8/7/2016 0 Comments To Be or Not to BeI want to say I am truly shocked and humbled by all the people who read my blog and who’ve reached out to me. Since I started my blog at the end of May, I’ve had over 6,000 viewers. Whenever I go too long without a post, I always have faithful followers messaging me asking for updates. I certainly never expected this kind of support when I (nervously) published my first post.
I don’t know that I have much to say this time. I’m currently cycle day 43 with no real signs of a new cycle coming. I am 6 days into my 10 day course of Provera. I can’t describe the frustration I have with my body. I definitely have moments where it is completely unbearable and I feel like I’m suffocating in my own skin. Not having any control over my body can be paralyzing. This past week I had a wonderful opportunity for some professional development with work. One thing that’s pretty cool about my job is that professional developmental often turns into personal development. We had some in-depth training on Choice Theory. I must say when I first learned about Choice Theory and Glasser in graduate school I was not a fan. I still don’t really like Glasser and I don’t think Choice Theory is always appropriate. But, that’s for another blog. For a very basic rundown of Choice Theory, it essentially boils down to getting your needs met. We have physical needs (safety, housing, food, etc) and psychological needs. The four psychological needs are power, love, fun, and freedom. If these needs are not met we cannot be happy. Our “total behavior” is made up of: acting, thinking, feeling, and physiology. Glasser suggests we have considerable control over acting and thinking and the choices we make greatly influence our feelings and physiology. So, in essence we choose to be happy or we choose to not be happy. I had a lot of personal emotions to process while participating in this training. Infertility constricts all of my psychological needs. It has almost completely eliminated “fun” from my life. My “power” and “freedom” feels as constricted as my “fun.” While I have lots of people who love me and I love my family (and cats), caring for a child is another picture I have in my needs circle. Although I don’t totally prescribe to Choice Theory, I do feel like it gave me some sort of control by being able to label my experiences. I kept having pictures of myself losing it on the phone with the nurse. My “total behavior car” was totally off track and crashed for sure. In that moment, I think the need that felt the weakest was “power.” I really just needed someone to hear my concerns and the nurse did the absolute right thing by answering my questions directly with factual information. I also think this blog helps to restore my “power” and maybe even my “freedom” to some degree. I definitely need to add more “fun” activities to my needs circle. This is a hard one because most of the things I enjoy require money. Infertility also sucks away at your “physical” needs as my financial security feels threatened daily. But I’ll have to use my imagination to find new fun activities. I still believe happiness can be fluid especially when you’re on an uncontrollable and often unbearable journey. I know there are going to be days where getting off the couch is going to seem like too big a challenge. I know there will be days where I will be mentally pushing people out of my way so I can get out of the store faster. But I also know, that there will be moments and maybe even days of happiness. Lucille Ball once said, “It’s a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy.”
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Heather Joyce
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