Total Exhaustion

Tonight I am up again late thinking about being in a state of total exhaustion. For a long time, I have said that your mental, physical, and spiritual states are all connected. (This applies to you no matter what religion you have I believe because your spirit or fire that drives you can be your spiritual side as well.) When one of those is stressed due to sickness, exhaustion, over-scheduling, or something that keeps them from being able to find rest at some point the other two will step in place and keep you stable for a little while.

But it adds extra pressure to those other two states as well in the process trying to support you in the area that you need help and handle their own tasks. Before you know it you are in crisis mode in all three areas.

Currently, that is where I am. I’ve been physically sick and battling strep since September. In the beginning, my mental status was on track for the most part and my spiritual status was as well.

Now we are pushing on 5 months of battling strep. That’s 5 months of the other two parts of my health trying to support me and keep me stable while running a fever every day for the past two weeks, getting limited amounts of sleep, and trying to continue working and my daily tasks.

I started seeing slips or changes in my mental health toward the end of November. By the beginning of January, I noticed the need for more medication to help with panic attacks. I am struggling to deal with depression mostly and some mixed states of bipolar. My doctors have suggested increases in medications. I’ve resisted to this point because I feel that the truth is if we can fix the physical part I can regain control of where I need to be.

I’ve really tried to stay on track in boosting my physical health and used tools in my coping techniques to help with my mental health conditions. I’ve tried to lean on my faith and pull my support system closer to me.

The good news is that I have a surgery scheduled for the 12th of this month. I’m hoping this will fix the physical issue and things will work better. I just wanted to give you something to think about.

When you are trying to deal with mental health you also have to take into consideration that stresses to your physical and spiritual health also affect your mental status. They may be big changes that hit suddenly are too much for them to compensate for at once (deaths, loss of jobs, etc) or they may be smaller (lingering illnesses, unresolved issues, over-scheduling yourself, etc). Be mindful of this and be kind to yourself.