For the past couple years, my dad now in his mid-80s has been complaining about being useless. He has grown increasingly frustrated by a body that has been fighting back for many years, but his conclusion has been that he’s just completely “useless.” He throws his hands up and shakes his head and won’t hear any more about the subject. That’s the last word: useless.

For many years now, I’ve struggled with unwelcomed, spontaneous, always negative thoughts. For example, if I make a mistake, I don’t tell myself, “No worries, everything can be fixed,” like I would say to every other person walking the earth. I tell myself I’m “stupid.” Make that past tense – I TOLD myself I was stupid. For many years. I’ve learned to be kinder to myself, to talk to myself like I would any other person on earth. However, as I waddle and wobble around my house, unable to straighten my left leg or my lower back just because a dog accidentally ran headfirst into me in a fit of unbridled joy, I find myself condemning myself with my dad’s word: useless.

I have regular dreams where I’m trying to get somewhere, across a street, up a staircase, just across a pleasant field, and I have to drag myself. My legs and hips won’t function. I crawl and drag myself across the ground. When I wake up, the pain that stops me from walking in my dreams is real. My legs and hips are painful, just lying in bed, and it carries over into my dreams. I don’t dream anymore about running free with no pain and never getting out of breath. I used to fly in my dreams (I’m sure there’s a Freudian something there), but I don’t do that anymore either.

I used to just do what I wanted to do. Now the inability to do what I want is affecting people around me. I feel like I’m making the world more difficult for the people I love. And my dad’s word “useless” just lingers in the air around me.

So what to do:

1. The med that’s supposed to regulate fibro pain is not really working. I’m going to finish off the Rx in a good faith effort, but I won’t take ineffective meds.
   • Consider some of the pain could be from the recently started statin.
2. Continue to be diligent with the heart meds the cardiologist has prescribed. My shortness of breath is MUCH better. Palpitations are MUCH better. He promised some of the meds should be discontinued after my heart heals a bit.
3. Continue to do the PT exercises for my knee. They help and are reasonable.
4. Try to figure out what to do about my back…
5. Continue to try to push myself every day (starting tomorrow, I say partially ironically).
6. Argue back at that voice in my head that is beating me down. I have the final say on how I feel about myself.
7. Be kind to myself and grateful for everything that’s good around me.

It’s all good.