WTF has become a favorite sentence of mine to say throughout my journey. Sometimes there’s nothing else to say but “What The Fuck.” My current favorite is to say “What in The Actual Fuck.” If you are offended by curse words, I assure you I am done using them in this post. Let’s be honest though.. cursing is a form of self care and a totally appropriate coping strategy. Even A+ therapist agrees with me although she has not given me free license to just go around town cursing people out all in the name of self-care.

The WTF in my title doesn’t end with a curse word but instead with the word flare as right now my body seems to be in a bit of a flare. Even though I always know in the back of my head there’s a chance for a flare to pop up at anytime, they always seem to catch me by surprise. This one isn’t totally surprising because I had Covid about 3 weeks ago, but I expected that if I was going to have a flare it would have already happened. My body had other plans.

When I am in a flare it just means my daily symptoms are exaggerated and I also add some new symptoms to the fun. Right now I’ve added swelling in my ribs and diaphragm to the fun.. this symptom showed up the last time I had Covid as well so she’s an old friend that just wanted to come back for a visit. I’ve also added some new stomach issues that are keeping things kind of interesting.

When I used to have a flare I would freak out and sound the alarm bells in my body, which I have since learned just makes things worse. When you have a nervous system that’s been damaged and sees everything as a threat, freaking out is like pouring gasoline on an already burning fire. It’s not a good thing. Now when I have a flare I do my best to just tell myself “Yeah, you’re in the middle of a flare. It is what it is.” I increase my daily meditation, my vagus nerve exercises, and the amount of time I spend on my grounding mat all in an effort to help calm my body as much as I can in the midst of it freaking out and mounting an immune response it doesn’t need to mount.

What I don’t do is stop living. I might adjust how much I am doing based on how I’m feeling, but I still get out of the house, go to appts, and live life in the ways I can. I have learned how to adapt to my body and sometimes that adapting happens on a weekly, daily, and/or hourly basis depending on where my body is at. I also allow myself to feel what I need to feel and sometimes that feeling is “What in the actual fuck.” Sorry, I offered an assurance up above that I was in fact done cursing in this post, but I clearly wasn’t.

To those of you reading this, your body may or may not be in a flare like mine, but I am guessing you all have something in your life that you have had to adapt to. I’m sure you’ve had days or weeks where adapting was easy and then other days and weeks where adapting made you want to say, “WITAF”. I’ve now resorted to cursing using acronyms.. very high brow of me. Regardless of whatever you’ve had or are currently having to adapt to in your life, know that adapting is part of being human. Humans have been adapting for thousands of years and we are far better at it than we give ourselves credit for. Life is also a lot easier if you adapt instead of fight against whatever life is throwing your way.

Adapt and curse often.. that’s my life advice for the day!