spillthebeans

The thing about me is that a.) I'm a perfectionist and b.) I have anxiety. Those two things fight constantly to make life an ever-living struggle. One side-effect is that this blog has languished by the wayside for far too long. (Of course, there's also the fact that I am often way too sick to update it, but I digress.) I often worry about posts because they aren't perfect enough. They aren't good enough. They aren't done. Enough of that. This blog is never going to be perfect. My life is a constant mess. That is the very nature of living with this disease. The best service I can give to you, my readers and my friends, is to admit that and accept it, then try to move forward. So... one year after my first post, welcome back to this blog. I'm glad you're here. Let's embrace our messy, imperfect lives together. With love, Sky

(Can this pug just become Young and Sick's mascot? Okay, thanks, this is a thing that is happening.) Having both a mental illness and a chronic illness is kind of like this: On your good days, you manage to be okay both mentally and physically. On your worst days, well... you're Leslie Knope falling head first into a pit. (If you haven't seen Parks and Recreation , please do so now.) It can be so frustrating because when you finally have a good day without pain or a good day without anxiety, then your other illness is just waiting in the wings, ready to mess you up. Additionally, both of them play into each other. Was your anxiety caused by your sky-high pain levels, or was your crushing headache caused by the anxiety constricting your lungs and making you worry about everything ? Who really knows? If you're depressed, sometimes you get even more depressed because your joints ache and everything hurts , even your soul. It's a hard thing to battle both your body  and

Instagram is not my real life. I know, I know. You're all shocked to hear this. You mean my life isn't contained in those pixelated images on my Instagram feed? No, it is not. (Though I will admit I spend a ton of time living vicariously on the internet due in part to my chronic illness, but I digress.) When I first heard about Instagram, it seemed tailor-made for me. I've always loved taking pictures (my embarrassing photography blog from 2011 will back me up on this). To have an app where I could easily share photos with my friends--an app made only  to share photos, no less--was a big deal. So as soon as I got a mobile device in 2014, one of the first things I did was get an Instagram account . This is one of the first Instagram photos I ever took. Yes, it looks like I was on an epic quest, but I was actually on the way home from my OBGYN. My Instagram photos are often of the people and places in my life. And I  really  like them! I love sharing them with everyone! I lov

(To be honest, I want to be this pug.) I've always been a casual, jeans-and-t-shirt kind of gal, but in the past four years, my fashion style has become based solely around what I'm most comfortable wearing. Sometimes that makes me feel insecure about myself, and I know a lot of spoonies might feel the same way. It took me forever to realize that I'm not a terrible person because of this--I just have a chronic illness. So, if you also wear sweatpants, this post is for you. Also, if you happen to see me, and I happen to be wearing sweatpants, here is why. 1. Comfort The number one reason is comfort. I have headaches, overall body pain, and fatigue on a regular basis. For me, I've chosen to prioritize my comfort above all else. Jeans can be constricting and uncomfortable, so I mostly wear cotton tees, hoodies, or flannels with yoga pants, cotton shorts, or sweatpants. I often need to lay down on my bad days, so wearing comfy things helps me be able to do that easily. When

(I try to be serious, but I just fail.) The awkward thing about being a spoonie who is running a blog for fellow spoonies is that sometimes I fall prey to being a spoonie. Which is to say that the reason I haven't been blogging here is because a lot of things happened, including not feeling well. (Ironic.) Though I seem to be in a good patch with my fibro, my health isn't perfect (OBVIOUSLY since I run this blog). Thus, I've been having some down days where I have a headache or brain fog or overall body pain. Now, there have been a lot of days where I feel okay. The only thing is, I don't have as many spoons as I would like. And between running a website and helping babysit, I've been a bit low on spoons. Unfortunately, that means a lot of my more personal projects have fallen by the wayside. (Don't feel too bad; even my novels, which are my life-blood, have been neglected too.) I guess the point of this post is to say, I'm low on spoons right now... and I&

By Alyssa Hollingsworth I have measured out my life with coffee spoons--which is a poetic way of saying, I am a spoonie on several levels: Rheumatoid Arthritis, Raynaud's Syndrome, Hashimoto Hypothyroid, Type 1 Diabetes, Celiac, and gastroparesis. It all started when I was 17, and those last three diagnoses came in this past year (I’m 25 now). Being a spoonie is straight-up exhausting to the tune of I-don’t-even-want-to-breathe, need-to-take-a-break-while-buttering-toast, it-was-a-bad-idea-to-scrape-this-ice-off-my-car. Sometimes it can be hard to make and maintain relationships, because it takes so many spoons to get out of bed, walk the dog, and go to work or school. There just aren’t a lot of spoons left for coffee or group activities or noise in general. Throughout the years, though, relationships have boomeranged back time and again to encourage me in surprising ways. These are five gifts that have made me smiled on hard days, gotten me back on my feet, or just plain kept me g

"When you feel so tired but you can't sleep..." - Fix You by Coldplay I mean, did Chris Martin nail insomnia or what? One of the big things about having fibromyalgia (or CFS, Lupus, or anything in that family) is that insomnia is a major symptom. Sometimes we can't get to sleep for no reason. Other times we do sleep, but we wake up feeling even more exhausted. (Yes. I know. It's not fair. Also, the irony is that I was falling asleep while working on this post a couple of days ago.) For a while, my sleep schedule has been pretty good. I go to bed around 1 or 2 am and wake up at 11 am. Yes, I know that this isn't a typical sleep schedule for most people, but trust me, this is one of the best sleep schedules I have ever been on. For about a year in 2012, I was going to bed in the early morning and waking up in the evening. It was about 7 am to 5 pm. Some days I woke up at midnight. The reason for this was unknown, but my sleep schedule just couldn't regulate