Wednesday 18 January 2012

Applying 'The Pygmalion Effect' to myself.


One of the symptoms of the disease I have (Anklosing Spondylitis) is fatigue and I don't just mean feeling tired after a day’s work. I am more often than not, not able to do any work or be active for a whole day. In fact when one of the medications I am on gets close to being administered, my A.S. gets worse as well as some of its ancillary symptoms like fatigue and chaotic sleeping patterns. After I get the medication in my body it takes a good 10 days for it to take me up to a below average state of health as it is neither a cure nor gets rid of all the pain, stiffness and discomfort that I have at all times. It is however a great help and means that I can achieve more than I used to. In fact 2010 was a very bad year for me and I would spend days at a time holed up in my flat so fatigued that I essentially did nothing productive and struggled at times to feed and care for myself. Last year however saw a turnaround when my Methotrexate was increased which allowed my Ant-TNF to become more efficacious. The 5 -6 weeks that I am at my optimum health I can lift heavier weights, stay awake longer, think more clearly and be more active. It is for this reason that I have been able to continue doing voluntary work; that in 2010 I thought I may have to give up as I was finding it a struggle. In fact I took on another client and now deliver library books to three people which consists of two households as two of the people are a couple. In 2011 I also started a college course on ‘Creative Writing’ mainly to improve my English, start Blogging and to see if I could start writing short stories and poems. At times I find it very difficult to keep these activities up. Now getting to the title of this Blog; “Applying 'The Pygmalion Effect' to myself.” It is my expectation of myself and praising myself for doing as well as I have and the periodical rewarding of myself that has helped me make this effort a reality for me. I shall go into further detail of the finer points of this in further Blogs some with examples from my life, some with information and psychological insight and others a combination of the two.