Learning to Listen to Myself. (approx. 2 - 2½ min. read)

If I’ve learned one thing this week, it’s how to listen to myself and not feel guilty about it. I over-extended myself last week (again) and ended up missing almost two days of “work,” and then this past week I had issues with my new laptop, which put me even further behind.

The worst thing is I’ve picked up a skin infection that's been going on for almost two months and I can’t seem to get rid of it. For the first month and a half, I just tried to deal with it and get rid of it by myself but then it really, and I mean really, started to hurt.

Throughout my life I’ve been made to believe that I’m a hypochondriac and if you ask some of my family of origin, they will say that I have Munchausen’s; an illness where the patient makes illnesses up. Needless to say, that when it comes to going to the Doctor, I wait until it’s bad; until it’s so noticeable that no one can accuse me of making it up.

This time, while I sat and waited to make sure it wasn’t all in my head, I joked about it. The infection is in the middle of my forehead, just between my eyes and it’s not pretty.

I’ve been joking with Gary that it’s a third eye, all the better to see mental illness with, and I joked with one of my closest girlfriends that it was me turning into a unicorn; that is so unlike me. In the past, I would have hidden away and not discussed it with anyone, but things are seemingly changing as I’m learning to believe in myself.

Anyway, I went to the Doctor’s a couple of weeks ago and she prescribed an antibiotic cream. She told me to use it for seven days, but if it didn’t go away, I needed to go on oral antibiotics. You know how I feel about any kind of meds and so I crossed my fingers that the cream would work. I used it for the full seven days making sure I applied it every eight hours.

After about five days it started to go away and I started to feel like myself again, but when I put myself in an incredibly stressful situation this past weekend, the swelling started again!

I removed myself from the stressful situation, but not before the infection got so bad that I had to head back to the Doctor’s. This time, I couldn’t escape the inevitable and I was put on oral antibiotics. I dislike just about every kind of man-made medication, because if there’s a side-effect I get it, and who the heck wants to feel worse while they’re trying to feel better?!

But and it’s a strong but, I’m in a lot of pain and if it gets much worse, I’m thinking they’re going to have to give me more than an oral antibiotic.

Going forward, I’m going to go to the Doctor sooner and stop listening to the darn voices in my head.

Stay safe, stay strong and stop listening to the voices in your head.

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