When life throws you curveballs, your involuntary reflexes might not be enough to save you from suffering the blow. Unforeseeable circumstances like accidents, finding out that you have a chronic illness, or discovering sudden complications in your current condition can often leave you at a loss.
All the cases mentioned above can bring with it a debilitating condition that can disrupt your everyday routines. For instance, your doctor prescribed you to be on bed rest for three months because your physical condition will get worse if you continue to move around like nothing happened.
Bed rest is commonly prescribed to people who get injuries from accidents or women with risky pregnancies. Although lying in bed all day long may sound like a good thing, it’s an incredibly debilitating condition that can leave any person feeling helpless and weak because they will have to indefinitely depend on others.
Moreover, after the period of physical weakness has passed and your doctor has cleared you from being on bed rest, it can be difficult for you to return to your life before. You might feel like that debilitating condition has defined you, and you no longer know how to function on your own.
That’s a normal feeling that will pass through time, but it’s understandable if you don’t feel like yourself after everything that has happened. Your partial disability has disrupted your life and it may have left you feeling hopeless. But don’t worry, here are three tips that you can follow to get you back on your feet:
Tip #1: Slowly Return to Your Routines
The worst thing you can do once you’re in the clear is to go hard too fast. Understandably, you want to get some semblance of normalcy after spending months confined to a bed, but exceeding your physical limits might only get you back in your previous state of bed rest.
Instead of going 100% on day one of recovery, start with small, baby steps. You can begin returning to your routines with 5%, and then slowly progressing with increments of five as you go. Soon enough, you will be at your 100% and feeling like your best self once more.
However, to get from one point to another, you will have to learn how to control your urges. Recovery and moving forward are all about practicing self-discipline while keeping yourself motivated. Trust that you will be able to do everything you want to again one day, but for now, try to focus on the present.
Tip #2: Don’t Be Afraid to Seek Help
It might be tempting to forego anyone’s help once you’re in the clear because you have spent months confined to a bed and in need of assistance. But you also have to remember that you were physically incapable of doing anything without help, and that wasn’t your fault.
In addition to that, spending all those months in bed may have led to chronic pains or muscle atrophy because of the lack of mobility and physical activity. When this happens, you may need to seek professional help to get the appropriate treatment.
For example, to relieve chronic pain that won’t go away with medication, it might bode well to look into comprehensive pain management services to solve your problem. But if you’re dealing with muscle atrophy, it might help to research your physical therapy options to reverse the symptoms.
Tip #3: Give Yourself Room for Mistakes
Your previous debilitating condition may have forced you to depend on other people for all your basic functions. But now that you’re allowed to move again and perform your own duties, it can be frustrating when you can no longer do the things you did before in the same ways.
Being on bed rest may have slightly dampened your abilities, but it’s not permanent. There’s still hope to return to what you once were, but you have to give yourself time to heal and relearn how to function as yourself. Keep in mind that healing and recovery shouldn’t be time-pressured.
It’s also important to give yourself room for mistakes and failures so that you won’t force yourself to exceed your expectations. Doing so will give you more room to breathe, find your footing, and make great progress without unnecessary pressure. You’ll get there soon.
The only person who can understand what you’re going through is yourself, but that doesn’t mean that the people around you aren’t trying. Debilitating conditions are curveballs that can be impossible to avoid, but they aren’t always permanent. So take the time to heal and recover; you’ll be okay again.
