Meditative Moments

I admit to having a love-hate relationship with technology. Don't get me wrong, in some ways all of these technological advancements are a blessing. I have a wealth of RA information at my fingertips at all times. That numbness and tingling I'm feeling in my fingers? I can find a reason for it on Google. It was an Amazon search that introduced me to my favorite pen, which makes it possible for me to write again. On the days that it hurts too much to type I can just talk to my computer as I would if it was my best friend. My computer in turn will write my 8 page History paper for me. Technology rocks sometimes.

But as much as computers help a person like me to function, there's a dark side. It's easy to become overwhelmed by the plethora of information out there. This isn't helpful for a person has anxiety issues, especially when some health websites can convince you that you stomach ache is a sign of cancer. Social media is distracting and often prevents me from getting any writing done. One of my recent observations is that social media websites often lead people to feel bad about themselves. Admit it- one of your classmates from high school recently posted about a really cool new "grown up" job she just got, and you sat there thinking about how you'll never live up to that, or how you're a failure because you still work at a movie theater sweeping up popcorn.

This weekend I decided to experiment with a technology cleanse, similar to the way those health nuts do colon cleanses every other week. I shut the computer off. Threw the tablet in a drawer. I didn't reach for the TV remote or my iPod. I settled on the couch this armed only with my favorite pen and a notebook. If it had been dark out, I might have gone so far as to attempt to write by candlelight, since that's something I always said I wanted to try.

For once in my life, it was like the clouds had parted to allow a beam of light to hit me. The RA brain fog (which is a real thing!) that perpetually haunts took a back seat to my creativity. I wrote uninhibited, without stopping to check Facebook or to over think my sentences. I didn't stop to delete, rewrite, or censor my ideas. I wrote as fast as my shaky, arthritic hands would allow. Most importantly, I was calm. There was no anxiety to be perfect on the first try. There was no hesitation. There's something meditative about being able to turn off the world and focus on the moment. I was able to relax and just focus on my writing. I didn't have to worry about what was going on around me.

I learned a valuable lesson from shutting off all of my electronics. When a person has RA, they sometimes forget how important it is to take the time to back away from the world and center themselves. The more centered I am, the better I work. That's part of the reason why I put a technology ban in place to write this post. As ironic as this is, I think I'm going to start writing all of my blog posts offline.

Facebook Downers

In my last post I talked about how I love to find inspirational RA sufferers to connect with. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees with my philosophy that motivation from others will help you cope better. I found that out the hard way. Shortly after my diagnosis, I had this crazy idea that I could find myself a decent support group via Facebook that would help me cope with the early and extremely painful stages of RA while the medication was still trying to kick in and I was extremely depressed by my sudden diagnosis. Wrong. Stupid, in fact. There are a lot of people who don't want help or motivation want to spread their negativity like a virus and use Facebook to to accomplish this scheme.

I joined a group (that shall be left nameless) that offered some pretty helpful tips and tricks for everyday life and posted some really amazing quotes and photos to keep people's spirits up. But it was a bipolar experience. The picture or meme or whatever the owner of the page posted would make me feel amazing. Then my gaze would travel downwards, as tends to happen on Facebook, to the comments section, where everyone and their mother would start bashing the original post. The comments ranged from criticizing the page for posting something unrealistic, to people arguing about who was in more pain that day. And God forbid you were a "positive commenter." No positivity allowed there. If you had the guts to post something upbeat, you knew that you were going to be torn apart and accused of not being in enough pain or understanding "the struggle that we go through everyday."

Needless to say, I wound up "unliking" the page in record time. I know it happens more often than not, but don't understand why people feel the need to remain in a cycle of negative thinking. I totally agree that we all need to vent sometimes. It's not healthy to bottle anything up. But repetitive negative thinking and complaining never makes me feel good. I feel completely helpless and hopeless instead. Maybe this makes me an unsympathetic person. Maybe not. I don't think everyone intentionally sets out to make everyone else miserable by pulling them into the chronic illness abyss, but it makes me angry nonetheless. I get cranky from the pain sometimes too, but there's a fine line between reaching out for help and sucking the life out of the next available victim. These are not the people I want to be surrounded by. I want to make the most of my life, not sit in front of a computer thinking about all of the ways to make some person living across the country's life more difficult.