Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable...

Yesterday I went to a Support Group for Lupus and Arthritis. Yeah, that was HUGE mistake. It turned out to be a 3 hour long "woe is me" complaining session. Definitely not what I was looking for. I sat next to this old lady who looked over at me and said, "Awww. You poor thing! You're so young! You should just commit suicide, hunny. It's the best thing for you. There's no way you'll be able to handle the pain for the rest of your life. Just go ahead and get it over with. I wish I would have done that when I was younger." No lie. It's what that lady told me.

I was fuming by the time I left. The word "mad" does not even begin to describe how I felt. I called a couple of my friends and complained to them about how awful this "support" group was. Some support group...telling me to kill myself. Humph.

But then as I was talking to my best friend, I got to thinking, here I am complaining about a whole bunch of complainers. That would make me a hypocrite wouldn't it?

But I have reached the conclusion that in order to live with something like Lupus, something that causes you chronic pain is to "Get comfortable being uncomfortable".

That's the saying I lived by when I trained for my half-marathon. There were days that I woke up sore, thinking that I would never be able to run 13 miles. But I kept my eyes on the finish line. I wrote that saying down, and taped it above my training calender. I looked at it every morning when I got up, and every night before I went to bed.

Running 13 miles was anything but easy. It was hard. It was a major time commitment. I was on a strict schedule, and I didn't get to hang out with my friends or family as often as I would have liked. But ya know what? I don't regret it at all. In fact, I'm really contemplating doing another half-marathon.

That is the saying I'm going to start living by, cause all I need to do is "get comfortable being uncomfortable". I don't want to live the rest of my life popping pain medicine, and I don't want to become an addict. After all, I am only 21 years old with a life full of surprised ahead of me. All this Lupus thing is, is just another obstacle for me to overcome. I've overcome many in my lifetime, and I am sure there will be many more to come.