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Extreme Stress and How to Control Where Your Road Goes

As the new year 2012 has just arrived,much potential promise and change lie in wait. Typically, during the month of January, many people pledge promises on how to better themselves for the upcoming year. Often, there is a desire for a new accomplishment, a new life, and goals pledged on how to get there. One objective often heard is that a person wants to reduce their stress. He wants to simplify things. She wants to gain control over the craziness. Perhaps your goal is to reduce stress, but it may also be something else that involves stress-reduction as well. For example, you may want to gain control over your weight. This often encompasses a component of stress. For example, many people will eat sweets and other unhealthy food when they are stressed.

What is your specific goal for the year? Visualize that new life you desire. Now, consider where you are currently and how close or how far away you are from that envisioned life. For some people, the new objective may be close at hand; however, for others, the target may seem miles away. In some cases, a new life may have been thrust on you without your desire. Your circumstances may have changed dramatically from a job loss, divorce, or illness. Regardless of the exact circumstance, you can steer things back to a control of your choosing.

My “new” life as a married single mom started several years ago as my husband became sicker and sicker and sicker over four years. When his health was first compromised, we had a one-year old son, and the idea of having a chronically ill husband was beyond my comprehension. Then, after a horrible diagnosis from a physician, and the possibility of losing my husband leaving my son without a father, I found out wonderful news – I was pregnant again with our second child. A blessing in the awful health hell we faced. Still, my new life was not one that I had ever dreamed of and certainly not one for which I was prepared.

As our confusion over my husband’s diagnosis and illness grew over the months and years, my stress level grew with it. After a second opinion, we ultimately learned my husband has chronic Lyme disease with ALS symptoms. Even though this illness is terrible in its late stages, as it is with my husband, it is something that can be treated. In that, we are grateful. This comes after hearing doom-and-gloom from one physician after another. During these “health hell” years, it was easy to focus on the negatives and the sadness. You could (even today) study my husband with a tracheostomy (and ventilator use), a feeding tube and major weight loss, along with loss of mobility, and think “Things are really bad.” However, if I focus on just the negative aspects of his illness, it will sink me further down the stress slide.

In the grand scheme of things, there are other glimmers of light and much hope with my husband’s health. Although he is currently on disability and fighting to breathe, walk, and talk, he is making baby steps forward. He is interacting with the kids more and he feels stronger. He has regained some weight and his muscles have come back in some places. This is what we focus our energy on – the gems in the dirt – it makes a big difference. It decreases stress and increases motivation to continue the fight, to continue moving things on our own road.

My single greatest point of gained wisdom over the past several years can be summarized as follows:

“Acknowledge the bad stuff. Have your friends and family acknowledge the bad, tough times. You need this. You need someone to validate that your stress is real. Don’t push it under the rug and say things like “think positively” or “things could always be worse” – that can be frustrating to hear. Rather, acknowledge the bad stuff, and then deliberately and with purposive, focus on the good gems in there. Choose to focus on the things that work and the things that you know can be improved.”

This attitude has decreased my stress dramatically over the years. My stress level was high not only from worrying about my husband, but from all the other juggling events that were occurring. I am still working full-time and raising two small children. There are the long commutes to work, tending to logistics of raising children, helping ease the fears of my husband, and in general, just trying not to fall apart myself. I didn’t know early in this process that I was choosing to focus on the good things, the things that were moldable and improving, because, frankly, I didn’t have the time to think or process any of this, but I certainly learned a thing or two about resiliency. I definitely know that where you focus your efforts and thoughts leads to change in kind.

So, this new-found power kicked in when I realized several years ago, one simple, but incredibly important fact: only my husband and I truly knew everything (in terms of his health) from the start until the present. We were the only two people on the planet that knew all the details of symptoms, responses, changes, and progressions. We could focus on his single muscle improvement or his recovery with balance. Many of the physicians wouldn’t consider the totality of the story and thus, they missed these gems of progression. Many of these physicians would focus only on the decline or the lack of major improvement. Still, once I realized that only my husband and I truly had all the facts and therefore only we could accurately assess and predict outcomes. Of course we needed the help of experts along the way, and we needed to consider the information presented to us in a logical way, but we were in the best position to best gauge his progress based on the full story.

Once I realized that I could focus on the gems, I knew to start steering things in the direction they needed to go. As soon as I decided to not let someone take me down a path that I didn’t want to go, it was relatively easy to move the ball back into the court of my own choosing. Sometimes, it might take longer than I would like – there is always the doubts, the second-guessing, and the sadness that comes when there is a slight setback – but the point it that the realization comes. The awareness was that I could move things in the direction of my choosing. I could move the ball back to the road I wanted and that road is one of health, calm, and peace.

As you consider your own story and your own stress level, remind yourself of all you know. Remind yourself that you truly have all the knowledge – you know the full story and therefore you have the power to move things in the direction of your own choosing. Acknowledge the bad parts, but then invest your energy on the gems among all the dirt. If you find yourself starting to doubt, if you sense your stress increasing, stop and literally shake yourself. It sounds corny, but it works. I do it often enough. There is something about the physical act itself that kicks you into gear. If it takes you some time to realize that you are traveling down the wrong path, or if it takes you some time to get to this “shaky point” when you know you are on the wrong road, be kind to yourself. Ultimately it doesn’t matter if the realization and reminder happens immediately or days later. The vital component is that it happens so that you can take control again and steer things on your own terms and in the direction you choose.