This Is FND

I had a hard start today.

Then I attempted to take my mother to get her groceries, but my eyes got very blurry and by the time I got to town, it was noticeable and when I had traveled about 5 miles north of town, I had to make a choice: push through and put everyone on the road at risk, or go home and rest.

As I was driving and thinking, I kept hearing Alysha’s voice saying, “Do NOT push through.”  I remembered that this particular instruction is on my discharge papers. I remembered that pushing through goes against the best practice care procedures for my FND. Alysha is an Occupational Therapist and is part of my FND “Dream Team” of experts who treated me in April of 2024. While I only spent a week with this team of women (and Jun), they were the first people who saw what was happening and spent time “in it” with me, gently guiding me to learn my body, to use strategies they were giving me to somewhat mitigate the symptoms of FND and thus, attempt to alter the course of the disorder, and potentially, my day. Pushing through is mostly a trauma response for me, one I learned at a very young age. Pushing through is akin to what is attributed to a newspaper article about the AA Twelve Steps (sometimes, misattributed to Albert Einstein), which reports, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Pushing through when battling FND is fruitless and for me, leads to stronger symptoms and longer down-time.

So, I went home.

Going home felt awful. I didn’t like it at all.  I felt like a failure. Going home was not what I wanted, it was what I needed.

As a wife, a mom, and a post middle aged woman, putting myself first is strange and I feel a huge sense of dread, guilt, and disappointment when I do it.  Most times, I only put myself first when necessary and usually after a great amount of time has been spent trying every other option.

Once at home, I messaged mom to let her know I made it and now I am sitting here trying to figure out how to let this all be okay.

How can I accept myself, my limitations, my decisions, my disabilities? How can I honestly evaluate myself and judge myself acceptable?

That’s a problem for another day. Right now, all I can do is sit here and try to relax.

I just wanted to share that FND doesn’t go away. It ebbs and flows. Sometimes it looks very sick and other times, even in the middle of an episode, it looks quite normal and maybe even healthy.

I also wanted to encourage anyone else out there that is struggling by reminding you that you’re not alone. I am struggling too, and it is okay for us to speak out loud about our struggles. It is okay to be ill and need to care for ourselves.  It is okay to take what we need, when we need it. After all, we are worthy of the same care we extend to others, even if that’s not what we were raised to do.

*Note to self: You didn’t just “come up with this”. You have been given a key to health. This is on your discharge papers, so not pushing through is prescribed. It isn’t recommended; it is required for optimum health and wellbeing.