For maybe the first time in almost 20 years of having RA, I am facing feeling of frustration and depression about my inabilities. When I was diagnosed I was only 36 and had four daughters under the age of 7. I was so relieved I didn't have MS which I figured could kill me, and was actually "thrilled" about my diagnosis of RA - I have spent a lifetime working thr' the pain and restrictions in order to ensure that my children had the mother they were entitled to - not realizing until it was too late physically for me that they did have a father who could have stepped up to the place and helped more. I even had to deal with two of my daughters having life threatening diseases. I have always been a fighter, and I am finding it harder just in this last year to keep going with a positive attitude - in part because I have now acquired a great deal more health issues, mainly stemming from my RA and osteoarthritis ( 2002). I recently joined a Pain Management Program in the hopes of finding how people in their fifties and older are coping with the longetivity of any chronic disease. Thankfully, I have been blessed with a positive attitude about everything but it scares me that it is letting me down for the first time and I just don't seem to have the energy to bound back. - Not helping that my drugs keep getting taken off the market. Would appreciate hearing from anyone who has dealt with this issue, especially the reality of getting older, and worked thr it. Hello and welcome!
[quote] Would appreciate hearing from anyone who has dealt with this issue, especially the reality of getting older, and worked thr it.[/quote]
Well...I certainly have not worked through it, but am working with the realities of rapidly approaching sixty and chronic autoimmune dis-ease.
Some days I am more successful at dealing with my _issues_ than I am on other days. Success its opposite are predicated on the fatigue factor: the more fatigue I am experiencing the less capable I am of utilizing a set of coping strategies I am developing to over come frustration, anger, outrage, and what seems to be inevitable depression.
One of those coping strategies has been put into action here on this forum: I am forging a support system, creating friends, and learning to share the bad days and celebrate the good with folks who require no explanation, do not need a rationale for why, and who laugh and cry for the same reasons I do.
Con brio! Happ
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