Being strong is really exhausting
This piece is going in circles a bit. But I am trying to explain the parallels from my ankle pain to my LD and ADHD and putting all that pressure on myself. Holding it all in only made it worse because I wasn’t getting the help I needed and no one could see I was suffering.
I know I’ve spent time writing blog posts from my experiences. Believe it or not, talking about myself and bringing attention to my deep seeded pain, insecurities, and my weaknesses is something that I have spent decades trying NOT to do. Ask my therapist lol.
It’s not that I wouldn’t talk about myself. It's that I didn’t want people to see me as negative, pessimistic, “in Cape-Able” or Debbie downer. Maybe it was me projecting how I felt as I dealt with all of the setbacks and challenges. But I would come up with ways of distracting myself by channeling that energy into new projects. Or focusing on how I could help and support others so that I didn’t need to focus on what was upsetting me to most.
I constantly felt like I was hiking up a mountain. Once I got to the “top” and accomplished my goal I would stand around looking at the view. It was beautiful and I was proud of myself...only to turn around and see another huge mountain I had to climb and I didn’t know if I had the strength to keep going.
My right ankle and I had a love hate relationship. Since I was 15 I had 5 3rd degree sprains and several minor sprains in between. When I described the pain I had, I felt like I needed to play it down because people would say to me “you are over-exaggerating it’s not THAT bad” “professional athletes play on sprained ankles all the time”. Every fall I had my ankle would balloon up and it would hurt A LOT but I would power through and put more pressure on it and do what I had to in order to get by. Everytime it happened I could feel the eye rolls. Really again? As if this was something I wanted or asked for. Then came the final fall in February of 2018. Surgery was now officially on the table.
When I had my reconstructive ankle surgery in April 2018 the surgeon said he has no idea how I had been walking on it for this long because it was SO much worse than he initially thought. He said if I fell one more time that it would have resulted in emergency surgery and well I will save you the gory details because it wouldn’t have been pretty. I spent the next year recovering and eventually learning how to walk again. It was easily one of the darkest times in my life.
To celebrate my husband Barry and I went to Israel in the summer of 2019 and I hiked UP and DOWN Masada. If you’ve never been there imagine walking straight up a mountain at 4am. At some point I let Barry go ahead of me and I had a pep talk with myself as I took every single step up. Alex, you don’t need to look up, you don’t need to look behind you. You just have to take this step in front of you. Ok you got this, now take the next step. When I got to the top I burst into tears. I did it. I did it at my own pace and that was more than ok. I took a video to remind myself that it took strength to not only physically get up this mountain but to know that it didn’t matter what was happening around me. I just needed to take one step at a time when I felt ready.
Being strong physically and mentally is exhausting. When you saw me during that year I went from wearing several different casts to eventually a brace to nothing at all. The first time I walked by myself on the street was to go to the Starbucks on the corner. A little girl and her dad were walking behind me and she said “Daddy, why does that lady have a funny boot on her foot? He explained that I had likely gotten hurt and needed the extra support to walk. As they walked past me the man turned around and asked if I was ok and then said “You are doing such a great job. Keep going!” It made my day.
It wasn’t until I thought about it months later as I pushed myself to go to yoga that I realized no one in my class had any idea that 6 months ago I wasn’t even walking. Sure “no one is judging you in yoga, they are focused on themselves” but I had been doing yoga since I was 15 and to not be able to hold a downward dog for more than a few seconds felt like I failed. I wanted to prove that I was strong. I just needed to remember that holding that downward dog for a few seconds WAS something that made me strong.
When I was wearing the boot people stopped to ask me if I was doing ok. They offered to help me. But once that physical symbol of recovery was gone I realized that no one could see my pain or struggle. Unless I said how loud that I needed help or I was struggling why would they? Which reminded me of how I felt when I struggled with my learning disabilities and ADHD. If no one could see I was struggling why would they ask if I needed help?
Before the surgery when it came to my ankle I felt shame talking about my pain as if it wasn’t legitimate. If I had actually spoken up and acknowledged that I needed help would I have even had as many falls? Would I have actually needed surgery? In all likelihood I probably would have but I needed to know that it wasn’t my fault and I wasn’t making it up either.
When it came to my learning disabilities and ADHD I would constantly tell myself I was fine. This was hard but just like everything else I would put that pressure on myself to keep going and stay strong. I didn’t want anyone around me to think of me as someone weak or “in Cape-able”. If I said nothing and held myself together I could get by. The problem with that is in the end I was again the only one suffering and being that strong was exhausting.
No one knew how hard it was for me and instead of getting the help I needed I pretended it was all ok. There was no shame in sharing my weakness. In fact it’s what made me stronger to stop and say I need help. So how could I prevent my “next fall”? I had to speak up for myself and say HELP!
