Being Fierce with RA

I've been running so fast this week that it's been hard to catch up, so you get links to two new articles instead of just one today. Both show different aspects of channeling your inner fierceness to live with RA.

In the first article, I talk about how we have a tendency to compare ourselves to others. It does no one any good, so I have a couple of suggestions on what we can do instead:

"We learn to compete almost from the very start of our lives. Before we understand words, our parents are comparing us (usually favorably) with other babies. And then we grow and learn to compete ourselves. The games we learn to play have a winner and a loser and we learn about status, and the many factors that affect what is desirable and what isn’t. It’s no wonder that we internalize a tendency to compare ourselves against others so thoroughly that it becomes instinctive.

And it’s not healthy. It is especially not healthy when you live with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In my conversations with others in the community, and my travels on social media, I see this comparison so often. We look at others who are worse off than ourselves and feel blessed that we are doing okay, but at the same time feel as if we now can’t complain about our very legitimate pain and fatigue. Or we look at someone who is in better health — even much better — perhaps able to do complicated yoga poses or run marathons, and we refuse to believe that they, too, have RA. This makes us feel even worse about everything we cannot do."

You can read the rest of my article called It's Not a Competition on HealthCentral.
 

My second article is a profile of the amazing Paula Fitzgibbons, author of Mommy Means It is, a fantastic blog about parenting, social justice and so much more:

"Paula Fitzgibbons has rheumatoid arthritis. She is also the author of Mommy Means It, a blog about homeschooling, adoption, and chronic illness. Formally a Lutheran pastor, she now calls herself a fierce mom on a mission. Paula lives and writes in Southern California, sharing life with her husband, Peter, and their three children, two of whom were adopted from Haiti. She believes strongly in letting her kids take the lead in terms of their internet presence, so they chose their own pseudonyms when they were younger. They are Rhubarb, Eggplant, and Blueberry.

HealthCentral (HC): Please tell us about yourself.
Paula Fitzgibbons: I am a former Lutheran pastor, now a writer, homeschooling mother of three teenagers, who is pushing 50 (and pushing it hard). I am located in Southern California.

HC: You have been blogging at Mommy Means It for some time. Tell us how you got started in blogging and some of your experiences.
Paula: I started my blog as a way to chronicle my family’s foray into alternative education. I thought our version of homeschooling as a form of passion-driven alternative education was fairly unusual and that others might want to learn more about how to homeschool.

As time passed, the blog evolved to cover parenting issues in general, with a heavy emphasis on social issues that affect parenting and children (e.g. culture, health, sexism, racism — as two of my children are Haitian — ableism, ageism, adoption reform, chronic illness etc.)."

Learn more about Paula on HealthCentral.