This weekend I settled in for a difficult few days of taking care of my mom, a role which is usually the primary responsibility of my dad. It's an exhausting role, and he took a weekend away with a support group for spouses of those chronically disabled. The short version of a very long story, is that my mom suffers from a host of psychiatric and physical conditions. Her physical disabilities are primarily related to her back, which in turn rules her entire life. She has always had significant health issues with her back, from slipped discs to metal plates, surgeries, and arthritis. The problems with her back and the treatments to try to remedy them have brought her to a current diagnosis of a fairly rare condition, arachnoiditis: inflammation of the arachnoid, which is one of the membranes that surround and protect the nerves of the central nervous system including the spinal cord. It's just as painful and debilitating, maybe even more so, than it sounds. Surgeries and cortisone shots are thought to exacerbate (and sometimes cause) the condition. There is no known treatment other than pain management, which seems impossible to obtain despite a heavy cocktail of narcotics, muscle relaxants, electrical stimulation and various pain patches. She is in constant, excruciating pain most of the time and is no longer able to work, drive, stand or sit up for longer than a few minutes at a time, cannot bend over and other than being able to get out of bed to use the bathroom or get a quick drink, she is essentially bedridden at the young age of 45. This alone is enough to spiral someone into a deep depression, and in my mother's case, has added severe depression, fear, anxiety, and anger to her already overwhelming psychiatric conditions including bipolar disorder and PTSD. Needless to say, home is a very difficult environment for all of us.The good news is that I had advance notice of needing to be there this weekend for my mom, so I had some time to prepare. My partner kindly spent Friday evening with us, then went back to my apartment with me that night for emotional support. While at my mom's, we ordered chinese food for dinner, which sounds like a baaaad choice for mindful and healthful eating, but is actually food I find easy to stay on plan with. I really like the lighter fare you can get from Chinese restaurants, the ones heavy on vegetables and light on oil (my particular favorites: chicken chow mein; chicken with broccoli; hot and sour soup; steamed dumplings.) Leaving my mom's was the hardest part that night, as she cried from excruciating pain and depression and all I could offer her was an ice pack and a hand to hold. It is difficult to see your mother in pain of any kind, but what's truly heartbreaking is realizing that not only does she have to live with physical pain, but that it causes her great emotional pain as well. My heart broke as she cried and shared with me some of her fears about whether or not the future will be worse; about her fears of having to be placed in a home should her condition worsen; of how badly she wishes she could just wake up from this horrible dream that is now her life.
Nutritionally, I had a plan for the next day. I was on my own for day 2, with my brother at hand for help. I packed a healthy lunch, fruits, and light greek yogurt to have on hand during the day and knew I was going to be cooking a healthy chicken-veggie-potato meal that evening. I planned to walk our dog, then go to the gym, as much needed breaks from the sadness (the gym never happened, unfortunately, as the dog thought it was a splendid idea to take a mud bath, which required a real one once we got home, leaving no time to get to the gym before it closed.) As I spent time in a house bubbling over with comfort foods, I found myself taking tastes and bites of everything here and there. There was way too much food around me and there was way too strong of a need to escape and distract from the emotions at hand. The day really took a toll on me, and I decided that I needed a couple of glasses of wine that night to unwind once I got home. I was able to stay on plan, technically, though I had gone through about half of my week's worth of points set aside for controlled indulgences in one day.
The first thing I'd like to say about day 2, is that although I was quite often derailed from my oh-so-thought-out meal plan, having that plan helped keep me somewhat grounded and in control. I did feel overwhelmed with my situation and environment which absolutely contributed to the stress noshing. Even after years of eating mindfully, the old patterns are hard to break. It's hard not to revert back to your old coping strategies, especially when you are in the same environment in which you learned them. But, I was at least aware of that, and I estimated as best I could what damage I had done, accounted for it, and finished the day with a pretty high calorie count, but not so high that it could not be salvaged later in the week. The second thing I'd like to say about day 2, is that it did not make me feel good. As I've said before, emotional eating is a really hard thing to tackle because it provides momentary relief and distraction, but ultimately just ends up making you feel worse. Which is what I felt. Even though I had technically stayed within my allotted calories for the week, I didn't feel good. Obviously, I didn't feel good because of everything going on around me, but I also didn't feel good about myself, my choices, my body or my health. I had really needed to move my body that day to deal with the stress and I didn't. I had really needed to fuel my body with healthy, nutritious foods and not sugary and starchy ones. I had done some combination of both. Not being active, and fueling myself with some of the wrong stuff, just made me moodier, sluggish, angry and frustrated. I got so caught up in taking care of someone else that I neglected to take care of myself, and had somehow decided that funneling my anger, sadness, exhaustion, etc... into emotional eating was the way to deal with it. It wasn't, and furthermore, if we can't take care of ourselves even during the most tumultuous of times, how on earth are we supposed to expect to be effective caretakers for others? We're constantly putting the needs of others before the needs of ourselves, but if we aren't caring for ourselves first, how can we be our best for those we love? I decided that night that I was going to have a better day Sunday.
Sunday I started with my usual healthy breakfast, and did a few self-care items before heading to my mom's. I started my laundry, threw a meal into the crockpot to cook while I was gone and to pack up for lunches for the week when I got home. I did my dishes and I filled my gas tank so I wouldn't have to worry about it later, and I walked the dog before heading to my mom's. When I got there Sunday, I was in a better mood and state of mind to take care of my mom. We sat together and played cards and chatted for a while, and later in the afternoon I made sure she was settled and comfortable for a couple of hours while I headed to the gym. I finally got my workout in, which helped with the stress. Working out can be a huge emotional release for me, and sometimes right after a workout my emotions are still pouring out. As I was a little weepy, I decided to stop at a craft store on my way back to get a little something for myself, something to look forward to doing when I was back on my own time again. I was amazed at how quickly just being in the store perked up my mood, and I grabbed a few projects that I was excited to start. One of them was a beginner's cross-stitching kit. My mom has always been a cross-stitcher and has become a real expert in it, making some of the most beautiful pictures I've ever seen with a needle and thread. I brought the kit inside to show her, and we sat together as she showed me a few of her tricks to get started. We actually had a good time. And it made me happy to see her light up at her ability to share something, teach something, to me. Sunday was difficult just as Friday and Saturday were, but Sunday I didn't cry as much as I had on Friday or Saturday. Not nearly as much.
Today's lengthy blog is to remind myself that no matter how sad, difficult, tragic, whatever life gets, the choices I make about my health, nutrition, and fitness are always in my control. Sometimes, having control over those things can make you feel more in control and able to deal with whatever life's challenging you with. Making better choices for myself on Sunday than I had on Saturday not only gave me a sense of control and something to feel proud of, but it also led to smiles and glimpses of joy within the sorrow that we would not have otherwise had. It's never easy to spend time with someone you love who is always in so much pain, but it's easier if you can bring in some positivity no matter how dire the situation. Had I not taken care of the simple chores I did before heading out, I would have had them in the back of my brain to worry about dealing with when I got home, exhausted from the day. Had I not taken a break to go to the gym, I not only would have had less emotional energy for caring for my mom, but I also wouldn't have thought to stop at the craft store, which means she wouldn't have had the opportunity to perk up at teaching me how to do something she loves. It paid both of us some good to have done a few things for myself that day.
It's also important to remember that just because you may feel like you're slipping off the tracks does not mean you are inevitably going to derail entirely. Having a shaky day or week or month or year on your journey to better health doesn't doom you for failure unless you allow it too. Once I had eaten as much as I did on Saturday, it would have been easy to rationalize throwing away the rest of the day, or week, of my health efforts because "I already blew it" or because "this is obviously just too hard for me to do right now." It would have been easy to use that as an excuse to dive deeper into emotional eating, which would just have continued the cycle of negativity and brought me to a darker place. It actually is possible to catch yourself as you feel yourself slipping and regain your balance. Stay in the moment. The choices you've made in the past are gone and the choices you are to make in the future haven't presented themselves yet; just do the very best you are capable of doing in any given moment, and take the bumps in the road as they come. Eventually, the tracks smooth out again, just stay on the train as it jostles about on the rough patches of the path. They will pass.
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