My son has been sick this week. As with every time he is sick he refuses to really rest. He stays home from school but he plays video games most of the time. When school gets out he is skyping and playing with his friends. This week I heard him being extra loud and raucous one afternoon and evening. And yet when I enter his room he says he feels terrible. I ask him how plays the games when he feels terrible, how he talks with his friends for hours when he feels terrible. He says the games take no energy - I disagree - we have had this same conversation a thousand times. Why don't we limit him you ask? We are his bloody parents - well, you try and limit him on this - it just won't work. Wimp, you call me..... maybe. It's the path we've taken - too many volatile times, too much chaos.... it's best this way. he will ahev to figure it out for himself - he is naturally a very independent thinker and needs to find things out for himself. Just desserts maybe - I am the same.:-&
This week I came to his room again and said the same old things but I was very clear in myself that in refusing to rest he is rejecting his own body and its needs, his self AND that his faith in life was damaged badly when he got hit with ALPS. So we went through the same song and dance "me - get off, Bryn no- it doesn't take any energy etc"..... But this time I put my arm around him and said "you have lost trust in your body, you hate it and refuse to give it what it needs and you don't trust life because it hit you with ALPS and the whole experience of diagnosis. You will not get well as fast as you want if you don't rest. You can't fight your physiology - you need to rest." He had been upset early and crying because he is sick of being sick so there was a little chink in his armor and what I said got through.
Late that day at bed time he was feeling down again about being sick and I repeated myself - he asked to lie with me and have some support, - he put his head on my shoulder and lay against me - and I told him he is more normal than he thinks, his body is stronger than he thinks, many people are sick right now - it is not all ALPS fault, and that he needs to find his faith in life again, in himself. He seemed to really get this. He is growing up.
The next day he was still unwell, but he rested and stayed off the games - though his girlfriend was here for awhile so his motivation was stronger :-). still he is getting it slowly but surely he is finding his faith in life, himself and his body again... he si starting to see how this whole process of getting syndrome has twisted his view of things. That he can trust again.
:-) Sometimes we make progress.
Cathy
No comments:
Post a Comment