Processing my New Diagnosis

I have a diagnosis: Functional neurological disorder

"Functional neurological disorder (FND) is a condition in which patients experience neurological symptoms such as weakness, movement disorders, sensory symptoms and blackouts. The brain of a patient with Functional Neurological Disorder is structurally normal, but functions incorrectly." - Wikipedia

Basically what's happening, as the neurologist explained it, is my brain stopped sending messages to my legs for some reason. She said it's like if your computer freezes and you have to reboot it. I will be going through a process of both cognitive behavioral therapy and physical therapy to identify stress triggers and learn how to respond to them and also to learn how to trick my legs into doing what I want them to. It may take a very very long time but it is possible for me to get better. I am definitely willing to put in the work required.

I've had this for at least 6 years so it will take a long time to get better, maybe even years.  And it's weird to me because I should be happy that I can get better, and I am, but at the same time I had accepted the fact that I may never get better and I even believed that I would never get better but I was okay with that.  And I was used to it.  I connected with other people like me who have illnesses that there is no cure for.  And we supported each other and helped each other through the tough times.  And I still have a chronic illness but I kind of feel guilty because I can get better but so many of my friends can't.  It's almost like I don't know who I am anymore again.  I have gotten used to being sick all of the time and as weird as it sounds a future where I'm healthy seems a little bit scary.  I guess that's my anxiety and my difficulty responding to change.  I think that what scares me more is that if I don't get healthy then it's kind of my fault.  I'm honestly still processing everything and there are a lot of emotions involved and I don't understand all of them.

I am very grateful for all of the people who support me no matter what happens, for the community of chronically ill people who include me despite the specifics of my illness.  One of my first feelings was that I don't know where I fit in anymore but they assured me that I fit in there no matter what happens.  My immediate future holds a lot of pain, ups and downs, but also hope.  And all of the people who are happy with me during my ups and encourage me during my downs will help me get through this.

Easy Ways to Practice Self Care

If you've been on the internet and have a chronic illness or mental health difficulties (or even if you don't) you've probably seen people talk about self care.  There are all these lists of things you can do to take care of yourself and help yourself fell better over time.  And they're good suggestions and they do work, but here's the big issue: you have to be motivated enough to do the things.  When you have a chronic illness and you're having a low energy day or when you have mental health issues and you're lacking motivation it's really hard to actually do those things on the lists.  Real life example: yesterday my depression was pretty bad and my anxiety was really bad.  In my head I knew that self care would help me but I also lacked the motivation to do any of those things, such as make myself a cup of tea, do a face mask, turn on my favorite music, so I didn't do any of it.  The other huge problem is that when you're really depressed you might feel like you don't actually deserve to feel better so you just won't do anything that might help you feel better.  For these situations I have come up with a sort of self care cheat sheet.  This is a list of the easiest possible things I could think of that can help you feel just a little bit better.  It's great for low-energy days or days where you're lacking motivation.  I am personally going to try to do at least one of these things every day.  Some days you might be able to do every single one since they're things that don't require a lot of energy or motivation, and none of them cost any money!  So here it is, my list of small ways to feel a little bit better every day:

Drink water, go outside if even for just a minute (if you can't bring yourself to go outside, look out a window at outside for even just a minute), do something nice for someone else (even if it's just sharing someone's post online with your friends), take deep breaths when it gets difficult, rest when you need to. If you didn't do so well today try again tomorrow. Remember you're not alone.

Read more mental health blog posts like this one at my new blog: https://www.honeybeealley.com/blog

Running an Etsy Shop while Dealing with a Chronic Illness

When I started my Etsy shop I never wanted to become famous or even so popular that I would need to hire employees.  And I haven't.  This post is not about my Etsy story; it is about how my celiac disease has affected the way I run my Etsy shop.  Most of you who are regular readers here know that I was diagnosed with celiac disease 3 years ago.  Celiac disease is a chronic illness and it's an autoimmune disease.  I haven't had enough energy to work a "real job" since September 2015, and I've accidentally ingested gluten twice in the past two months.  For me that means not being able to keep most food down, insomnia, sleeping for 12+ hours when I do sleep, brain fog, and constant fever, among other symptoms.  To really complicate things I haven't been able to walk since the beginning of September 2016, probably due to gluten ataxia.  All of these things combined mean that I'm really tired all of the time and my muscles are very sore as well.  Luckily for me I rarely get more than two orders a month and I always manage to fill and ship them on time.  Sometimes I send my fiancee to the post office if I can't do it but I always stick to my commitments.  If you also have a chronic/invisible illness I have some tips that might help you run your Etsy shop with less stress.

1. When you set your shipping windows make sure you give yourself enough time to definitely get it done.  You never want to ship orders late (and if you ever do have to ship late make sure you let the customer know why!)  I used to have mine set to ship in 1-3 business days but last year I switched it to ship in 3-5 business days.  That time works for me because it gives me a full week to pack and ship orders.  I can space it out through that week if I'm sick and not get stressed about missing the deadline.

2. Don't do custom made-to-order items.  I only sell ready-to-ship products.  I added a custom made-to-order item which was a $7 beaded dragonfly suncatcher during the Summer and I sold so many!  People were ordering as many as 6 to 12 suncatchers in each order.  Then I had to make each one according to their custom choices and I was struggling to get them all done and packed in time.  It really stressed me out and I removed them from my shop.

Add either custom or made-to-order items to your shop but once again make the shipping time longer than you think you will need to fulfill the order.  Keep in mind that sometimes you will have multiple orders to make at the same time.  If you do ever have more orders than you can fill in a time frame communicate it to the customers who have ordered from you.  If they aren't willing to wait longer they can cancel their order and if they're willing to wait the extra stress is off of you.

3. If your shop starts getting more sales than you can handle, increase your shipping times.  People tend to buy less often when shipping times are longer but it should help you get through all of those orders without getting completely overwhelmed.

4. If you ever get too sick to be able to fulfill any orders turn on vacation mode until you feel better.

5. This is one that I haven't done yet but super need to: come up with a low-price item that's super quick and easy to make and make them in a variety of colors and designs.  That way you'll get at least a little bit of money from the low-price items in between sales of higher priced items in your shop.

So that's obviously not an all-inclusive list but these are things that really help me.  Clearly my biggest Etsy stress is shipping, so I tried to make it as stress-free as possible for myself.  If you have any questions about running an Etsy shop with a chronic illness ask me in the comments and I'll try my best to answer.