Support in the Ups and Downs

In this mini episode of my Sharing the Mddl podcast, I talk about the ups and downs of chronic illness and the difficulties of asking for and accepting support. I also promote my newly released workbook, Support from the Middle, and share some personal updates in my Lacey Loves segment. The overall theme of the episode is the importance of support and vulnerability in navigating life’s challenges.

Essay From The Mddl

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Transcript

You 4s welcome to Sharing the Middle, where recovering perfectionists overachievers and anyone in the middle of a struggle come together to learn to embrace the messy middles of life. I’m Lacey, your friend in the middle and guide whose claim to them this week is just actually turning in a form for my child’s daycare with all of their information. It’s real, real solid. Today is a mini episode, which means that you’re going to hear an essay from the middle. I’m going to be talking about the ups and downs of chronic illness. Then we’ll move into Advice from the Middle, where we talk a little bit about being able to ask and accept support. And then we’ll end with some Lacey loves where I just kind of talk about what was going on this week. Thanks so much for joining me. And let’s get started. 6s And I say from the middle, the ups and downs. Quick note, this isn’t as polished as a piece that I post and it’s on purpose because I’m going through the ups and downs this week and I wanted to share that the unpredictability of chronic illness may be the most difficult aspect for me to wrap my mind around. I also believe it’s what is the most difficult for others to understand as well. If you see someone, they look fine. It’s hard to understand that they may not be. We try to hold everyone to the same standards, typically our standards, and if we are capable of something, they must be too. We don’t know anyone’s capabilities. Sometimes we don’t even know our own before chronic illness. Let’s be clear that I’ve probably had my chronic illness my whole life. I just never knew it was the cause of issues. I’ve always needed more rest than I felt like other people did. The symptoms I am having now are just much more exaggerated. There were plenty of times that I told my husband no I’m not going to sleep, my eyelids are just tired and need to shut. That I now realize was the same thing that is happening to me now. That being said, my ability to do was a mental game, not a physical one. And when I say mental game, I do mean game. I was constantly mapping my ability to get things done to what I wanted and finding ways to do it with the least amount of effort. This honestly has helped me now. But the problem is that I don’t often know the game pieces I am playing with now. With chronic illness, I literally wake up every morning and I have no idea how my day is going to look. I try to plan and I do. But now planning looks different because not only am I looking toward to the event or what needs to be done that day, but I also have to plan how to prep and recover. Days when I am recording a podcast usually have plenty of time blocked off before and after so I can rest. If I could predict my bad days, I would engineer an optimal schedule. Unfortunately, that’s just not an option. This is my biggest barrier to working. How can I expect an employer to hire me full time in a traditional role when I can’t figure out when I am doing well or not? When I can show up to meetings or not? Yes, sometimes I am productive, but other times I can’t do a thing. Today is a perfect example. This essay is going out shorter than intended and frankly unfinished because my day turned out to be more challenging than I thought it would be. I’ve slowly worked on this today and we’ll probably revisit it someday in the future to improve it. But I knew that there would be some kind of transparency and posting it now, as in right now I am struggling with the ups and downs. One nice thing even if today is hard, it does mean that there is always hope for tomorrow to be great. 6s Today’s episode of Sharing the Middle is brought to you by me, Lacey, the author of Support from the Middle. Support from the Middle is my newly released workbook that walks you through some self reflection and self care exercises with additional resources for recovering perfectionist, overachievers and those in the middle of a struggle. You’ll hear directly from me like you do on this podcast throughout the workbook to hopefully give you some extra boosts along your own selfhelpy journey. Get support from The Middle on Amazon today in either ebook or paperback with the audiobook coming later this year. Thanks for supporting the middle. 4s Alright. I picked this advice from The Middle today as a piggyback off of our conversation with Sarah from your aligned home earlier this week. And it goes like this I struggle asking for help. I feel like I should be able to handle everything on my own and I get embarrassed or ashamed when I have to admit that I need assistance. This has caused a lot of stress and anxiety in my life and I’m not sure how to overcome it. I know that asking for help is normal and a healthy part of life, but I can’t seem to shake the feeling that it’s a sign of weakness or failure. How can I learn to be more comfortable with asking for help when I need it? Are there any strategies or techniques that have worked for you in a similar situation? I really struggle with asking for help. I have gotten better at it. I genuinely think I’ve started working on a book all about support because support giving and receiving, it is very complex and it should be easy, right? It should be, hey, that’s my friend. They need help. So I help them and then it’s like, hey, I need help. That person’s my friend. I’m going to ask them. But it’s not that. We all have so much baggage that we bring to a situation of how we’ve received help in the past or worrying about relationship dynamics and whatnot. And I think the biggest thing when it comes to support is open, honest communication and being vulnerable. And I mean being vulnerable from both sides, those giving and receiving. Because when you are asking for support from someone, it does feel like you’re admitting a weakness, right? It does feel like you are saying I can’t do everything, but at the end of the day, we are not meant to do everything. We’re not. It’s not possible. I do think of people in my life, and you’ve heard me talk about this before, if you’ve been listening, that I feel like are superheroes. But their circumstances are different and I know that they need support sometimes in other ways. So I’m just one begging you, reader, listener, writer, 1s to remember that you’re not weak by asking for help. You’re actually very strong because it’s very hard to be vulnerable and put yourself out there. The other thing that I want you to think about when you’re asking for support is that people do want to help. They’re really just clueless a lot of times on how to do so. I have an Instagram carousel that I’m posting later this week. That was one of the doucheiest things I’ve ever said in my life. Anyway, it is really all about ways to offer someone support without saying, hey, what can I do to help? Because that is a lot to put on a person to be like, well, what can I do to help you? Well, you could do a whole lot. You could do this. 1s Of mental load with all of this. So being as clear and concise about what you need and when you need it will help the other person and then they can do the same thing. And I think you’re hearing a theme through my suggestion here of you need to be upfront and honest. If you can do something, great. If you can’t, that’s fine too. I know the people in my life who I trust the most, offer and give support with no strings attached and in a way that I know that they’re going to say no if they need to. So I would say maybe as usual, practice with small things, ask for small things. But it is hard. I really validate that experience of having a hard time when it comes to support because who support is messy and you can’t do everything on your own, friend. I know you want to. I want to too. I would love to be Wonder Woman, but then I remember that sometimes even Wonder Woman needs help from Superman and Batman. My son was talking about superheroes this morning. He was wearing a Justice League t shirt. And that’s why that’s on my mind. Not that it’s not always on my mind. Anyway, there will be more about asking for and receiving help from me in the future because they just am learning so much about it. Good luck, friend. Remember, you can always submit your question to hello at The Middle.com and I may choose your letter to do the advice from The Middle. 3s Okay. Lacey loves this week. I love a lot of things this week and I love things that support me, like my mom and my dad and my nephew who were so awesome to help me and my kids come spend time at their house this weekend to really give my husband a break because, boy, does he need it. And we had a lovely time and it was great. Now, did I get a piece of food stuck in my 1s esophagus? I’m recording this early and hopefully this makes sense while I was eating lunch and then struggle with that pretty much all day on Sunday. Yes, I did. Did it create a lot of awkward moments for me and my family? Absolutely. But they supported me and it was cream. This week has been a challenging week with me health wise as you heard the essay From The Middle. But I have in the past couple of weeks been recording more podcasts of the interview type and man, I just love them so much. So I guess I love my microphone because I get to talk into it. I love just the ability to have a connection with someone even if they’re far away and that is just so freaking cool. 1s I have done podcast recordings with family and loved ones friends as well that I’m excited for you to hear. And there were hiccups and all that stuff. But it was such a fun opportunity to be able to talk to them and whatnot. So I do have my microphone linked in my Amazon storefront, but that’s less important. I mean, it’s important to this podcast because you are hearing good quality, not the best. I’m still working on quality. You don’t care. But I care. I have really started loving these Lacy Love segments because I feel like you probably get a little bit more insight into me personally and what goes on in my life because it’s not structured in any way. Maybe it should be structured. I have been really thinking about how I can use this time as a little storytelling and also promo because you know your girl’s looking to try to at least make some money in her life. Well, that is it from Me in the Middle this week. I think you know this. The theme of this episode has been ups and downs and support. And I don’t think you realize, dear listener, how much support you give me by just listening and being here with me. So thank you for being a part of the journey and the ride. And I have loved sharing the middle with you today.