Recovery from injury or illness is work.

Disclaimer: this is written from personal experience and is entirely based in my perspective. I am not a doctor. 

I would often push myself past my limits. I did this constantly. In all realms in my life. First, as a child because that was the expectation. I didn’t have choice or option to say no. I was under the guardianship of my parents and if I said no to school or an extracurricular, they would tell me to do it anyway. Which is totally fair. They were doing their jobs as parents. 

I also did some extracurriculars that were my choice. 

I often would fall asleep in class, get sick or injured. As a teenager I felt apathetic and low somedays and times, with times I had no interest in participating in life. I saw this as there is something wrong with me, because when I looked around it seemed like everyone else was doing okay. What I didn’t know then was that I was overextending myself. I was overriding myself and not taking care of my needs, especially my need for rest. The sickness and injury would give me a break from life, where I could ‘rest.’ 

The thing is that rest wasn’t complete rest. It was recovery. In recovery our bodies are working so hard to heal. They are doing their thing. This takes energy. Often why when we are sick we sleep lots and have no appetite for food. Our body is using energy to fight the illness and heal. 

Recovery is not rest. 

As we start to feel better we start moving and doing things again. Sometimes we need to ramp up to all responsibilities of life again, needing breaks here and there. 

When I was in the car accidents, I was recovering and doing everything in real life (for survival I told myself). It wasn’t until my body collapsed fully, where I wasn’t able to get out of bed and several months of recovery that I realized that I was recovering and expending so much energy everyday and not fully replenishing it. I wasn’t giving my body space and time to heal. In my mind there was no other option then keep pushing through. 

Recovery is not rest. 

I have this tendency inside me to keep pushing, to keep going. I still push myself past my limits often because I don’t like what those limits are. I want to be doing more or different. I understand this has a deep root in my life experience and will take some time to address. But what I’m realizing right now is how much I’ve been working on overdrive. How much I have been overworking. 

What was the hardest for me was that I had a hard time being in the experience of pain and recovery and also explaining it to people when they didn’t really understand my reality. There were lots of feelings of confusion and disconnection in me. A lot of the time it was easier for me to isolate myself rather then share my experience and spend time out in the world. It was easier to hide then to have to deal with the reality I was facing.

The reality was that I needed so much rest and recovery. 

Well, the great thing is that now, I can choose to rest. I am still recovering. There is plenty I do to support my body in healing. I’m still working on resting. That piece is a bit more challenging and layered for me to work with. It may take a bit more time for me to learn how to accept rest as a necessary component of my life. I’m working on it though.

As I recover I have this urge to jump up and do all the things that I couldn’t do, partly from excitement at my ability to move without pain. What I really need is to keep it slow. Keep resting for a little longer. 

I remind myself that RECOVERY IS NOT REST and I NEED REST.