Let’s talk about perfectionism!

I don't know about anyone else so I can only really talk from my own experience but I find it very easy to get into a negative spiral around being poorly, and a lot of the time I can trace it back to wanting to be fixed, be better for want of a better expression "be cured".

Now I live with chronic pain, I have been fighting for a diagnosis for 5 years and still don't have one, the chance of me waking up tomorrow pain-free is slim to none so throwing away the idea that to be happy and satisfied I need to be pain-free is very liberating.

Searching for perfection with my health is counter-intuitive as it's destined to go unfulfilled leading me to negative emotions adding to my pain.

It reminds me of a concept I read about at uni "The good-enough parent" it's a concept deriving from the work of D. W. Winnicott and has similar themes in that it provides comfort in the understanding that perfection is impossible but also not necessary! You just have to be "good enough" and your kids will turn out just fine and the same goes I believe for living life as a spoonie.

Expecting all your jobs to be done and everything to be done to perfection is unrealistic and exhausting, take a step back and prioritise and re-frame the situation in a positive light!

What do you actually need to do and what can you either do later, ask for help with or cheat in some way to achieve?

A great example of this is food, I know from my own experience the food I eat has a role in how I feel and my pain levels, now to do this perfectly I should shop, prep and cook 2-3 times a day and be really strict with my diet but if I was to do that I can guarantee the rest of the day would be a write-off! Simply put I would have used up all of my spoons.

So I cheat! On a lower pain day I cook larger meals that I can portion up and freeze, I ensure I have some of these prepped meals and/or ready meals I have found that are compatible with my diet in my freezer for bad pain days. I have emergency food available that isn't particularly compatible with the anti-inflammatory diet I am following but is there for days when the alternative is to call a takeaway, which could not possibly be worse for my anti-inflammatory needs, as the thought of any food effort at all is just too much on a bad pain day. These are normally in the form of packet couscous where the limit of the required effort is boiling the kettle in my room.

I have a feeling a lot of what we will discuss in this group will be different cheats and ways to live happy with less effort. Please let us know below your top tip to staying happy on hard days!

I guess the TLDR of all of this is to cut yourself some slack and be kind to yourself as being negative and angry is just going to exacerbate it all.