Personal Share - Optimism is NOT always easy

So my last post was about optimism and what I'm learning in my UPenn course on resilience that I am taking. While I test very well on the optimism questionnaire that I mentioned, it is also true that I have been struggling with my recovery from surgery and my herniated disc.


Here are my scores from the optimism questionnaire and an explanation of what each metric is measuring.
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Vicky's Scores (Range 0-8 except hopefulness)

Permanence-Good Events: 8
- People who believe good events have a permanent cause score highest here

Permanence-Bad Events: 2
- People who resist helplessness + believe the causes of bad events are temporary score low on this metric; People who give up easily tend to beleive the causes of bad events are permanent and rank high on this metric

Pervasiveness-Bad Events: 3
- People who make universal/pessimistic explanations for their failures give up on anything when failure strikes and score high on this metric; People who make specific/optimstic may fail in one area but perservere in another (score low on this metric)

Pervasiveness-Good Events: 5
- Optimists believe that good events enhance everything they do and score high on this metric; Pessimists believe good events are caused by specific events and score low on this metric

Hopefulness (Range -16 to 16): 8
- "Finding permanent and universal causes of good events along with temporary and specific causes for misfortune is the art of hope finding permanent and universal causes for misfortune and temporary and specific causes of good events is the practice of despair."
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As you can see, I rank pretty close to the higher ranges of most of these factors. Yet, I am HUMAN and have been having a hell of time with this chronic pain situation. I tell you, I wouldn't wish this type of issue on literally anyone. Not even my worst enemies (if I had worst enemies). I don't even think I'd wish this type of thing on Hitler and Hitler is the WORST.

I think my biggest issue currently is that it's such an invisible pain. I have a draft of some of my most emotional thoughts through the process in my Google docs and I don't know when, if ever, I'll feel comfortable sharing it. But I do feel somewhat comfortable discussing some of my experience.

I've had days where nothing has gone right. I'll wake up with bad nerve pain in my right glute and down my hamstring. I won't want to get out of bed because movement hurts. I'll feel tired because a lack of my normal intense exercise has made me have depressive feelings now and then. So I lay in my bed once I've found a semi-comfortable position and consider how long it will take me to get up today. Once I do get up, I take my meds for the nerve pain and do my daily physical therapy stretches. These stretches are challenging, often painful and just all around not fun. But they are also a necessary part of recovery. Once these are done, I am ready to finally leave my room for the day.

I sit down to check my email and see an email from a company where I've applied for a job - it's a 'no, sorry. We are going with another candidate.' Great. Pile that on top of the struggle to get up and the day is off to a solidly bad start. Logically, I know that the market for job searching may be on hold right now, but logic doesn't always help when you're in a funk. I think it's okay to let yourself feel these negative emotions. The important thing is to not let them swallow you up. So sometimes, on a day like I've just described, I feel like crap. I feel like I don't want to do anything productive and I let myself sit in that for some time. Most times when this happens, I end up moving anyways and going for a walk outside or calling a friend to chat and vent or find some other positive thing that is a forward movement from where the day started.

Before everyone was told to stay home and I was working on re-gaining strength back in the gym, I was constantly self-conscous about others seeing me. On the outside, I am a healthy 28 year old female. When someone looks at me, they don't expect me to have the crippling limitations that I do (even after surgery!!) and this makes me anxious. I am also a very type A person who is my own biggest critic. I know that in reality, most people at the gym are focused on themselves and couldn't care less about what I am doing. Yet, I still feel that I should be able to more. I feel that it is embarassing that I am doing only bodyweight exercises mostly for my lower body when I used to be so strong. One positive thing to come of the quarantine life is that I have less people to be worrying about seeing me attempt workouts. Of course, in-home workouts have their own challenges, but again, I am trying my best to embrace optimism.

The other day, I was on the phone with my Mom while I was taking myself on a long walk and I was just crying as I talked to her. I couldn't help but describe all of the negative things that were happening in life. Even as I talked with her, I would vocally acknowledge the so-called other side of things and that in the big picture there were also positive things. But I still felt awful and needed to let myself feel this way and get that emotion out before I could turn back to focus my energy on forward motion.

Years ago, I could never have talked this freely about emotions. Years ago, I wouldn't have had the self-awareness to know when I needed to feel those emotions vs. when they would be fleeting distractions. Having invisible chronic pain has forced me to become this way. A silver lining, if you will, that I think will serve me well in the long term. But it sure as HELL wasn't and still isn't an easy journey.

Basically what I'm saying (in probably way too many babbling words) is that no one is perfect. No matter what, we all have off days where we need to let ourselves feel negative emotions. So allow yourself. Optimism is great, but it isn't always easy.

-Vicky