More talk about periods...

Last month I thought I had sorted out the flare up that I get around my period and thought that I would know this month for sure. Well, I had some PMS which coincided with my friend falling out with me, so can't discern how much was PMS and how much was conflict stuff. Even so I only had 3 days of symptoms prior to my period. I haven't had the flare up 3 days in that I used to get up until last month. So I think I can safely say I've sorted it.

Hellish couple of weeks with a nice bit in the middle

I've been having symptoms again. A couple of weeks ago I had symptoms because I was doing too much mental activity and not enough physical.

I also had a flare up of symptoms around a conflict that occured on a webgroup that I am a member of. I had mental fatigue and some physical fatigue and twitching muslces, which I haven't had for a very long time. I find it really difficult to know what to do in RT terms when someone gets angry with you. This person thought that RT was a 'con' and that it was like a cult and they were pretty aggresive towards me. They also pretty much said I if RT was helping me then I didn't have ME in the first place. I found this all a bit hard to take and decided to leave that group.

In that situation for RT, I just was assertive in expressing my opinions whilst maintaining respect for the other person. When it reached a point that I was unhappy with, I took myself out of the situation. In the past I might have just moaned about it or even got a bit passive aggressive myself. My symptoms didn't subside until I went away for the weekend.

Now for the nice bit in the middle... on the morning I was going away I had no symptoms and I only had symptoms once after driving for one and a half hours (in chunks) and on the way home as my bloke was driving my car in fog and I was getting nervous (he's a good driver...honest!). Ther rest of the time I managed to keep up with all my friends. I walked a lot, stayed up late, drank wine, talked loads, played games with the kids etc etc. I would have found it difficult being away with so many people (7 adults, 2 kids) up until now and I'm really happy that I can do that kind of stuff again. My legs ached most of the time from walking, but it was a healthy ache rather than an ME ache.

After being away for the weekend, I managed to go to college on the Monday as well as swimming, then on the Tuesday I went to college again. My stamina is getting better by the week now and I can notice a real difference in how much I can do in one day without getting symptoms.

During the week I spoke to a friend who was very upset that I didn't invite her away for the weekend. She is SO angry with me. I tried to talk to her about it, but I ended up making it worse and she put the phone down on me. I was really upset that I had hurt her and didn't know what to do, which ended up causing my symptoms to flare up again. I had about 3 days with symptoms again. I did RT on the symptoms, reading the message, but they didn't go away. I decided to write her a letter, I spoke to another friend about it and I had a good cry, which I think helped because the next day the symptoms had subsided.

I tried to think about what I needed to do to put my needs first and I felt that I needed to express how I felt, so that bit was taken care of with the letter. I needed to allow my feelings to come out, so crying did that bit. I also needed to be reassured that I'm not a really rubbish friend, so talking to another friend fulfilled that bit.

They symptoms had gone yesterday, so I went out for a walk with a friend which was really lovely, then I went out in the evening too. Even a month or 2 ago, I would not have been able to go for a walk and go out in the evening on the same day. I've also been out for a walk today despite staying out til the early hours last night. I'm tired today but not fatigued.

What exactly am I doing, when I say I am doing RT?

I've had a few people ask me if I can tell them a bit more about RT. I think for the theory side of it, understanding the process and 'getting' it, the best resource is John Eaton's book. I can't really add anything to that and couldn't really explain it in a few paragraphs without making it sound like nonsense, so I'm not going to try. If you are thinking of doing RT or want to find out more about it, just spend the £10 it costs to buy the book, it's well worth it and you can get it on Amazon.

As for what RT is...well it's a journey and it will be different for each and every person who tries it. The difference between other therapies and RT is like the difference between dieting and healthy eating. RT is a way of being rather than a treatment.

When I 'do' RT it means that I am paying attention to my bodymind, reprogramming my brain with the symptom message and acting on what bodymind wants me to do. Sometimes it is easy to find out what your bodymind wants you to do and other times it is quite difficult. Sometimes doing RT means that I am doing a kind of meditation to connect with my body and to find out where I am out of balance. Sometimes it means changing my usual patterns of behaviour or prioritising things differently. This week, doing RT means that I have decided not to go to college because I knew if I went I would get caught up in my headminds desire to complete a piece of work, when in fact my bodymind wants me to do more physical not mental activity. So basically doing RT means being aware of your body, paying attention to the signs that it gives you when it is not happy and then acting to put that right.

Now that sounds fairly straight forward, but it is challenging when you have been brought up to behave in certain ways, ie be nice, don't upset people, don't talk back etc etc. My programming has meant that I have become a people pleaser, always trying to make sure others are happy, fulfilled, have their needs met to the detriment of my own. So doing RT in this sense, means speaking up for myself and challenging people even if I feel really uncomfortable doing it. It means saying no, asking for help and putting my needs before others. A good way of looking at this is to think of what they tell you to do on an aeroplane in an emergency - put on your own mask before you attend to others, even childrens'.

Out of Balance

ooh it's been an interesting couple of weeks... not been doing so well in terms of symptoms.

I've had college work to do and I've been doing it. This means that I've been spending lots of time concentrating on things and lots of time sat in front of a computer. This isn't good for me at the moment because I'm finding the mental stuff quite difficult. I've also been a bit rubbish at doing RT in response to symptoms that I get from these activities.

From the outside it probably looks like I'm doing really well. I've spent about 12 hours a week at college and doing college work for the last 2 weeks. I've also been busy socially and organising a very small exhibition of my photography in a local cafe. The pay off has been an increase in symptoms.

There's something that I need to explain at this point. In RT, you don't really over do it, but you can do too much of one thing. My therapist told me to remember these 3 words: Balance-Variety-Enjoyment. When I had an increase in symptoms, I did some body focusing and realised that I had been doing far too much mental activity and not enough physical. I had let my swimming slip and replaced it with college work. This doesn't work for me. I allowed myself to get really out of balance and I'm getting symptoms because of that.

I've made a concerted effort to redress this and so had a massage yesterday and I've been out for a walk today. I'm keeping my computer usage down and I'm having a break from my college work. I think I'll need to work on this for a while to get things back on track.

It is going to be a real challenge keeping in balance when I eventually rejoin the world of work. Hmmm...think I need to take a step back.

Still feeling good

Since my last post, I have been swimming, went out to see a band on Saturday night, done some college work, went over to friends for an afternoon, been for a walk in the park, been to college and been out to an open mic night at a pub last night. I'm a bit tired, but I think that is because I'm doing more and more, sometimes 2 or 3 different things in a day. I haven't had to use my symptom message for several days now and haven't had any fatigue.

My life is feeling like something that resembles normal apart from the fact that I'm not working. I think I'll be starting to think about work in the new year. At the moment I'm kind of preparing myself mentally for that change and waiting to make sure that I am now more stable.

The RT forum to which I belong is proving to be an invaluable tool in helping me understand the RT process. Hearing other peoples stories and seeing it from the outside helps me understand my own issues and how to resolve them. One thing I didn't understand until recently is just how important it is to be emotionally honest with yourself. For me, a lot of this journey is about learning how to stand up for myself, to ask for what I want, to say NO to what I don't want and to allow myself to express ALL my thoughts and feelings. It's not about screaming and shouting at others but allowing myself to say 'I didn't like it when you did that', 'I'm feeling envious about...' or 'I'm concerned about how you feel about...'. It's a real learning curve for me and a great lesson in assertiveness. I just hope I can apply all this in world of work, which is where I'll be heading next.

That's all I can say this week, still feeling good, still happy and still on an upward trajectory. Not that far to go now.