Category: Helpful Tips

Use anxiety as a motivator

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We’ve all felt it before, that nervous feeling that seems to drop your brain down into the middle of your stomach. It can make you feel pukey, uncomfortable, sad, and generally preoccupied with your feelings. In dealing with muscular dystrophy, disability, or life in general, I have experienced these anxious periods many times over the years. It can come from external pressures like bills and responsibilities, but often it comes from a place of uncertainty, like that “last day of school feeling” when you don’t know what the next step is going to be.

Recently, however, I finally came to learn what this anxiety has done for me — it has been a motivator. It has been that “thing” that has taken me up a notch, either to perform or to succeed or to just get through whatever I was experiencing. In each and every memorable experience with anxiety I unwittingly responded with a big push — a determined effort to move to the next thing. Some people don’t respond that way, however. It’s how you decide to deal with anxiety can either make or break you. Anxiety can be leveraged to achieve great things or it can take you out of the game.

Anxiety is not a pleasant feeling. It’s extremely uncomfortable. My immediate response to anxiety is “I just need to get rid of this!” But how? I know people who medicate for anxiety. They pop pills or drink alcohol or eat. While I am not against medication, I think you need to medicate and make an effort to change at the same time. If you take pills for anxiety but don’t simultaneously try to deal with your anxiety then you’re just prolonging and deferring that uncomfortable feeling. If you simply drink away your anxiety, you don’t deal with it either. It comes back, you drink more, and pretty soon you’re not just suffering from anxiety, you’re suffering from depression and alcoholism.

I prefer not to medicate anxiety. For me, anxiety is now a powerful motivator. Just the fact that it makes you physically uncomfortable signifies that you need to get off your butt and do something different. It is so easy to become mentally complacent with a situation — both bad and good — such that your brain adapts and gets you into a comfort zone. If you are in a negative situation, you might decide to ignore the anxiety and accept the negative job, relationship, or living situation. But even when you are in a good situation — making good money, dating a great person, or otherwise feeling satisfied — you get comfortable and forget that you need to do something to maintain that situation.

I had the opportunity to go through what I call an “highly aware anxious experience” where I felt like I was able to step back from the anxiety and see the way it was impacting me. I discovered that in the moment of feeling anxious, my energy level was much higher than when I was not anxious. The anxiety kicked me back up a notch. Then the anxiety left me and I felt like I slid back down into a lull that I wasn’t happy with. I consciously decided to kick it back up a notch, and although it took a bit of energy, when I did return to the higher energy level, I didn’t feel anxious anymore. I felt in control.

It is being up that notch that I know leads to bigger and better things. Why get sucked into a lull, or artificial comfort zone when you could advance to the next big thing whether it’s a new life experience or a better contribution to the world? I now feel that when my body makes me feel anxious, it’s telling me “Kick it up a notch or I am going to make you feel like shit until you do!” It’s a very empowering feeling to understand this.

Think about it from a historical perspective for a moment. When humans had to hunt for their own food in order to survive, they couldn’t just sit around and be complacent with an immediate kill. Perhaps they took time to enjoy them meal, but at some point soon, they had to think about where the next meal was going to come from or they would starve. I believe that at its core, anxiety is a survival instinct and a free, motivating leftover from our ancestors which clearly has very relevant importance in today’s world.

Anxiety is definitely a mixed blessing. But if you can gain control of it, or at least understand it, it can be an amazing asset.  Now I try to kick it up a notch on my own, but when I don’t, I have something ready to crack the whip for me — anxiety — which I now recognize as that self-motivating factor that money cannot buy.

Making seating transfers easier

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Because arm strength can decrease with muscular dystrophy, I find a lot of the transfer tips I’ve gotten over the years to be useless. I cannot push down with my arms to boost my butt up at all, so I’m stuck “oompfhing” and sliding my way to wherever I want to transfer.

Often the difficulty with sliding from seat to seat is the friction caused between various fabrics. For example, it’s nearly impossible for me to wear corduroy pants and slide to the driver’s seat of my van because the seat fabric and the corduroy start an endless battle.

One solution to this problem is leather seats which is why I got a leather couch in my house instead of a fabric one. I can transfer and slide easily even with corduroy on. Alternately you can make use of a transfer board if necessary. However I find a transfer board only useful if I have to span a wide gap. It’s too cumbersome to use for any quick transfer.

My favorite solution, however, is to use a slippery piece of fabric as a temporary seat cover. (I recommend black because dirt doesn’t show!) I figured this out when I was having trouble getting in and out of my van while still walking. I could plop down just fine, but rotating my body to get comfortably positioned was a big pain in the butt. So I got a few yards of synthetic, running-pants type of fabric and laid it out on my driver’s seat. Sliding into a proper position became so much easier it was great. A benefit of using this sort of fabric is that you can also take it with you when you travel, or even fold it up and have it with you wherever you go. For example, if you go to someone’s house and they have a comfy looking recliner, you can just whip out your slippery fabric and slide onto the chair easily.

In a pinch I have also used plastic trash bags to provide a similar type of experience. Often though they’re not big enough to be completely effective and don’t survive too many transfers, but you can still make good use of them in a one-off situation.

What are you learning?

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Waterfall I saw in Jamaica

When I was a kid, challenges annoyed me. I wanted everything to be easy. Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn’t. Over time, however, I have discovered that when a challenge presents itself, there’s usually a lesson there. Now, even though I might not always enjoy a challenge, this perspective helps me push through. I thought I’d share my mental process when it comes to challenges in case it might help someone out.

1. Gain perspective

For me, the best way to do this is step back. Step out of my body, my situation, my head for a minute. Sometimes it helps to imagine that my life is on television. When I watch TV I usually have an opinion about what someone should do and it’s usually very logical. Imagining that my life is a TV show helps me gain a perspective that might otherwise be muddled in emotion or the moment.

2. Ask myself “Why is this frustrating me?”

When frustration goes without examination the chance to learn a lesson is lost. Discovering the source of frustration is key to determining what the lesson is. Am I frustrated with the situation or am I frustrated with myself? Sometimes a situation isn’t about what someone else is doing, it’s about what I am NOT doing. There are times when I get frustrated because I am not assertive enough to ask for something like an accommodation for my disability. Instead I get angry that the accommodation hasn’t been made prior to my arrival. (This is sort of the “everyone else should read my mind” line of thinking.)

3. Ask myself “What can I learn here?”

Currently I am dealing with a lot of paperwork associated with my dad’s passing. It is frustrating to me because I feel like it should be easier and I get irritated when I don’t know or can’t find an answer right away. But if I step back and think about it, I can actually learn a lot about how I can prepare my own situation and maybe help out others down the road. I can learn about how to plan my own estate, what tricks and tools I can use, and how I can make sure my loved ones are left with something when I go.

4. Tackle it.

The last step is to accept the lesson on your plate and decide to tackle it. By going through steps 1-3 I usually have a good definition about what I’m going to learn. I can remind myself of this every time frustration arises. A decision to tackle the lesson becomes easier and slowly but surely I will start to learn as I proceed. This is the reward. The best part is that even if a situation has a bunch of possible lessons, as long as you focus on learning one you will probably learn the others as well.

So if your disability is presenting you with some challenges, step back and think about the lessons you might be about to learn. It might make it a little easier to move forward and accept the challenges. Before you know it you’ll have learned a ton of new things about yourself and life.

Making (almost) everywhere you go accessible

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I carry a 7ft ramp like this in my van.

People like to fuss about making sure I can get into their homes. I appreciate the fuss but it’s no longer necessary since I started carrying my own portable wheelchair ramp in my van.

If you have your own wheelchair ramp everywhere you go then there are few places you can’t get into (at least in the suburbs). Sure there will be the occasional exception, but I have found that the ramp I bring with me usually does the trick. It beats rolling up precarious-looking pieces of wood that someone tore off an old picnic table.

I have found that a folding 7 foot ramp fits perfectly in the back of my minivan (and in the middle section) and allows you the ability to get up three or even four steps if necessary. You might also want to carry a smaller single-piece ramp in addition to the folding ramp just in case. There are a few places I could have used a smaller ramp as well.

Overall it just makes thing much easier on you and your family and friends when you come prepared. Check out a bunch of wheelchair ramps now to find out more information.

A trick for getting up from a chair with help

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There was a time when I could walk but could not stand up from a chair on my own. How frustrating is this? It’s like owning a Ferrari but not any tires.

For many months I relied on friends to lift me straight up from a seat — sometimes it would take two people. It felt like I needed to bring a portable crane around with me everywhere I went! During a work trip to Seattle, however, my boss came up with a sweet new way to leverage the function I still had without requiring someone to be able to lift all my weight.

I call it the “belt loop trick.” It works best when you’re wearing a belt, however. I learned this by having a few belt loops ripped right off my pants. Nevertheless the name stuck.

It’s a simple maneuver once you get it figured out. Practice makes perfect. First you position yourself in the seat as if you’re going to get up on your own. For me this involved putting two hands on a table or something and sticking my leg out to pivot on.

Next, someone grabs your belt at your side, near your hip. If you don’t have a belt then I suggest either grabbing a few belt loops or the top of your pants, again at your side. Essentially this is very close to your center of gravity. It also helps if the person places a foot near yours so it doesn’t slide away.

Finally the person pulls up on your belt and you go through the motions to stand up. Make sure they pull with a constant force instead of being jerky. Often they don’t even have to pull with all their might. You just need that extra boost.

Although this maneuver still relies on someone else, it expanded the number of people who could actually help me because you didn’t have to be a bodybuilder to lift me up. It’s also the maneuver I would use to get out of the manual wheelchair when I was being pushed around. The only drawback was the occasional wedgie, but overall this method worked until I started using a wheelchair full time.