ha, I'm not, but thank you. I started a blog five years ago, wrote one post, and then disappeared into the aether with an air of mystery.
I just headed down to the beach (a short walk in former times, but an even shorter drive now) and sat in the sand for an hour, and realised I wasn't reaching for my phone the same way as I had been when I was taking a chair down with me. Purely because my hands were absent-mindedly playing with the sand, constructing ridges and towers before knocking them down again and feeling all the textures on my skin, and so I wasn't hungry for some kind of sensory input or something to fiddle on with the same way as when I'm sitting in a chair twiddling my thumbs. So, I'm going to start hunting for something to keep my hands busy with now that I can take around with me, to enable more genuinely quiet "quiet time" and less clutching at phones and the ever-updating, ever-scrolling news cycle.
I've talked to other long-haulers who have taken up things like knitting and crocheting. But for you, I'm thinking air banjo is the way to go. ;-) It has the added bonus of guaranteeing that strangers will keep at least 6 feet away from you in public spaces. If you ever make a sudden, unexpected (and dare I say mysterious) return to blogging again, I want to subscribe!
I think I mostly stopped shoulding myself into exercise after my big two month relapse, after reading into ME/CFS and basically scaring myself sh*tless into resting properly.
However, I am a constant and habitual shoulder, both in what I should do and how I should be. I was speaking to a CFS suffererer a couple of months ago who told me that there seems to be a trend for perfectionism among people who develop CFS/ME. I think there’s something in it, maybe about disallowing yourself from fully relaxing and letting go, which your body needs sometimes, almost like it needs sleep. I blamed myself early on for getting so ill, thinking that it stemmed from my base state being one of constant stress and worry and nitpickery, which isn’t conducive to having a happy, healthy immune system (though I don't stand by that, since long-covid seems to have affected a full spectrum of people). But all my shoulding had meant I took a job at the beginning of the year knowing it was a bad fit for my then-circumstances, being an additional stress load I really didn’t need after a rough couple of years. But it seemed the thing I “should” do because it came with a nice pay check and the responsibility I “should” be wanting to take on as someone still in the early stages of their career. Bad idea. Going into covid while already feeling completely depleted just made things harder, I think.
Funnily enough after this illness I seem to have developed what is basically a physiological intolerance to any kind of stress. My fire alarm battery started intermittently chirping yesterday to remind me to change it, and my heart rate shot up till I worked out how to deal with it (the answer: accidentally bash the whole thing off the ceiling and figure out how to deal with it tomorrow). Emotional stress has been laying me up with PEM the same as physical exertion. Maybe this means I really won’t be able to ignore the stuff I know is “true” underneath all the shouldiness any more, and will have to start pursuing things that feed my sense of wellbeing and wellness rather than my self-esteem and the projected image of how I used to think I should be.
I'm glad you got over your exercise 'shoulds'! I thought I had, but obviously I still have more work to do. I share your experience of a sudden and extreme physiological intolerance to stress of any kind. I've had a resurgence of shortness of breath off and on over the past couple weeks (brought on initially by too much exercise), and it's so interesting to notice that it gets predictably worse when I'm reading political news! Unfortunately, the bashing technique doesn't work as well with politics as it does with fire alarms. Like you, I've been thinking that there is an opportunity in this: I can't ignore how I feel. I can't ignore that quiet underlying stress if suddenly my head starts throbbing and my chest is tight. Oprah says we should listen when life whispers to us so that it isn't forced to scream. I haven't been great at listening to my internal whispers over the years. Now my body is teaching me! For me, I think this will have to mean more limited and intentional media consumption AND finding ways to make a difference in the world that feel nourishing to me rather than just draining.
Yes, if only we could accidentally bash all the newsy badness off the face of the earth and have some peace and quiet for a while. I like the Oprah quote. I always figured if things were only a whisper I could override them and do what I thought was otherwise best - head over heart kind of thing, until that same shouldiness convinced me my head *was* my heart. I like your solution - usually I ban myself from reading the news for the two weeks of Wimbledon so I can live in a happy bubble of green grass and crisp tennis whites, and it's a lovely mental break every year that refreshes and resets. But with so little stimulation day to day now my brain is grasping at any kind of input no matter how detrimental, like being ravenous for junk food even though it makes us feel rotten afterwards.
"Bash all the newsy badness off the face of the earth," lololol. Are you a writer? You should be. (There I go, introducing new 'shoulds'!) Really, though, your comments are wonderful. I've been thinking a lot lately about my own trigger finger, clicking away at the news or social media, even when I know it's not helping me. Junk food is a perfect analogy for it. It's hard to fight the munchies when you're stuck at home! Maybe there's a future newsletter in this . . .
Ha, I'm not, but thank you. I started a blog five years ago, wrote one post, and then disappeared into the aether with an air of mystery.
I just headed down to the beach (a short walk in former times, but an even shorter drive now) and sat in the sand for an hour, and realised I wasn't reaching for my phone the same way as I had been when I was taking a chair down with me. Purely because my hands were absent-mindedly playing with the sand, constructing ridges and towers before knocking them down again and feeling all the textures on my skin, and so I wasn't hungry for some kind of sensory input or something to fiddle on with the same way as when I'm sitting in a chair twiddling my thumbs. So, I'm going to start hunting for something to keep my hands busy with now that I can take around with me, to enable more genuinely quiet "quiet time" and less clutching at phones and the ever-updating, ever-scrolling news cycle.
I've talked to other long-haulers who have taken up things like knitting and crocheting. But for you, I'm thinking air banjo is the way to go. ;-) It has the added bonus of guaranteeing that strangers will keep at least 6 feet away from you in public spaces. If you ever make a sudden, unexpected (and dare I say mysterious) return to blogging again, I want to subscribe!