How to be healthy for us spoonies

So what does it mean to be healthy? Especially those of us with complex medical challenges.

For me, being healthy doesn’t mean spending loads of time at the gym or walking till your legs feel like jelly and you feel on the brink of passing out, or restricting yourself to an unsustainable diet obsessing about each calorie you are eating, punishing yourself for eating a packet of cookies in one sitting, (Yes I do eat a packet of cookies in one sitting!) For years I wouldn’t listen to my body, taking rest when I was feeling exhausted, obsessing over my weight. I would put on this image of health that I thought I needed to portray to others and not speak up when I was feeling unwell. My body was attacking itself!

Being healthy doesn’t just mean the external part of ourselves, Why not try to see how you feel mentally about yourself, how you treat others? Do you feel confident about yourself, who you are?

‘In health’ means both how you are both psychologically and physiologically. There are supporting evidence that when your internally in mental torment, it can manifest into physical illnesses https://anxietyexit.com/physiology-affects-your-psychology/

For years I thought that I was healthy, but as you know my story, Having the stroke at 22 changed my thinking and saved myself from my self-destructive life i had been living . I was eating vegetables and no artificial sugars in my diet, walking everywhere but I was drinking a half to whole bottle a night, I really didn’t like the person I was becoming, I wasn’t happy, I would look into the mirror and would see a fat and ugly person.

To be healthy on the outside you need to be healthy mentally. I have been having regular sessions with a psychologist, to try and stay positive through the frustration of chronic Illness. What do you do?