Controlling the uncontrollable

I survived the first week of my doctoral program!
Yay me!
It wasn't without a few hiccups though.
2 to be exact and both of which I had no control over.
The first one I won't explain because it's not as funny as the second one.
So today was my last day of classes for the week and the worst thing happens!

It's a foundations class, so my professor was discussing professional things like when we attend conferences we are supposed to act this way and do that and blah blah blah.
Well one of the activities was to shake everyone's hand in the classroom.
There were 25 of us in there.
Anyone who knows me, knows that I don't like to be touched.
I don't like hugs. I don't like you in my bubble. And I sure as heck don't want to shake 25 different hands that have been who knows where.
I'm not OCD...I don't meet the criteria, I promise.

Anyway, she makes her way to each of our desks and gives us a "practice" round so she can tell us how bad we are.
She gets to my desk and I stand up.
She sticks out her hand and I look up at her and just decide to go for a fist bump instead.
Now, this professor had me in the spring, so she knows me.
She shakes her head, laughs, and makes me do it.
She then turns to the class and says that it's time to shake everyone's hand.
I lose it.
After shaking 2 people's hands...I'm now shaking myself.
By the time I get to number 4, everyone else is done!
So now she looks at me, asks what number I'm on, and then tells the class that I have to at least get to 10 so they need to come help me.
I'm still shaking (both of my hands were trembling like crazy) and now it's getting harder to breathe.
I make it to 6 and now everyone is in a circle around me.
Yeah, let's form a circle around the girl who is nearly having a panic attack and let's watch her fail at doing a simple task.
Finally, I make it to 10 people and she let's us go wash our hands.
I was traumatized by that point and the rest of the class time was spent calming myself down.

I'm telling you this story because it's something that I had no control over and I failed miserably at keeping it together.

If you haven't guess by now, I'm a control freak.
I don't try and hide that at all.
I like planning, cleaning, making lists, and making sure things are in order.
Everything in my apartment has a place and once I'm done with it, it goes back where it belongs.
I have a weekly to do list.
Things get crossed off and then I start over.
It's just a part of me that I accepted a long time ago.

My grandmother called me mother hen when I was in 3rd grade because I used to boss my brother around and make sure he had everything done.

It was at this moment that I embraced my destiny to be someone who loves order.

I think I'm this way because I don't have control over any aspect of my health therefore I try and make up for it in other areas of my life.

So how do we control something that we have no control over?

This came up at the conference a few times.

We don't have the slightest bit of control over when we are going to flare, how our medicines work, or if we are even going to be able to walk in the next few years...or even the next day.

For me, it's one of the hardest things to think of.

If I can't control what's going on inside my own body, how am I supposed to control anything else that happens in my life?

It makes me feel like a failure at times.

As a counselor, we do our best to help our clients gain back that control. We help them find coping mechanisms that work and so on,

But I can never gain control of it. I can find coping skills that will help though.
Sometimes, I just say "forget it, there's nothing I can do", but other days I struggle with letting it go.
It's like, why can't I fix this. It's my own body and I should be able to make it do what I want it to do.

Breathing helps.
Sometimes lol!

In all honesty, I have a masters in counseling and I can't tell you how I cope with this lol!
I never said I had all the answers!
I'm learning and experiencing things too.
I can tell you that you are definitely not alone.

We can control if we actually take our medication or not.
But we can't control how it will work.
I wouldn't be allergic to nearly all the medications out there if I could control how my body reacted!

We learned at the conference that for every one problem you have, there's a 20 percent chance you'll pass that on to your children.
Well I've lost count of the problems that I have...so here's something I actually can control.

My papa used to say why worry about it if you can't fix it. He used to tell me that I shouldn't worry about things that I can't control because it'll just make me feel worse. There's no use in wasting that energy.

He's right, but when it comes to my arthritis, it's something that I have to worry about.

Or do I?

Why not just live today, right?

Oh that's right...because I'm a control freak and need a plan for my life lol!
I remember now!

Like today's uncontrollable moment, you just have to put one foot in front of the other and push forward.

Handle things one day at a time.
Control what you can and do your best to not lose your mind over the uncontrollable pieces.

I'll be here with you trying to remind myself of the same thing :)