Can too much of a Good Thing be Bad for You?

Can too much of a good thing be bad? This expression can be used in relation to so many things like food or drink or money. But can it be used for attitude or say positivity or inspirational examples in life. We certainly seem to be focusing a lot on being positive, reading quotes that highlight good and positive and indeed inspire us to promote holistic wellbeing. Along with quotes and memes that tell you to be better, be stronger, be smarter, be more thoughtful, be more and more and more of everything. Do not give up, dream bigger and set goals and strive to move onwards and upwards. I, myself, like to see these quotes and put them up in my social media. I choose them very randomly – just what catches my eye and strikes a chord with my mood that day.

However, something always holds me back from putting up too many positive inspirational ones as I feel they are not realistic for some people like me. Let me clarify this point of view. I am chronically ill and have been so from 11 years now. I have connective tissue disease that is autoimmune disease. It is a multi-faceted disease where the body has turned on itself and so there is random inflammation of connective tissues with no pattern or predictability. The disease is insidious and slow to progress and therefore diagnose which took two and half years. While the doctors were doing wait and watch things went downhill. I reached rock bottom when I was unable to even lift my eyelids without excruciating pain.

The way up from that mire of pain, lack of sleep and depression only started when I actually started proper treatment. Oh I had tried all the natural therapies and supplements, acupuncture, gentle exercises, push through the pain and it will all be better therapy, do not lose hope and think positive thoughts to get back into the healthy frame of mind, mind over matter, prayers and so on. I wanted my old life back. I wanted to be able to work and earn as I had since the age of 18. I wanted to go for holidays and complete my PhD. All this also produces stress and has adverse effect on the autoimmune issues.

Once the treatment started I had to get to the stage of acceptance of the reality. Acceptance is a hard won battle and it leads to asking yourself what quality of life is acceptable to you? It is true that some people go into remission but you still have to focus on small goals to reach an acceptable quality of life. I thought this over carefully and even discussed it with my husband and we settled on issues that were important – to be self-caring, able to do the house work, be able to go out to the shops, occasional outings for fun were the goals. The cold weather did not help as for some unknown reason I found it hard to handle the cold I used to enjoy before so warm weather was something I needed. Family issues of illness and deaths added on more stress. A solution we came upon was to move to a warmer place and reduce relationships’ stress by the move. Moving itself is one of the major stressors but for the eventual good outcome I pushed through this upheaval. After the move the next thing was should I work but we decided that not working would be more stress reduction. At the same time my medication was upped and the whole journey to getting stable took another 4 years after diagnosis.

Going back to can too much of a good thing be bad – the acceptance and stability in health was along road and hard fought. I was poodling along nicely helping others and working with them to adapt as this I saw was the way to dealing with long term illness and having self-worth. All of us need to feel valued and wish to contribute to society and I had to find ways of doing so. 

On and off I see write ups about people who have overcome adversity, ill heath, disability and even death bed to achieve goals that would have been almost impossible. While I am happy for people who have done this and would give high praise to survivors of all kinds it suddenly makes you question all the decisions you have taken. Should I have not given up work? Should I have done something different and got into another profession? Am I not a strong person for I appear to have chickened out of the whole upbeat do the best and more to get back to being a ‘productive’ person? Do others perceive me as a quitter? All these ‘good’ ‘positive’ achievement stories have shaken my self-belief that I am doing the best I can. 

Being stable as it is, raises self-doubt about the extent of the illness. I only have to try reducing any of my medications and the symptoms come creeping back telling me remission is not my fate. And still these positive stories make me sad and uncomfortable with myself and yes almost a failure for not being able to be this ‘strong’ person. I guess my cycle to grieving was not over and will never be over as small things can take you back……..to the start… rebuild my self-worth and self-confidence. So YES too much of a good thing – as in positive stories, positive and inspirations quotes and well-meaning advice – is a bad thing for me.